Skyrim – good. Prima’s game guide – not so good.

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Apache/2.2.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.14 OpenSSL/0.9.8i DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 Server at elderscrollsvguide.com Port 80

That is what greeted my eyes when I launched Prima’s otherwise great game guide for Skyrim tonight.  It is a shame that Prima (or Steam) screwed up access to the online game guide.  My guess is that the problem is with Prima as Steam’s service is more reliable than any of major mail services that I use (Microsoft, Yahoo and Google).  I remain a huge fan of Steam. The author(s) of the Skyrim game guide did a very good job; this guide is way above the usual Prima mediocrity. Other than pirated versions of the guide, the usual sources of free game guides are not even close to the quality of the Prima guide. And that is remarkable! Too bad the author’s efforts are undermined by poor hosting. As to Skyrim itself . . .

Unless something really disappointing happens in the latter part of the game’s main storyline, Skyrim is destined to be one of my all time favorite CRPGs. It is up there with the Baldur’s Gate series, Planescape, the Ultima series, Return to Krondor, KoTR, Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Skyrim looks to be the first Elder Scrolls game that I am going to enjoy finishing, and this is so even though it is a flawed game! The good just out weighs the annoyances.

The good:

• Travel feels right . . . if you aren’t foolish enough to buy a horse!  Horses are expensive, die too easily, and are never there when you need them.
• Skyrim is an open game world that is fun and rewarding to explore. I’ve spent hours just hunting, mining and herb gathering . . . perhaps this is just a WoW habit that is hard to kick.
• The stories are mostly worth following, and I’ve enjoyed the quests – both the main storyline as well as many of the side quests.
• The game world is very pretty. Even with the occasional graphic glitch, the graphics are far better than either Dragon Age or Mass Effect.
• Bethesda outdid Blizzard with a nordic-themed CRPG. Skyrim is just plain better than WoW’s Wrath of the Lich King expansion from a solo gaming perspective. The quests are better, and there is no comparison between the two when it comes to graphics. WoW is really looking like a decade old game when compared to Skyrim. That said, I haven’t experienced a moment in Skyrim that equals the awesome of the Wrathgate in-game cinematic from WotLK.

The bad:

• Dialog that is inappropriately unaware of quest progress. For example, there is mage that keeps urging me to join a College of magi . . . even though I am now the Arch Mage of that college!
• Dialog that is poorly voice acted. While most of the dialog is competently acted (and some is even good), there are still too many parts that are laughably bad or just plain weirdly acted.
• Some game mechanics are still unnecessary. For example, there is no reason that advancing a craft skill should advance my level. I love leveling craft skills, but that shouldn’t have anything to do with my level.
• Alchemy. Not sure I see the point. Maybe it will come into its own with a higher difficulty level.
• It is too easy to accidentally harm some NPCs. There is a guard that I appear to have killed by running into him accidentally or by kicking something into him . . . again . . . accidentally. And I have no idea when this happened!

More than a few reviews of this game have harped on the bugs, but there are bound to be many in a game as big as Skyrim. Others have felt that the game’s quests are too repetitive. To that, all I can say is that these guys must have never had to grind dailies in WoW! Overall, it is fair to say that the main storyline is probably not the equal of what Dragon Age or Mass Effect offer; but I’ve found Skyrim’s side quests to be of greater interest and greater depth. And this is perhaps fitting for an open world CRPG. I also think that even a casual gamer is going to be blown away by the look, sound and overall feel of this game – even if they never finish the game.

So. Is it worth paying full price for Skyrim? For CRPG fans and WoW-burnouts, I think the game offers enough to be worth paying full price. The replay value should far exceed that of either Dragon Age or Mass Effect owing to the number of different factions you can join and just the sheer size of the game world. Shooter fans looking for a CRPG to try would be better served by Mass Effect 2. I think that casual gamers will find Skyrim’s game mechanics more approachable in comparison to either Dragon Age or Mass Effect, and Skyrim is certainly going to be easier to play as there is really only one character to manage. However, for that casual gamer, you might want to wait for a price drop.

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