Topic: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Cobra951]

I will play this game exactly one year after release.

Exactly?  What's the significance of Nov 11, 2012?

[idolminds]

I was perfectly fine with not playing this until I read this PC Gamer review.

*sigh*....c'mon, Steam crack!

[Quemaqua]

Fortunately for me, I can't cave because I don't even have a PC anymore. Whoops!

[Cobra951]

Ah!  The review embargo has been lifted, and the floodgates have opened.  Heaps of praise flow forth.  95% aggregate with 26 reviews in.  Shades of Arkham City.

[PyroMenace]

Also Giantbomb is doing their live stream of Skyrim now, Greg Kasavin is hosting.

[Quemaqua]

Very reasonable, sober-seeming review at RPGFan basically saying it's the best TES game yet, but that it suffers from most of the same problems. Some are alleviated or removed, but a lot of the others are still there. Which is more or less what I expected. And that's enough to make it hard for me to resist.

But again, no PC. So that makes it easy.

[MysterD]

GameSpot -> 9.0 for PC and X360 versions w/ Kevin Van Ord as the reviewer.
Video Review.
Written review.

If you've played previous Elder Scrolls games, glitches and oddities don't come as a surprise. Nevertheless, Skyrim comes in a year graced with multiple quality RPGs that feature tighter combat, fewer bugs, better animations, and so forth. But to be fair, none of those games are endowed with such enormity. Yet The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim doesn't rely on sheer scope to earn its stripes. It isn't just that there's a lot to do: it's that most of it is so good. Whether you're slashing a dragon's wings, raising the dead back to life, or experimenting at the alchemy table, Skyrim performs the most spectacular of enchantments: the one that causes huge chunks of time to vanish before you know it.

[MysterD]

IGN -> 9.5 for PC, X360, and PS3
Written review.
Video review.

The PC crowd should be happy to hear that, assuming you've got a powerful machine, The Elder Scrolls V looks far and away the best. The draw distance can be pushed way back, letting you see clear across enormous spaces, and you benefit from a higher visual quality throughout, as well as dramatically shortened load times, to the point where they barely exist at all.

The only downside of the PC version is the interface, which is elaborately presented and a breeze to use on consoles, but is inefficiently laid out for keyboard and mouse controls. To cut down on time spent in menus with both versions you can assign almost anything – armor, weapons, spells, shouts, pieces of meat – as a favorite. This menu can then quickly be brought up during a fight, pausing the action, so you swiftly adjust to the changing nature of a battle without having to page through the main menu system, though on PC an option to also bind items and spells to number keys would have been appreciated.

[MysterD]

Also Giantbomb is doing their live stream of Skyrim now, Greg Kasavin is hosting.

Great news - Jeff mentioned at the end that the whole stream of Greg w/ Skyrim will be Archived up onto the site.
 

[MysterD]

PC Gamer -> Some Skyrim PC Tweaks by the INI files.
Gamasutra -> "Skyrim, or How Not to Make a PC Game" [on UI and controls].

[Xessive]

I love the game but the UI is retarded: it was made for the gamepad. PC players get shafted yet again.

I tried playing with my X360 pad and the UI and menus work "as expected" as opposed to the clunky, inefficient format they lobbed at keyboard+mouse users. It really feels like a lazy port of the interface rather than making one that actually works. Also, a lot of options missing from the settings: graphics, controls, etc.

Took me a while before I realized how to set up hotkeys for weapons/items. It's retarded.

[beo]

I still haven't worked out how to hotkey - please share your wisdom!

[MysterD]

HardOCP -> Performance analysis of Skyrim PC.

The Bottom Line

While we have not finished this game yet, and cannot comment on other areas of this game, we do have some striking initial impressions. Our initial impression is that this game runs better on, and has a better gameplay experience with, the GeForce GTX 580 and GeForce GTX 580 SLI. We had no mouse lag, smooth performance, faster performance, no bugs in sight as of yet. We were also able to use SLI thanks to NVIDIA releasing a Beta driver one day before Skyrim launched with full SLI support in the game.

We have harped over this before, but this game shows once again that AMD's driver support is biting it in the butt on a new game release. With not even an ETA on a new CAP for Skyrim to support CrossFireX, and no performance driver in sight, it is rather depressing for AMD GPU owners. We keep seeing this with new game launches these past few months. Rage, Deus Ex: Missing Link, even Battlefield 3 had better and working performance and SLI drivers from NVIDIA on game day launch, while AMD support was lacking.

With CrossFireX and SLI being based on profile support AMD cannot afford to lag this far behind on new game launches. NVIDIA simply has more support out of the gate for SLI in new games it seems. Gamers don't like to wait. When a new big title like this is released and unlocked at a certain time on a certain date, gamers are lined up waiting to play it right then and there. It matters that performance and Dual-GPU acceleration is supported when the game launches, and not days after.

First impressions are everything, and with this game, first impressions tell us that GTX 580 gameplay experience is just better. We look forward to testing Skyrim more and finding out how performance and mainstream video cards compare as well as an in-depth look at image quality. Hopefully with some new AMD drivers as well. Stay tuned.

[Cobra951]

That's typical.  As far back as I can remember, Nvidia has had the better driver support.  ATi, now AMD, can't get their act together by comparison.

So Skyrim PC is a shoddy console port?  That's depressing.

[MysterD]

I love the game but the UI is retarded: it was made for the gamepad. PC players get shafted yet again.

I tried playing with my X360 pad and the UI and menus work "as expected" as opposed to the clunky, inefficient format they lobbed at keyboard+mouse users. It really feels like a lazy port of the interface rather than making one that actually works. Also, a lot of options missing from the settings: graphics, controls, etc.

Took me a while before I realized how to set up hotkeys for weapons/items. It's retarded.

WTF is going on lately w/ these Triple-A titles getting lazy-PC ports when it comes to making oddball UI controls, lack of graphics settings, and control settings? 
Dead Island PC and Borderlands PC could benefit from someone adding even an option to enable and disable MOUSE cursor option in the damn Inventory.

[shock]

I haven't played it yet, but I wouldn't conclude that it's just a console port from the UI alone.  Besides, I'm sure there will be (is) a mod that fixes the UI.

Ugh, reading all of these reviews makes me want to play this so badly.

[Cobra951]

See?  This is why you wait to buy Beth games.  If you install the game to the 360's HDD, some textures will never get sharp as you approach them.  I don't ever play 360 games without installing them anymore.  The reduction in noise and vibration (and wear, and tear) are too dramatic to give up.  So that takes the game out of my list until it's fixed.  They say they'll fix it.  We'll see.

[Xessive]

I still haven't worked out how to hotkey - please share your wisdom!

Basically, you have to first open your inventory and "Favourite" the items you want to hotkey (by default the "change POV" key is F, which also happens to be the "Favourite" key in the inventory [that's not mentioned anywhere in the game and it's not teh same as the "Favourites" key [default Q], which is only used to bring up your Fav list in the game], if you changed it the game will still tell you to press F to Fav an item but you have to press the key you set to "change POV"). Anyway, once you've set your favs close the inventory and press Q (fav key) and highlight your item of choice then press a number key to match.

If you're using the gamepad you can only hotkey two items (bound to the left and right d-pad buttons) by double-tapping the desired d-pad button in the favs list.

This, of course, could have been very easily avoided if they just allowed you to assign the hotkeys right there in the inventory but the redundant fav list was clearly created with the limited gamepad in mind.

[MysterD]

Joystiq -> Skyrim bug - horse riding a dragon!
AWESOME BUG! 

[MysterD]

  If you install the game to the 360's HDD, some textures will never get sharp as you approach them.

Looks like Beth and Id have been hanging out too much.

[Pugnate]

Exactly?  What's the significance of Nov 11, 2012?

Nothing.. was kidding...

I am so tempted to buy this now, but I have like 30 games on my plate.

[Xessive]

I'm really enjoying the game despite some shortcomings. That said,. this is a game I don't mind putting on hold because I know I'm gonna be playing it for ages and it's only gonna get better (patching, modding, etc.).

Right I've got to contend with Battlefield 3, MW3, LA Noire (PC).

Coming soon: Batman Arkham City, Saints Row The Third, Assassin's Creed Revelations.

Based on my experience with Oblivion, Skyrim is a game I expect to be playing throughout and well past all the others.

[PyroMenace]

Hahahaha, oh man this snippet from the Giantbomb quicklook is amazing and hilarious, definitely watch it.

[Quemaqua]

Hahaha, you asshole, that totally sold me on the game.

[Cobra951]

Nothing.. was kidding...

I am so tempted to buy this now, but I have like 30 games on my plate.

I hear that.  I'm still playing RDR, and Forza 4 will be taking up enough of my time for weeks or months to come.  Skyward Sword falls to Earth in a week.  (Does my Wii still work?  Need to make sure.)  Reviews are up already, and it's another must-get, as is Arkham City, and of course Skyrim.  I still haven't played Mass Effect 2.  Oh, and Driver: SF.  Damn!  I don't have the time or money for all this.  Some tough choices coming up.  I think waiting a while on Skyrim is the right thing to do.  It's not the easy thing to do.  At least I won't be bummed about a lack of good games.

[idolminds]

haha, that video was great.

[MysterD]

Saw this on IGN's Facebook...

[Quemaqua]

Why oh why did I watch the fucking QL for this. I want this game so bad I could do <something outrageous>. It looks so much better than Oblivion. Like... a lot better. But I have no PC, I can't really spend time playing games because of the work I have to do and the dog, the PS3 version requires a fucking shitload of HDD, and my 360 just redringed today.

Fuck me.

[Pugnate]

I... I... that video...

I just bought Skyrim on Steam for $60.

WTF?

I paid $60 for a digital copy of a game on the PC. I have like 30 high quality AAA games untouched yet I want to play this game NOW.

[Pugnate]

OK download coming at a crawl. WTF.

[K-man]

Why oh why did I watch the fucking QL for this. I want this game so bad I could do <something outrageous>. It looks so much better than Oblivion. Like... a lot better. But I have no PC, I can't really spend time playing games because of the work I have to do and the dog, the PS3 version requires a fucking shitload of HDD, and my 360 just redringed today.

Fuck me.

Sounds to me like life did you a favor.

Wait for the GotY edition with me

[Quemaqua]

I am so, so weak. I bought it for PS3. Cleared the space before I left the house. And I have no regrets. I'm already so into this. Fuck. These games are crack for me. I'll someday get the PC GOTY edition maybe. God, I don't know. I just can't help it.

[idolminds]

hahaha

[Cools!]

Can't escape this game. Half of the SC2 streamers I follow have been playing it over the weekend. It does look pretty decent and I have to say I'm tempted in getting it because the world and story seems interesting. So ... I caved and installed Morrowind.

[MysterD]

Hahahaha, oh man this snippet from the Giantbomb quicklook is amazing and hilarious, definitely watch it.

I like from the Quicklook at 39:44 to 44:06.
Absolutely HILARIOUS.
There are SPOILERS - so you have been warned.

[Quemaqua]

This game is phenomenal. It's more of the same, but also with improvements to the formula. I love what they did with the interface (at least on console) and actually think the streamlining is totally fine. Everything works and it still feels like you've got tons and tons of choices. And the world itself feels so alive. The usual Bethsoft wonkiness is there, but they've done a much better job this time.

God I hate myself, but I love these games. This will keep me sane until my back gets better.

[Cools!]

Haha.

[Pugnate]

Set it to download. Woke up. Done. But I have to work next 8 hours.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....

[Quemaqua]

Someone take this away from me. I need to bathe.

[shock]

Stoooppp ittt.  Finals are in a few weeks and I have a bunch of interviews I also have to do in the next few weeks.  CANNOT PLAY