Digital Nightfall on 15/11/2011 at 12:29

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Arena was an ugly Underworld copycat that I could never own anyway because I was too young (13) to ask my parents to buy a game with a half-naked girl on the cover. :laff:

I did however get Daggerfall as soon as it came out (at 15 I was able to buy my own games), and played it off and on for about six months. I found it mostly awful but there was enough random neat game content to keep me playing. On the other hand I think I was also averaging about two games a year at that point. I honestly don't remember much about it, other than that some of the randomly generated dungeons were literally impossible to complete.

Battlespire looked like a quick add-on for Daggerfall, so I skipped it. It looked awful.

When Redguard game out there were dozens of far better looking similar games, so it again went ignored. From the direction of these two games I pretty much assumed that the Elder Scrolls series was dead. After making an ambitious but highly flawed RPG they made two fairly unambitious action games, one of which was 3rd person with no RPG elements.

So as a result, I ignored Morrowind. Even as friends and family raved over it and traded countless stories of their exploits, I stayed away. I was pretty deeply entrenched in getting my architecture degree at that point (though I was just working on prerequisites at the time) and all of what would have been my gaming time was being focused squarely on dromed. To this day I've never played Morrowind.

I did, however, begrudgingly play Oblivion. After an incredibly dull and tedious first few hours I put it down and didn't touch it again for half a year. When I did finally play it, I found it occasionally engrossing but by and large frustrating. My feelings towards the game reached a climax when I, after maybe fifty hours of playing and a mere hour from the completion of the final quest, exited the game and uninstalled it on a whim.

Just this past year I decided to give Oblivion another try. I restored my old saved game, and cheated my way to the completion of the final quest. I just wanted that quest over with. That done, I started a fresh character, and tried out the thieves guild and dark brotherhood quests everyone had raved about so much. They were pretty cool, actually, but the dark brotherhood quests still had a problem: Oblivion's awful combat and magic systems. I could only take so much of that game, so right before attempting Shivering Isles, I had to put it down for three or four months.

When I did finally play Shivering Isles I cheated my way through it again. I realized that the main impediment to my enjoyment of the game was the combat, so I just console-killed every enemy I found. Best decision ever - Shivering Isles did have some good content, which I never would have uncovered if I had to slog through the combat to get to it.

Skyrim is different. I played the game the night it was released, and after having a few mixed feelings about some quirks, I fell in love with it. Then, before I knew it, I cared about stuff that I had never bothered to care about. Even after all those hours of Oblivion I couldn't name all of the races or their homelands. I didn't even realize there were three races of elves and that orcs had no homeland. I didn't care. I couldn't name a single divine or daedra. I didn't care. I barely knew anything about the world or its history or anything a character had to say about anything unless it involved completing my quest. I simply didn't care.

Somehow Skyrim made me care about all of that after ten hours of play, versus the hundred or so total I sank into Oblivion. Suddenly I am reading the books, I am milking every character for every last line of dialog. Finally I broke down and dove into the TES wiki with tremendous curiosity. I never touched alchemy in Oblivion - it looked boring and pointless. In Skyrim, I am an alchemist. In Oblivion I didn't know what those stupid soul gems were about and how enchanting worked. It looked like a waste of time. In Skyrim, most of the gear my companion is using is stuff I crafted and enchanted myself. In Oblivion I avoided combat as much as I could, even resorting to cheating to get around it. In Skyrim I relish the chance to stumble upon a fortress of entrenched bandits, so I can slaughter them and pilfer their stores for more money to spend furnishing my home.

Good job, Bethesda.

Renault on 15/11/2011 at 15:57

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You really need to go back and do this, with some nice fancy mods.

Koki on 15/11/2011 at 17:52

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The system is a joke, animations and cutscenes are typical Bethesda quality(bad), you don't need to eat, you don't need to sleep, time's silly(What is it, 12x speed?), interface is already legendary and there's level/treasure scalling.

Renzatic on 16/11/2011 at 04:27

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You need to play Morrowind for this very reason. It throws you feet first into this wild, utterly alien world, inhabited by stranger, far more interesting variations of the usual bevy of fantasy races. It was different, unique in quite a few ways. It compelled you to go out of your way to learn about all the neat stories and histories behind everything.

I'm glad to hear that Skyrim is continuing the tradition. Oblivion felt so lifeless and dull in comparison to what came before.

Dresden on 16/11/2011 at 06:31

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No he doesn't. Morrowind was good back in the day but it has aged terribly.

And yeah, the books are great. I've loved the TES lore ever since Daggerfall. There's just something mysterious and strange about it.