IT'S SKYRIM!

Seen it coming, but Skyrim won GOTY.

IGN listed it as one of the biggest fails in 2011.

Ellis the Stampede wrote:

IGN listed it as one of the biggest fails in 2011.

Seriously? By no means is it the best game released this year but if anything ever proved IGN was completely irrelevant it's that statement.

Well the issues concerning the PS3 version is what they said specifically. And Since the PS3 version is the only one that technically matters all of the versions are fails.

Ellis the Stampede wrote:

Well the issues concerning the PS3 version is what they said specifically. And Since the PS3 version is the only one that technically matters all of the versions are fails.

While that may be true, the PS3 version is far from bad.

not everyone's having major issues either.. I've had some, but far from game breaking

Dragons flying backwards....

How large is your save Evil?

I had a few game breaking glitches. Like the one quest where you have to go to the dragon burial site and that one dragon gets revived was messing up on me. I'd kill the dragon like the girl would tell me to. But then when it said to talk to her I couldn't because she would always start randomly attacking me. It wouldn't matter if she got hurt by the dragon or not, nor whether if I would hurt her either. She'd do it anyways even if I went out of my way to not even be able to see her during the dragon fight. I tried it over ten times. So I said fuck this mission and started doing other missions. I went back to the spot a few days later when I heard it was a mission from the main quest line, and she didn't attack me that time.

Everything else has been small glitches like dragons fucking around or if I have someone following me they've gotten stuck in a doorway that I wanted to go through, so I killed that helpless soul.

i haven't encountered backwards flying dragons since the last patch, but i read that patch was to nerf magic or something. i still freeze quite a bit though and it usually happens when i access the menu

my save was 12Mb, but after that last patch it somehow dropped back to 9MB almost 10..

I ended up receiving the 360 version for Christmas. Not necessarily a bad thing because allegedly the 360 game, being the lead platform, is less buggy than the PC and especially PS3 versions. That said, it does mean I miss out a little graphically - don't get me wrong, it's still a pretty fine looking game and some of the vistas are stunning, but it'd look even better running on my laptop.

Anyway, my Oblivion MC was a mage, so my intention this time was to do something different. My Skyrim MC is a Nord, so he's tall and well built, with long shaggy dark hear and an unshaven / unkempt appearance. In terms of roleplaying, he's a generally grumpy and aggressive sort, who also happens to turn into a werewolf when it suits. Yes, yes, I called him Lycaon.

my guys name is brandon

Jesus, I just checked my save file and I've clocked up thirty six hours in a week. Given that includes Christmas and boxing day (the majority of which were spent at another house) and then three full days at work, that's pretty terrifying. Still, it gives some idea just how utterly engrossing Skyrim is - I've barely touched the main questiline, instead opting to go out into the world and see what's what. i've not yet stepped into three of the major cities in the game, and while I'm now the Harbinger of the Companions, of the major guilds I've only so far encountered the Thieves Guild.

Oh, and the dragons are as imposing as I'd hoped - the first encounter happening minutes into the game, a wonderful set piece as the dragon lays waste to a disbelieving settlement. When the time came to fight said dragon, I was feeling confident; the regular mooks were little challenge to me having spent a while levelling, so I charged in for my glorious victory. Yeah, right. I got my arse handed to me at least half a dozen times before I took it down, and believe me I had to fight with everything in my arsenal.

Oh, and being a werewolf is pretty awesome. Thanks to their lack of armour they're not much good for tanking but when you start thinking of them as heavy-hitting and extremely agile light-armour users they can rip through a group of troublesome foes like a hot knife through butter. They look bitching too...

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Jesus, that's more than the amount of school we have in a week.

It's three and a half days at work for me. Like I said though, I got the game for Xmas, so got it sunday. I played perhaps an hour before going to the in-laws for xmas. Boxing day, went over my dad's. 27th, went over my mum's. 28th, 29th and 30th was at work from 8am until 6pm, get home around half six.

I have no idea how I've managed to squeeze in anything like that amount of play time.

One hundred and eighteen hours later, I've just beaten the main quest. It was a fair bit shorter than I remember Oblivion's being, but I think it was the more enjoyable offering, especially the ending which made you feel like a total badass. The final boss put up a pretty decent fight too, which surprised me considering how easy the rest of the enemies had been the last thirty hours or so.

And on that note, I think it's time to give Tamriel a break for a while. As much as I've loved my time with the game, it's feeling a little tiresome, as if some of the magic has gone. So yeah, time for a break.

Skyrim Creation Kit is apparently being released on Tuesday, I'm guessing Steam Workshop will be available either straight away or very soon. Looking forward to seeing how well their one-click modding works.

Bethesda have released a free high-resolution texture pack (3gb download through Steam, it's listed as DLC) along with the Creation Kit and Steam Workshop 1-click modding functionality.

The mod directory is pretty easy to use, you can sort by popularity, rating and date as usual as well as categories such as Armor, UI, Quests and Cheats. Installing mods is really simple, you click to subscribe to a mod and you'll automatically download it and all future updates when they're released. So far there aren't many mods up but I've subscribed to the Valve-made Portal Personality Sphere Companion mod and everything works perfectly.

i'm jealous

If you had the PC version you could mod it so every NPC looked like victoria justice

And be naked.

i would love both of those

Good to know that Bethesda decided not to include about 30 different things that would have improved the game dramatically. Keep watching past the first two, they get much more significant than graphics tweaks.

It's not like that was stuff that got cut per se though, is it? It was just people cocking around with the game once it was finished. That said, some of the ideas there were really cool - even something as simple as seasonal foliage lends itself to a much more believable game world, and the Werewolf skill tree would really help stop the werewolf becoming useless mid to late game. Magic and Arrow kill? Yes please. Assassin night eye? Yes please. Also, flying Vampire Lord? Fuck yes.

I'd actually pay for some of that stuff too, so it needs to happen.