Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The re-thought Elder Scrolls levelling, skill, attribute and perk system in Skyrim is already proving divisive (as witnessed in comments on the last post), but I fear at least part of the reason for that is it’s not been explained terribly well as yet. And, to be honest, that’s partially because there’s only so much of it I can explain until I’ve had proper hands-on time and experienced it rather than been told ‘it’s better this way’. I like the sound of it, because I always thought Oblivion’s system was fussier and more opaque than it needed be (in terms of what it actually achieved), but I certainly don’t want a reduction in depth any more than the next Morrowind nut. For now though, here’s all the quotes on the subject I’ve got from Bethesda’s Todd Howard, which hopefully clear things up a little more – plus offer some extra detail on how the stealth and persuasion mechanics work.
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I don’t want to do overkill on the latest id game, but I’ve got a ton of info here and one massivo-post wouldn’t be anyone’s idea of a fun time. The hands-on preview is here, but while I pen the next chunk (about the finally-revealed multiplayer modes) here’s a trailer of one of the major singleplayer missions to be getting along with…
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It’s more complicated than I’d suspected. But then I’d suspected something about as complicated as pouring milk into a glass, going on recent id form. The result is something that both does and doesn’t feel like an id game – it’s got the almost slippery high-speed movement on their pre-Doom 3 titles, it’s got a certain tangible familiarity to weapon-faves such as shotguns and machineguns, it’s got scampering mutant-monsters that seem to pop out nowhere and swipe at your back. It’s also got wide-open spaces, a crafting system, puzzles of a sort, optional objectives and freeform roaming. It’s id but it idn’t.
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Well, there’s an awful lot more than 20 reasons to be helplessly nerding out about the next Elder Scrolls game, but a nice round number is a good place to start, right? Let me be clear: I love Morrowind, quite like Oblivion and really didn’t get on with Fallout 3. I am what you might call a doubter. Nonetheless, I am impossibly excited about Skyrim, having recently been shown an hour of it (and listened to a bonus hour of lead dev Todd Howard answering questions about it). Here are just a few reasons why…
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I’m very surprised. Good surprised, not bad surprised. Prey is not a game I feel anything about, to be completely honest. I know it has its fans, but for me it remains part of that mass of id Tech 4-based stodgy shooters which went heavy on bio-mechanical corridor-pounding gloss at the expense of play I found truly engaging, despite early-game experiments with big ideas. Prey 2? More corridors, more textbook murderous aliens, more blamblamblam, no thank you ma’am.

Except it’s not. I was not expecting a game where you spend a significant time without a gun taking up half your screen. I was not expecting an open-world game, inspired more by the likes of Red Dead Redemption and STALKER than by Quake and Call of Duty. I was not expecting a game where your interaction with funny-headed aliens is as much about making moral judgements as it is shooting them. I’m surprised.
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