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Friday, December 16, 2011

Games "One Night in Skyrim Makes a Strong Man Crumble"

Posted by The Stranger Testing Department on Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 5:00 PM

Early reviews of Skyrim were kind of suspect. Seeing as this is a game that takes a majillion hours to "complete" (note: it cannot actually be completed), how much could really be thoughtfully said so soon after its release¹?

With the gift of hindsight and a lot more play time, a handful of better assessments have come along—with the most nuanced and lovingly critical one coming from Tom Bissell (of the worthwhile Extra Lives). He says the one thing that's probably worth saying about Skyrim (and Oblivion), the fact that it's great *despite* its lame NPC interactions and exposition—and the inclusion of those interactions is "incompetent" in 2011:

Why make every character a walking lore dump when lore can be more effectively embodied in the world and environments? After all, the world and environments are already there in Skyrim; they're quite literally everywhere you look, gushing all manner of wonderfully implied lore. And they're beautiful. Like most who play Skyrim, I'm greatly drawn to these incredible environments because the act of exploring them becomes uniquely my experience. When I'm listening to and watching Skyrim's interminable characters, I'm skipping through the same dumb cartoon everyone else is. Video games can tell involving, interesting stories — but they can't do it like this. It's high time we start thinking about another way or ways.

GRTWT. Like Extra Lives, it involves some thoughtful meditating on the state of video game art. (And FWIW, when it comes to game exposition, we still haven't experienced better than the Andy Serkis-powered cut scenes of the sweet, short Enslaved: Odyssey to the West—which came out a little over a year ago, and which you can pick up new for $15.)

¹Um, we wrote the most recent STD post (before this one) the day before Skyrim was released. Coincidence? Sadly: no.

The Stranger Testing Department is Rob Lightner and Paul Hughes.

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3 word review of Skyrim: Fallout Middle Earth

It's a pretty fun game and this is coming from a guy who owns about 10 video games and hasn't actually completed one since being a pre-teen.

My 4 year old 360 that rarely gets turned on red ringed right as I got level 10. The NES in my mom's garage still works fine. Thanks for the quality hardware MS!

Posted by Swearengen on December 16, 2011 at 5:53 PM

I too enjoyed Enslaved, and am delighted the same folks are working on the much-ballyhooed The Last of Us. Now that I've leveled up to where the average thing that walks up can't kill me, Skyrim's begun to seem a bit like a big, bloody to-do list with lots of Afrikaner sounding motherfuckers running around.

Posted by gloomy gus on December 16, 2011 at 5:56 PM

It's absurdly fun and immersive, especially on PC where you can mod it up to expand it significantly (which is absurd, because it's so big already). Aside from the odd bout of TF2 to blow people up I haven't wanted to touch any other game since the day it came out.

Posted by Joe Szilagyi

on December 16, 2011 at 6:02 PM

Immediate fail for playing a Bethesda game on a console.

Posted by sonder on December 16, 2011 at 6:12 PM

I'm gonna keep waiting for Mass Effect 3. I prefer aliens, pseudo-scientific telepathy, and space ships over swords, magic, and dragons.

Posted by brandon on December 16, 2011 at 8:26 PM

Weird Murray Head reference there?

Posted by biju on December 16, 2011 at 8:59 PM

I'll have to play this Skyrim game I keep hearing about.

I've played possibly 35 and more PC games (including trial games) and have only completed like 8 (not including trial games). Last year I just finished Halo :)

Posted by Simone on December 16, 2011 at 9:43 PM

I have so many issues with what this guy says, especially in his comparison of Skyrim to Dark Souls, in that the latter (if I'm understanding his meaning correctly) is apparently a better example of how games should tell a story. The story in Dark Souls is completely nonexistent, not "apparently nonexistent." "Once, the gods fought dragons (for some reason). The gods won. Now things are getting bad again." Okay...?

His issue with the lore also drives me crazy. Yes, the operative word in "optional expository lore" is optional. He supposes that maybe there are people that like it, but he--in his circle of friends--doesn't know any. Apparently he's never heard of Gabe from Penny Arcade, as an example.

It seems that ultimately he's calling the game's heavy reliance on dialogue to deliver the story incompetent, but makes no suggestion as to how it could be better (unless the Dark Souls reference is meant to be that solution). That strikes me as unprofessional.

Posted by Knat on December 17, 2011 at 1:29 AM

The linked review you so promote, first paragraph:

"If you have no idea what the Elder Scrolls franchise is, you are probably either (a) an adult woman, or (b) the sort of person who once beat up the sort of person who likes the Elder Scrolls franchise"

Sweet, I can't even get out of the first *paragraph* of the review without running into standard, pathetic geek misogyny. Fuck that noise.

Posted by Cow on December 17, 2011 at 6:18 AM

@4: No fucking doubt.

@9: I don't take that as misogyny, I take it as "adult women tend to not give a shit about geek culture," and it's an accurate stereotype (at least according to the experiences of most male geeks). Certainly, there are many adult women who enjoy their fantasy and sci-fi, but of my adult female friends, I can bond with only two (with maybe a third somewhat willing to listen) over the things which nearly all of my adult male friends find interesting. Thankfully that tendency is shifting ever so slightly as we move forward, but keep in mind that the statement you quoted isn't normative, it's reflective.

Posted by Faber on December 17, 2011 at 8:29 AM

#9- Totally agreed, I stopped reading after the first paragraph and I doubt I'll ever read anything on that site again. Awful link, Paul.

Posted by raku on December 17, 2011 at 12:21 PM

@8: That reference should be to Tycho, not Gabe. It was late, and I had just got back from a Xmas party when I posted. Please don't take away my nerd cred.

Posted by Knat on December 17, 2011 at 1:34 PM

I kind of agree with @9. It's funny too because I was in GameStop the other day and there were several women talking about games they were playing and there happened to be a woman at the counter. We got into a conversation about how there are very few games that might interest women (there's your problem), what with half the games being sports and the other half being non-stop combat of some sort.

"All of this is why, for a lot of console gamers my age, that moment in which Oblivion's open world first opened up has something like moon-landing significance. A massive interactive system, thoughtfully designed, that allowed for player experiences of nearly infinite variety: Here, finally, was a clear argument for what video games might actually be for."

Which is why I can't seem to finish Elder Scrolls games, even after 100s of hours. I love wandering around learning what my new body can do, and collecting plants and animals. Really, the main task is usually the most boring part of the game. I also generally like talking with NPCs- maybe it's an "adult woman" thing.

Posted by Sandiai on December 17, 2011 at 4:16 PM

@10:

You blithely fulfill the standard that 9 was getting at. Only about 25% of my adult women friends don't play video games.

Posted by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

on December 17, 2011 at 8:16 PM

But seriously Paul, did you miss the kerfluffle over the misogyny of the first paragraph of this review that happened DAYS ago? I'm disappointed in that.

Posted by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

on December 17, 2011 at 8:18 PM

Paul here. I missed the kerfuffle! Thanks for the kerfuffle tip: http://kotaku.com/5864134/to-whom-i-have… How long can we blame Skyrim for missing things?

That cheap joke in the first paragraph does suck, it's true--but he really does raise some interesting points if you read past that. And that clunkiness in NPC-powered expositon is something Rob and I talk about endlessly, so we couldn't resist posting. It's a big cause of RPG burn out for me in partiicular, just because it constantly pulls me out of the game. In theory, I love to talk to NPCs--it's one of the joys of pencil and paper RPGing, e.g.--but it's still just so fake in video games. (And Skyrim's addition of yet more "lifelike" spasms and tics doesn't help.)

One of the points I think Bissell was making is that even less is more at this point, which I tend to buy. I kept thinking of Shadow of the Colossus as a great example of silent but convincing world-building.

What say ye about his apology? Convincing?

Posted by The Stranger Testing Department on December 19, 2011 at 9:42 AM