I just (literally) staggered away from a 5 1/2 hour straight session with Skyrim on the 360. Made it to level 6 with my Khajiit character. It definitely has that same crack appeal as Oblivion, as I had no intention of playing that long. Dual-wielding magic is quite a bit of fun, and the dungeons seem more varied than ES IV...
Draw distance looks a lot better on Ultra than high and I can still get 35fps outside at 1920x1200. I keep jumping like crazy and nothing happens! Racking up some good points by raising the dead and burning them back down.
hmmm. wonder if it'd play on my 1280x768 fusion book? ... but guess what, I don't really care!! that last video just looked so dumb... wait, you said DECENT video card... well nevermind than :x STUNNED!!! SHOCKED EVEN! That Alterego has a non-apple based appliance in his house!! He must just be waiting for the ipad3 to come out so he can replace his 360 with it that's it.
The new physics engine rocks. I was on my way to one of locations where I had to kill someone when I saw a lone mammoth. When I came closer, another one appeared from nowhere with a giant herdsman. Problem was that the second mammoth was floating in the sky, like 60 feet above the ground. After few seconds it started to spin around and then fell down, sighed and died. Apparently the engine was clever enough to conclude that falling down from 60 feet is deadly for mammoths.
Your all a bunch of complete bastards. Do you know how horrible it is to talk about how much you are enjoying something when some other poor sod has had the bad luck to lose the 2 consoles capable of playing it in a week.
Skyrim is amazing. It's oblivion, but better in every way, just as we knew it would be. My high elf is now level 5 after playing it for hours yesterday. About to start another long session. The use of magic in this game is truly awesome, it's how magic should have been in Oblivion. My PS3 is going to forget it has an eject button lol.
You want to know what's even more shocking? I purchased it at launch and it still works like the day I bought it. Never had any problems with RROD etc.
+1 Skyrim combines all the best from Oblivion (the setting) and Fallout (the mechanics). I doubt it could be better.
If any game has a chance of me giving it a perfect 10 out of 10 it's this game. Too soon to make such a claim yet though.
Crossfire has negative scaling. It's a mess with CF enabled. I'm having a hell of time with CF in new games lately with RAGE and Skyrim. I've played a couple of hours. I have for the first time in an Elder Scrolls game chosen a mage character, an Altmer. My character seems pretty good so far, although I have to be careful to never get cornered. I'm very happy with the layout of the game world so far. The leveling system seems to make more sense to me this time around. I'm pleased with the influence of Fallout 3. So far my biggest adventure was taking over a fort occupied by bandits. The mage in the library was the toughest enemy in there, but I was able to take him out by weakening him with flame attacks and then rushing him and finishing him off with my sword. I'm not sure if this place was supposed to be part of a quest or mission for someone later on. I don't really care. I think they mixed the Elder Scrolls world with enough of Fallout 3's sensibilities that Skyrim will be a better game than Oblivion. I'm admittedly quite supported about the tech issues, but it wouldn't be a Bethesda game if it didn't cause me grief over some technical problem. BTW, this damn thing crashed half a dozen times at the TITLE SCREEN until I did a search that indicated that you must turn down the audio quality to 44.1KHz/ CD quality. More of that famous Bethesda polish. Fantastic game design with horrible quality control and polish, which sounds like the prototypical Bethesda game.
I had my first random encounter with a dragon. This is after I've killed one of them during a plot mission. My character is at level 4 and I think it's not enough to kill the beast as I have ony one companion. The problem is that the dragon doesn't event land. Fire doesn't reach him, shock staff makes some damage but it run out of magic and then, having less than half of the HP, the dragon starts to fly in circles far away and comes back with its HP almost fully restored. The only way to stratch him is using arrows but it's just inefficient. I think I'll reload and try to avoid it.
Your dragon encounter sounds exactly like a hag encounter I had on a mission. I tried to kill this thing for over an hour and I finally decided the game wouldn't let me. I could get her down to 5% health but never kill her before she restored to 25%. The battle was awesome though. I don't have any type of ranged attack yet and I learned how much that can suck. *****Spoiler***** The hag lives on top of a hill and is only reachable by a narrow bridge. Of course she's tossing fireballs the whole time I'm trying to get to her. That's when I learned the value of a magic shield spell I had which worked in a very neat way. It takes a few seconds to get it up and it only blocks one attack from the front before it's destroyed. *****Spoiler***** I only learned about the dual casting last night. Totally awesome feature. Shooting fire with one hand and healing with the other, or combine the same spell in both hands for increased effect. It made we wish more than ever that I could assign hot keys. I don't think that's possible and my favorites menu is so huge it's almost pointless. It's also annoying that when I assign something to the right hand I have to use the left mouse button. *****Spoiler***** If you get a mission to return stolen property to a store, don't return the property. I think you'll need it for the rest of the game. I'll now have to re-steal what I have returned. *****Spoiler*****
Was that really a spoiler? I've seen videos and screenshots showing it. I figured it was just a new feature in the game OHHHHHHHHHH, looooool, you had text in the blank area. Didn't realize until I quoted your text. I thought your spoiler tags were about the dual casts.
Has anyone else had magic perks not show up in your selection list? I've added novice level perks for other forms of magic but currently only destruction and restoration show up for my character to select in-game. Is there something I'm missing? The first steps in the skill tree for enchanting and conjuration are definitely lit up under Skills, but MIA in-game. Other than that, I continue to enjoy this game. Level 9 with Beast Mode achieved....
I'm in the same boat. My video card decided to shit itself, and I won't be playing this until I get the replacement. And Gigabyte are taking their sweet time. It's been a month since I sent it out. This is a game everyone is talking about and I have no idea when I'll actually get to play it.
My battlemage is coming along nicely. Level 13 now and I just bought some dwarven armour. On my way to see the greybeards I stopped off to clear a dungeon and as soon as I came out a dragon appeared. My companion and I managed to whittle it down to half health and it flew away scared. Luckily I saved the game when I spotted it so I reloaded and had another go. Managed to kill it the second time round. I got lost trying to ascend the mountain then realised I'd gone the wrong way about a mile back! I'll reach the top tomorrow and have a good old chinwag with the greybeards. Great game.
The game has been pretty cool so far. But I do have a really big wtf complaint. WHY THE HELL ARE THE MENUS INCONSISTANT?! It goes between keyboard controls in some menus and requiring mouse clicks to select other menus. Who the hell designed this UI.
Did you buy spells for those other skills? I think destruction and restoration are the only two skills that come with free spells. What class did you select when you went to the 3 stones?