The Flaws of Skyrim

I’m sure that a lot of you have probably given many an hour exploring the wonderful world of Skyrim over the last few months and while it is a beautiful and involving game it’s still a long way from being perfect. OK Bethesda have created the best RPG ever but the actual narrative is a little bit forced and our hero’s don’t affect the game world nearly enough.

Consequences

It’s really difficult to feel guilty about being evil in Skyrim. You can kill everyone within a town and once you've paid the fine you're OK to be on your merry way again. Terror trips are far removed from having any sort of emotional pull on the players and a mass murder generally feels fine. It’s disappointing to find that the NPC’s do not react properly to your maniacal ways and this actually quickly reduces the immersion of the whole adventure.

The only actually affect of being evil is the small fine/bribe payment system that feels like a rather easy get out clause for all our budding Jack the Rippers out there. It’s clearly difficult from the offset that there is no way to clearly monitor your good/bad style of play as Bethesda have removed the standard tracking bars – yes this is a step in the right direction but not putting a clear alternative in place has led to this change becoming more of a hindrance than anything else.

That’s not even mentioning the strangeness of being in the Dark Brotherhood and also running the Mages Guild. Skyrim really is consequence free!

Level Issues

Skills are levelled by use, the more you stab with your broadsword the better your one handed skill becomes, the more times your shield is used correctly the better your blocking skill becomes. The problem we have here is that the world levels around you even when you’ve spent the first 20 levels creating Iron Daggers to quickly improve you level through the smithing perks. Basically you could end up being a walking meat shield that gets taken down by everything from rabid dogs to household rats.

It's great to have a completely open experience but next time Bethesda please make sure we are required to level our useful skills if you don't want the levelling systems to completely hinder the player progress.

Combat

OK so combat has been improved since the utterly terrible Oblivion but lets face it the improvements aren't that great. The hack n’ slash mechanics are still ancient in comparison to most of the action games on offer these days. Yes it’s nice to finish someone off with a special move but to flail aimlessly at them for 10 minutes first is both frustrating and poorly designed.

Being a stealthy thief also has it’s downfalls as the player soon realises that darkness does not mean much in this fantasy world. You might not be able to see you character on your TV screen but that damn goblin was aware of him 20 paces ago. This is another fault that duly affects the immersion of the experience as we soon realise that everything is being controlled by the invisible dice rolling in the background. Plus the more you level up the more vigilant everything becomes. ARGH I’ve been seen again!

Bethesda have created a brilliant world but too many of the combat mechanics are dated and need to be improved next time round. It’s strange to see this sort of thing in a 2011 release when the critically disappointing Deus Ex: Invisible War had a better stealth system back in 2003.

  

Impotentency

It's hard to argue that the world of Skyrim isn't the most fantastic place we've ever had the joy to experience but it's almost been too carefully created. The developers are so proud of their final product that they have ensure that nothing our Hero does will ever affect the world around us. Our actions no matter how heroic or destructive have absolutely no impact on what we see or hear.

The worst part is that Skyrim builds tension for massive storytelling moments that no matter what decision is made there will be no tangible consequences. Kill generic NPC A and you'll be treated the same as if you saved him from his peril and set him up with a new house and family to love him forever. 

This is one of the most disappointing aspect of this fantasy world, Fallout 3 contended with the destruction of a city and Mass Effect have created 100's of possibilities in the gameplay. It's such a shame that Bethesda haven't even managed to put one major consequence into this massive game. 

The possibilities are massive too; the storytelling is brilliant and there are many branching paths that could have been used. I'm not trying to move mountains here but it would be nice for the locals to know I'm the local menace than ask for my help everytime I walk passed them.

Skyrim comes closer than just about any other game to creating a truly believable world. And yet, it's only when we're this close that we can really see how far we still have left to go. I'm loving Skyrim as much as the next person but to find these frankly terrible design flaws have meant that I'm already worrying about the Elder Scrolls 6 when we finally get a teaser in about 5 years time.