Skyrim Review

I thought I'd review a big name in the gaming world for my first review. Skyrim is the fifth installment in the Elder Scrolls series, brought to us by Bethesda. Skyrim benefitted from a huge fan base mostly conjured up from the huge amount of Internet interest that happened before the game's release.

I know a lot of reviewers have given this game really good reviews. I want to look at it from an objective point of view. True, the graphics are good, as is the gameplay, and it's an all round fun game to play. The Elder Scrolls franchise is a game that is well-known for it's open world, it's almost endless reems of quests, and a bunch of other stuff you can lose yourself doing. You want to pick herbs for hours on end? Do it! You want to hunt animals in the wild? Sure!

What I liked about Skyrim was that it went back to its roots a little more than Oblivion did. Where Oblivion felt more at home in a European fantasy setting, Skyrim seemed to borrow more from it's predecessors than Oblivion did. They came back with the Dwemer ruins (a favourite) as well as some things that long-time fans may recall from the Bloodmoon expansion. Fast travel introduced another method - the horse carriage. I felt this harked back to the fast-travel systems in Morrowind a lot more, which was nice to have the alternative if you didn't want to map travel, walk, or horse ride it all the way across the other side of the huge map. What's more, this was only available to the major cities and towns, instead of being able to get a ride anywhere you wanted. I enjoyed that aspect of realism.

When I first stepped into the game I was awestricken. But I looked around on that little cart during the prologue and wondered if the trees were supposed to be like that. I was in awe of Alduin, until he started turning up everywhere and instead of being a general fear mongerer, being a general nuisance. There wasn't a single moment I found the main antagonist scary. These dragons weren't big enough for my tastes - I remember thinking that way back when the first trailer featuring gameplay was released.

The graphics were good. For about a month. Then I remember Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, other titles with style and beautiful execution in design. Then I'm not so sure. Skyrim looks good in the concept art but sort of... fails with the delivery. I still can't quite make my mind up about the redesign of the Mer races (that's the elven races), although it was more of another returning to roots scenario than an actual redesign. At least we are rid of the balloon faced people that haunted our Oblivion nightmares.

The plot seemed as though it would deliver. The game looks beautiful. The controls are straightforward. The skills menu is a work of art.

So why is it that it bored me within a month? 

There are several reasons for this. One is the fact that it was dumbed down, yet again. Instead of always calling the Dunmer by their real name, they're constantly referred to as 'dark elves'. The Dwemer are always known as the 'dwarves', even though that's very inaccurate. What seems to have happened is that The Elder Scrolls acquired an even larger fanbase through Oblivion, and instead of catering to their old audiences by creating more beautiful, realistic lore for us to enjoy and gnaw on, they've dumbed it down for the general populace to enjoy as a more regular run of the mill roleplaying game. They simplified the levelling system, the alchemy system, and the magic system. For some of us those things were a welcome relief, but some of them just take more away from the atmosphere of the game series.

The plots were another reason I got bored. I didn't bother to do the Dark Brotherhood, the Companions, or the Civil War questlines. Why? Because I didn't see much point. The Thieves Guild was basically the DB Oblivion plot rehashed, although it proved to be one of the longest and best plotlines in Skyrim. The Mages Guild was disappointing. The main plot made the civil war redundant after a certain point. Did I have any motivation to do any of these, besides self-gain and sense of completion? No. Because it really doesn't affect the world. Bethesda should get George R. R. Martin to write their plots for The Elder Scrolls. At least they'd have some political intrigue to them, something that really made you want to continue with them and even start them. And something that didn't have you running somewhere to clear out a dungeon, find a lost sword, and bring it back. That kind of quest is everything I hate about roleplaying games of any type.

The enemies are repetitive. I must have fought over 1k Draugrs in my 70+ hours playing Skyrim. They get as dull as Daedra did. I would have liked it if dragon attacks actually  meant something and seemed as random as they were meant to supposedly be. But after dying from a dragon attack in Makarth, reloading from five minutes previously, only to have the same dragon attack the same city... it didn't feel very random to me. Not even the type of dragon varied. It was exactly the same colour and type. I felt a little cheated when things like this started to happen.

Everything seemed very inconsequential in Skyrim altogether, and it seemed as though it was just another incidence of my character, the Dragonborn, solving all the problems that the citizens of Skyrim had. I need more opposition than a few evil elves and ancient dragons. I need them to burn down villages and arrest people in front of me. I need dynamic events which shape the world. I need something more than Skyrim appeared to offer but never delivered to me.

At least Jeremy Soule did another bang-up job of the music score.

7/10 - There was a lot lacking, but I had fun for 2-3 months before it became repetitive. Definitely not as engaging as previous installments.

Time to write!

I wish.

Increasingly I find myself wanting to write more - wanting to get on with it, find ways of writing something creative every day. But it's difficult finding the time. I have other things which always seem to take priority - college work, eating, sleeping enough. This could be because it's the first exam period of the year, and I seem to be getting a lot more work from other subjects apart from the one I have an exam in - probably purely because they don't want me to ignore their subjects. Grr.

It's not just writing that's been placed somewhat on the back burner. Other hobbies seem to have less time spent on them at the moment too. Beading hasn't really made any progress lately although I did get some lovely green wooden ones from China which took 3 weeks to arrive, so I've got something in mind for those when I find the time. Art too, hasn't been progressing as much as I'd like it to, but then again it's better than last year or the year before. I do draw a lot more than I used to and for that alone I'm happy. And then I feel like I should be keeping fit but do I honestly have the time, besides making sure I do little things like walking up to the bus terminal and not catching the bus from town to college? Not really.

The only thing I do find time for is reading. I'm probably a little more enthused for this than usual because of the pile of 8 books I accumulated over Christmas. It might be this which has got me very stoked to write something of my own, and of course it's always helped to read something someone else has written to get your own ideas flowing.

There's another underlying reason behind wanting to write more. Not only because I'd love to get something novel-shaped finished, but I've been thinking of careers - journalism, perhaps. There's the question over whether I'd really like to write for a living, whether I would love it or whether it would become too much of a chore and I'd never write anything remotely creative again, but I think that's a blog post for another day.

Writing extracts, with that little bit extra.

I've decided that I'm going to start putting things I've written up here that consist of more than just a small extract. After I've written and edited to some extent I'll post chapters/pages up here for people to read if they want to. I'm really unsure how much readership it's going to get but it's better than having my writing sitting on my computer and not getting read by anyone else but me.

National Novel Writing Month

We've not quite reached the end of November, aka National Novelling Month, but tomorrow is the official day for validating word counts and winning.

And I have a confession to make.

I will not have completed my NaNo.

Not for a lack of trying, not because I gave up - but simply because I got bored. However, I've learned a few things from this -

1. Writing every day feels good. Whether it's 100 words or 7,000 words, it still feels good to write every day.
2. Pressure is good, but also bad. Pressuring yourself too much to write a certain amount every day isn't productive - I know when I put the pressure on myself purposefully it helps but when I feel like other people are handing me deadlines I'm actually more inclined to procrastinate. But to have that word count to hit every day and reach it feels like a lovely small achievement to have.
3. I wrote a lot more this year than previous years. For once I managed to get past 12k words, and reached 20k words. For most of the time I was ahead, which felt really good, and when I took a break of a few days it didn't matter, because I knew I could easily catch up and surpass the word goal I was supposed to be on. This let me know that I am actually very productive.
4. Spewing out writing is bad. The folks over at NaNo argue that it doesn't matter what you write - it matters how much you write. And they also argue it's good to get it down on paper. Maybe so, and yes it does feel sort of good knowing that stashed away on my PC I have 20k words of the beginning of a novel. But I picked an idea I didn't really care about, which was probably something that factored into why my writing this time around felt so flabby. I certainly daren't go back to read it and I won't be editing it - because it also feels terrible knowing that I wrote a lot, but it's all... crap. It's probably the most boring thing you could ever read.
5. NaNo has pros and cons. As my concluding point I'll say obviously NaNo produces good results and bad ones. While I like that it encourages me to write every day, it also encourages me to write badly. I like that it frees me of forcing myself to write absolutely perfectly the first time, which removes a lot of pressure, but I hate that this in turn makes me type out utter pulp.

I think in the near future I'll possibly attempt it again - if I ever find the time and motivation. It's something I'd love to achieve, but for the most part I can say if I ever give up again it won't really be giving up - it's simply because my interest has waned. The one thing I definitely found out is that NaNo is actually pretty boring, and perhaps that's something I have to consider when sticking with an idea for 80k + words.

No plot? Nasty problem!

Actually I do have a plot so now I don't have a problem. I've finally decided on something to write about for this year's NaNo challenge. It's a fairly character-driven and altogether involved story. I had a few doubts about whether I really wanted to write something that I'd written on previous years - as much as I like the other ideas I have, they're stagnant at the moment for me. I love them to pieces but I've worked on them so much for so long it's nicer to have a breath of fresh air - a totally new setting and plot, to the two I've worked on for the past two years including NaNo Novembers.

Saying that though, the plot and setting isn't exactly fresh. It's based loosely on something I've written out a plot for before. But the reworked setting doesn't quite fit with the plot anymore, so it's still new and exciting. It also draws inspiration from science fiction like V for Vendetta, Blade Runner, Fallout and Watchmen in terms of theme and setting, and 'feel'. It's not got anything futuristic about it but instead it's sort of Alternate Universe, so that'll be interesting.

I worked on it with Nat, because I decided that I needed someone to bounce ideas off. And she'd the same idea, really, because Nat herself had been stuck for ideas or not really wanted to resurrect something already planned. Recycling old characters is something I don't mind doing and we're working off basically the same plots and setting just from different angles and viewpoints of said characters. I think it's going to be an interesting venture; the same story told from a slew of different perspectives, with all characters having a part to play in the 'grand scheme of things' and some events in their timelines tying in with other events for other characters.

Unfortunately my description probably makes it sound really complicated, and I'd love to post some kind of a summary about it, but right now there's not a definite one. I'm going to settle on one when I update my NaNo profile itself but for the moment I can't, as the site is being re-worked over the weekend and if I made any profile changes until Monday they would all be lost tomorrow.

I'll see how proper planning works out for reaching my word goal of 50k this year. I usually do some thinking during October but I feel properly prepared this time around and I'm hoping it will make a difference to my word production rate. 22 days to go!

Good Morning Starshine!

This being the first post in my new blog, I should probably set about telling the world what it's purpose is. Ink Blots is solely for everything writing related that I create or want to blog about; whether I'm ranting that I'm having writer's block, or a particular word just won't come to me, even if I've had the most brilliant idea, perhaps I have some extract I'm proud of to share with everybody. Whatever it is, it goes here. I realised that I don't really use my regular blog very much; and when I do I write, sometimes, quite a bit about writing itself. I admit that I haven't focussed much on my writing for the past two years - exams, study and exams have been the downfall of this particular past-time. I began to fear, mid-college year around April/May time, that my creative writing would or already HAD stagnated due to the way I've been moulding my writing to essay form, for whatever subject it's on. I was proud of my writing style; I always had been, it always effortlessly sounded like I'd written it when I read it back to myself. I don't want to lose that, and for that reason I started blogging again.

Well, with NaNoWriMo 2011 just around the corner (23 days, 21 hours!) I've decided that no matter how tired, grumpy, lose-the-will-to-live I get, I'm going to write my 50k of words this year. Every year, I fall down around the 12k mark. It's usually because I have a roaring good start, writing at least 4k in the first day because I'm so full of gusto. Then I'll write another 1.5k the next day. So I've hit almost 6k in the first three days. Then I think, I can afford to take a break. I'm ahead of where I should be! I fall behind for a few days, make up for it by storming ahead adding another 7k to my total and then... fizzle out. There is a certain point at which you lose interest in a novel you're drivelling out 1.6k words for every day. I know the idea is to get it written, but I always always can't help myself from thinking I'm murdering my plot, my characters, and doing them a disservice by writing utter shit. So clearly I need a change of mindset; NaNo is so that you get something written, no matter how under-developed your characters are, no matter how twisty and loopholed your plot is. It's about writing the words, even if they read back like something a ten-year old would write.