Back in December when the teaser and release date dropped, a lot of people started shopping for some new shirts to replace the slobber-stained ones they’d just ruined. I, admittedly, was one of them.
I’ll also admit that in the past I’ve built up big ol’ toothpick-sculptures of expectation for games (Prototype, Alpha Protocol – some recent ones) that just ended up coming down in the underwhelming breeze that was the games themselves. Measuring the reality next to my expectations was kind of like putting the feeling I had on Christmas at 7-years-old next to the feeling I had on Christmas at 27. It just doesn’t stack up.
"I said I wanted Skyrim, not a f****n' iPad!"
Skyrim, and the E3 news surrounding it, have me looking for the toothpicks and wood glue. Some of the slobber-summoning features I’m stoked for:
- Awesomely crafted backstory and narrative: The story ties this one into Oblivion well. Of course, there are times when it can be nice to have a game pick up directly after the events of the first – with Dragon Age 2 or Mass Effect 2, for example. But, in Skyrim’s case, 200 years is apparently the amount of time that was needed to produce a huge flock of bloodthirsty dragons — so I’m glad we waited for that. Apparently the number 200 is lucky in this paragraph, because there are reportedly more than 200 hours of play built into Skyrim.
"I'm not parking under that stone thing over there. I just had this horse washed."
- Enemies and gameplay: They’ve emptied out the mahogany treasure chest of fantasy tropes, mythical beasts and real-life predators for potential enemies (sabretooth cats, mammoths, ogres, giants, skeleton warriors and of course, dragons, just to name a handful). And you get to ride horses and hunt. Oblivion meets the lovechild of Red Dead and Dragon Age? Holy infant Jesus.
- A huge, beautifully rendered world: At E3, the game was presented to the world on the 360, and some wondered why – the graphics will shine a little more on a burly PC rig, for sure… right? After Bethesda responded by asserting their fear that gamers would feel let down after seeing such a display only to experience less on their consoles, I thought, “I’m totally getting this one for PC.” If you experienced the same sense of shit-your-pants awe that I did after seeing Oblivion for the first time and you haven’t watched any Skyrim trailers, check it out. Have a change of pants ready to go.
So I don’t know if it’ll be like the 7-year-old Christmas, or the 27-year-old Christmas, but if it’s the former, I’ll take Skyrim please. And some Ninja Turtle action figures.
(Dear God, I’ve turned into this guy)
-KO
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