@BearSpark said:

I want a game which will last an age, I just didn't see Skyrim fitting into that.

Huh, first time I heard somebody say that about Skyrim.

But yes sure, plenty of games.

Binary Domain, I thought the demo was terrible. I played it recently and absolutely loved it, it would have influenced by thoughts on 2012 as well.

Max Payne 2 the PC version god I played the ps2 version and it was a mess but when I finally got the PC version man felt like a completely different game one of my favorites of all time.

a few hours != skyrim. how did you EVER get that idea..?

You expected an elders scrolls game to be short?

I am so confused right now.

But what gave you that false impression about Skyrim? What made you think it was short or whatever you had against it?

@TheHumanDove said:

You expected an elders scrolls game to be short?

I am so confused right now.

Get in to Skyrim, kill a few dragons, then get out. Simple, right?

I was ready to completely ignore Red Dead Redemption before it came out because I really didn't like westerns. I got it anyway and it became one of my favorite games this generation and I've come to enjoy westerns because of it.

I'm also confused as to how you got the impression that Skyrim was going to be a short game. Anytime anyone talks about they always talk about how they've lost hours to it.

@OfficeGamer said:

But what gave you that false impression about Skyrim? What made you think it was short or whatever you had against it?

it was the cocaine. i hear its a helluva drug

XCOM. I fought with myself about preordering it. I bought it 2 days after it came out and regret ever doubting it. It's superb.

I've learned that usually a lot of things we dislike/hold off on buying/seeing/reading for often silly reasons turn out to be quite amazing.

@BearSpark: Ironically enough with your avatar pic, I never even considered playing and enjoying Battlefield 3. I'm not exactly a fan of competitive FPSs other than the original Unreal Tournament back in the day. One of my coworkers were giving away games he never played anymore by doing a drawing numbers out of a hat thing and I got BF3. I knew my cousin and his friend were playing it a lot at the time, so I popped it in and found myself having a blast.

Meh, I think it's probably the worst of the 3 newest Elder Scrolls. It has superb setting and atmosphere (when talking in terms of graphics and envirnoments) but the story, combat, and skill systems are way too linear and classes are useless.

If you can forgive the stiffness of it, I suggest playing Morrowind. The story is fantastic and the world is just so varied, with an amazing stat system.

@xyzygy: I always jimmy up some mods when I play Morrowind, because the default leveling system in that game is dumb as hell.

I forgot to try out Skywind, moroblivion was kind of cool but now I am interested in skywind

Off to sort that out right now.

Recently got kingdoms of amalur. Still not a fan of the way it looks but the combat sure is fun!

Through some coupon magic and clever use of discount points, I paid literally €20 at launch for Skyrim and, so far, it's been my most played game on Steam: 167. That's €0.12 per game hour. That's a hell of a deal if you ask me.

@xyzygy said:

If you can forgive the stiffness of it, I suggest playing Morrowind. The story is fantastic and the world is just so varied, with an amazing stat system.

If only the combat wasn't so terrible... Morrowind has become completely unplayable for me. Granted, neither Oblivion nor Skyrim have the most complex and precise combat systems ever, but at least you can hit something once in a while. Combat in Morrowind is downright broken.

Guys, I don't think he meant that the game itself would be short, but that he wouldn't enjoy it and therefore not last long for him. Am I correct on that assessment? Anyways, congrats! I was wrong about Skyrim on many things.

@JoeyRavn said:

Combat in Morrowind is downright broken.

I don't think you know what "broken" means.

It's punishing, sure. But it works. It just approaches low-level skills from a different perspective than Oblivion and Skyrim do. Steal some junk, sell that shit, use that gold to pay trainers. Suddenly you're off to the races.

I'm sure Skyrim forgives you

It's a cross between Dark Souls and Bayonetta. I put off buying those games until they became cheap. Man.

@xyzygy said:

Meh, I think it's probably the worst of the 3 newest Elder Scrolls.

Ho man, I have never heard anyone even think of placing Oblivion above any other Elder Scrolls game before. Even Daggerfall aged better than that. Fun at the time, but after awhile just so many problems emerged that Skyrim fixed. Even if Skyrim was simpler with the hard RPG-stat stuff, it was so much better executed than Oblivion in every conceivable way.

Windwaker. Dismissed it when it came out then a friend got me to try and it became my favorite Zelda.

So, so many, but keeping it recent: Bayonetta.

Also, Red Dead Redemption. I figured I wouldn't be able to enjoy it because I hate Westerns. Little did I know, I wasn't able to enjoy it because I *really* hate Westerns. What a tweest!

I recently had an experience like that with the Maximo games for the PS2. Always been a huge fan of the Ghosts n Goblins series, but somehow never realized the Maximo games were part of the same universe, or however it's put (they seemed pretty much like proper 3D updates to me, but whatever). My dude asked me if I'd ever played the "3D Ghosts n Goblins games," to which I laughed heartily and informed him that he was mistaken, and there were no such games, at which he parried said laugh and informed me that it was I who was mistaken. Being the smug, opinionated bastard that I am, I went to the computer to prove him wrong, only to learn that I'm an idiot, and 2 quite awesome, quite real 3D Ghosts n Goblins games have been hiding under my nose for years. But I did not have the wits to see it :)

I'm glad you've come around on Skyrim. It's so... dense and absurd and fun. It's like a mad mannequin land crowded with lore and magic cubbyholes, yet feels alive and expansive.

My example would be Fallout New Vegas. I loved Fallout 3, but the change in scenery and theme turned me off. I was completely wrong. New Vegas blows 3 out of the water, IMHO. and 3 was GREAT. I only purchased it a few months ago, and I really don't know what the hell I was thinking when I determined it wasn't for me.

i actually got bored after about 10 hours.

All the time.

• Dark Souls
• Fez
• Bastion
• Limbo
• Halo 4
• Mass Effect
• Far Cry 3
• Arkham City
• Tales of Vesperia
• Morrowind
• Borderlands

And on, and on, and on.

The game is pretty good. But with mods like SkyRe and Frostfall, it's a masterpiece. I put 600 hours in the damned game and as much as I regret every minute of it (those hours could've been used to develop desired skills in reality), I can much agree that Skyrim is a worthwhile game.

I've put around 210 hours into Skyrim so I've had a lot of time to learn the ins and outs of the game. As much as I enjoyed Skyrim, I would have preferred a game with more substance in terms of game mechanics. There's certainly some truth to how people have slammed the game for being "casualized". The skill trees are paper thin and there really isn't much variation into how one approaches the challenges that the game presents to you. The writing and voice acting is fairly run of the mill material, and the main story is very boring and lacks any sense of presentation or suspense.

That being said Skyrim does a great job at creating a fascinating, immensely detailed world for the player to go out and explore with plenty of interesting characters and events to discover. Overall Skyrim is a excellent action / adventure game, but a mediocre RPG.

Not really. I tend to go the other route and just buy it and then be disappointed. Either way I try to do the most research on a game to see if I will like it. Also I play literally every demo I can get my hands on even if I do not care about the final game.

I dunno. The honeymoon was over after at about the 100 hour mark. Definitely got my money's worth but it's no New Vegas in terms of keeping me wanting more.

Sleeping Dogs, for some reason I held off on that game until 2 months ago and it was a blast.

Batman Arkham Asylum. Didn't think it would be that good.

On the flip side, bought Gears of War 2 thinking hell yeah this could be great. I ended up giving it away for free I hated it so much.

@jozzy said:

Recently got kingdoms of amalur. Still not a fan of the way it looks but the combat sure is fun!

I just played that game and relistened to the bombcasts where jeff and others discussed it and they were dead on about everything. Played about 60 hours, then was like okay I've seen about enough. That 'enough' was fun as fuck though I thought. As a former WoW player as well as Oblivion (not so much Skyrim) lover, that game was like the perfect mashup of the two, and no other people bugging the shit out of me. What I liked about it is that it had an MMO style crafting system of disenchanting armor to get the mats/enchants to craft new gear but you could just hard save before salvaging mats to keep reloading and salvaging til you got what mats you wanted. It was fun 1 shotting everything from afar with a bow towards the end of the game because I did like 80% bonus damage against lightly wounded targets.

On Skyrim, I put 80 hours into that game, but I don't know how. All I remember was that I constantly felt the constant pangs of boredom that I had to fight through. The combat is criminally behind everything else they did in that game. There was only so many times I could fight dwarven spider constructs before throwing my hands up. My brother once said he wished he had a drug that allowed him to erase his memory so he could experience that first wonder-filled playthrough of Oblivion again. The truth I got out of this is that the way Bethesda is making these games, I only got that magical feeling from an Elder Scrolls game once, i.e. wanting to explore every nook and cranny, after that I see all the seams and grasp all the systems and that persisted onto Skyrim which for me was just a prettier Oblivion with a slower interface and less flexibility in sorting my inventory.

                    Guys, I don't think he meant that the game itself would be short, but that he wouldn't enjoy it and therefore not last long for him. Am I correct on that assessment?

Anyways, congrats! I was wrong about Skyrim on many things.

                   

               

When Psychonaughts came out I passed it off, thinking it was a kids game. Finally played it a couple years ago and found it to be a truly fantastic game, I really wish I would have played it all those years ago.

For ages I was looking for something to play during a drought of 360 releases, and finally decided to pick up a copy of Okami even though it kind of looked like a gimmicky Zelda knock-off. God was I wrong, now it's one of the best games I've ever played. I can't wait to dive back into the HD PSN release when I have the time.

@HistoryInRust said:

@JoeyRavn said:

Combat in Morrowind is downright broken.

I don't think you know what "broken" means.

It's punishing, sure. But it works. It just approaches low-level skills from a different perspective than Oblivion and Skyrim do. Steal some junk, sell that shit, use that gold to pay trainers. Suddenly you're off to the races.

Drop the attitude. I know perfectly well what broken means, and the combat in Morrowind fits the bill. Combat in The Witcher 2 can be punishing. Combat in Ninja Gaiden Black is punishing. The combat in Dark Souls is punishing. If you do exactly what you need to do, you'll win the fight. If you make a mistake, the game will punish you. Severely, in fact. There is a finesse associated with those games that Morrowind's definitely lacks. Morrowind's is a roll-based combat system disguised as real-time combat, which makes it extremely unintuitive and frustrating. If you have to tweak the hell out of your skills to be able to even land a hit consistently, something is definitely not right with your combat system.

God if anything Skyrim's ridiculous amount of content is what threw me off, especially since i put about 400 hours into Morrowind + expansions (i did everything...EVERYTHING) and another 150 into Oblivion even with the technological advances it's the same stuff. My completionist streak caused me to not even finish oblivion because i wanted to close all the main gates before the final quest - which never happened. (i had like 5 left?)

I played about 70 hours of Skyrim when it came out and then just sort of hit a wall. I just picked it up again last week after about a year or so (after watching the quicklook of the new expansion and seeing the Morrowind setting!) i've found some renewed love for it again. It really is an amazing game, they have put such painstaking effort into the detail and scripting of the main quests.

@JoeyRavn said:

If only the combat wasn't so terrible... Morrowind has become completely unplayable for me. Granted, neither Oblivion nor Skyrim have the most complex and precise combat systems ever, but at least you can hit something once in a while. Combat in Morrowind is downright broken.

It's probably worth realising that game is like 10 years old. Pick up any first person game from that era and you will probably realise that it also plays like ass by todays standards.

I tried to pickup deus ex a few years ago since i missed it the first time round. I've tried a few times but there's no way i can get past how dated it is.

@MikkaQ said:

@xyzygy said:

Meh, I think it's probably the worst of the 3 newest Elder Scrolls.

Ho man, I have never heard anyone even think of placing Oblivion above any other Elder Scrolls game before. Even Daggerfall aged better than that. Fun at the time, but after awhile just so many problems emerged that Skyrim fixed. Even if Skyrim was simpler with the hard RPG-stat stuff, it was so much better executed than Oblivion in every conceivable way.

I....prefer Oblivion *shameface* In fact about a week back I found myself hankering for some ES and started up Skyrim. 30 minutes later I quit out of boredom (loved the game when it came out but haven't really rediscovered that "spark" yet) and, just as a matter of curiosity, booted up Oblivion; I then proceeded to not shut it down until 6 hours later. I don't know what it is, maybe it's just that the setting connected with me better, or that I prefer a lot of the writing in that game, but whatever it is, I know that it's the game I'll go to if I want me some Elder Scrolls-ing

EDIT: I went in and rewrote this entire post. But the "attitude" remains, if you're curious.

@JoeyRavn said:

Drop the attitude.

Oh, man. Sorry. No idea I was talking to an internet tough guy. I'll definitely backpedal my stance now.

Actually. Naw.

@JoeyRavn said:

Combat in The Witcher 2 can be punishing. Combat in Ninja Gaiden Black is punishing. The combat in Dark Souls is punishing.

The fallacy here is in comparing Morrowind to games of different eras of game design (Witcher 2, Dark Souls) or to different genres entirely (Ninja Gaiden Black). Simply put, the games don't share the same sort of thesis, the same thrust of intent with their systems.

@JoeyRavn said:

Morrowind's is a roll-based combat system disguised as real-time combat, which makes it extremely unintuitive and frustrating. If you have to tweak the hell out of your skills to be able to even land a hit consistently, something is definitely not right with your combat system.

Obviously the judgment of whether a system is intuitive or not deeply reflects the experience of the individual user. Which is fine. A lot of people weren't into Morrowind's combat. But it's still conjecture. I'm not here arguing that it's a good combat system. I'm not even here defending it as though I think combat is one of the reasons Morrowind is so widely revered. That's delusional. But calling it "broken" is a study in hyperbolic hysterics. It's not only functional, but entirely effective. I'm assuming you haven't actually slogged through Morrowind, which is totally understandable if your tastes lean toward more modern systems of play, but the player character becomes a demigod by the end, so powerful there isn't a being in the world who can stand up to you. That's closer to being broken. But by that point you've already logged a hundred hours into the game and so it's a veritable reward for your investment, rather than a mechanic that unbalances the status quo.

But, eh. I don't think I'll convince you of anything. Not that I need to. Morrowind isn't your game. But it isn't broken. People use "broken" anymore to try and justify not liking something because it doesn't fit into their parameters of what "should" and "shouldn't" be. And that's a narrow, obtuse way of reckoning with things. Instead of taking your internal barometer and assuming its objectivity, you should look at the details of the game you have in front of you and ask "Why?" before dismissing it outright.

But, hold on. I need to quote one last thing:

@JoeyRavn said:

Drop the attitude.

The idea this was supposed to have any discernable effect on my disposition toward you fucking cracks me up.