Skyrim for the Unwashed Console Masses

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Thought it would be nice to have a thread for the console folk who only get the vanilla version of the game. The world of Skyrim awaits.

I will be running a Redgaurd female specializing in magic, archery, and dual wielding enchanted blades. Her name is Skywalker. I like the idea of her being an ancient ancestor to the family of Jedi in the Star Wars universe. However, there are no metaclorians in this hybrid mythology. I prefered it when the force was some mystical power shrouded in mystery.

I finally settled on a Nord. It seemed dull but I usually end up being a fighter type and the idea of a hero fighting for his homeland was appealing. Now I just need to figure out if I want him to be a straight laced paladin type or more of a scoundrel (Han Solo type).

I am on the PS3 BTW and it looks very, very good. Load times are a bit long 10-20 seconds but I don't mind too much.

I'll say this up front in this thread since I have the advantage of having tried both games within a 2 hour period: the framerate on Xbox 360 in Skyrim is much, much, much better than on PS3. There is no comparison.

Maybe they'll patch the PS3 version (again), but if you have a choice today, go Xbox.

heavyfeul wrote:

I will be running a Redgaurd female specializing in magic, archery, and dual wielding enchanted blades. Her name is Skywalker. I like the idea of her being an ancient ancestor to the family of Jedi in the Star Wars universe. However, there are no metaclorians in this hybrid mythology. I prefered it when the force was some mystical power shrouded in mystery.

Impressive nerdage there, my friend!

I too am playing as a Redguard female, but I have yet to fuse any franchises. Ghostbusters, maybe.

Female nord warrior on the 360. Loving it so far.

spider_j wrote:

I too am playing as a Redguard female, but I have yet to fuse any franchises. Ghostbusters, maybe.

I have a Khajiit named LionO.

Hooooh!

I'm rolling with a balanced Imperial; I sneak around most dungeons, employ a mix of magic and sword/shield in combat, and stick mostly to light armor. It's great fun; I can bring a little bit of this or that to every situation, and have a freedom to approach a fight or some other encounter in multiple ways - I can take a dragon out with dual-fisted lightning or just go sword and shield like a boss.

So did I totally miss the part where you get to customize my character's appearance?

Tagging in. Received the game s an unexpected gift from a great friend today... Totally unexpected, but loving it all the same.

spider_j wrote:
heavyfeul wrote:

I will be running a Redgaurd female specializing in magic, archery, and dual wielding enchanted blades. Her name is Skywalker. I like the idea of her being an ancient ancestor to the family of Jedi in the Star Wars universe. However, there are no metaclorians in this hybrid mythology. I prefered it when the force was some mystical power shrouded in mystery.

Impressive nerdage there, my friend!

I too am playing as a Redguard female, but I have yet to fuse any franchises. Ghostbusters, maybe.

A thief character with a penchant for alto wine and the ladies...Peter Venkman; A.K.A. Bill f*cking Murray

Can;t we just use the main thread? Yes, there will be control and graphics differences, but until the mods hit, we're all playing the same game.

Eh I dunno, it seems one size fits all threads just don't work well anymore. Whether its Rage or Battlefield of Skyrim, so many PC players talk about things specific to that platform, and this seems the case on all the forums I visit. And this is why I increasingly just buy games for my 360 even though my PC could handle them competently if not top end - simplicity and focus on the gameplay experience.

Anyway my first character is a Redguard hard old dude who is going to try and balance magic with 1hand skills, with a minimum of thievery cause that's just not how he rolls. I plan on making a creepy lizard dude at some point to be a sneaky immoral bastard.

In that vein...

What intrigues me most about the new game is the Shouts. I have a feeling most of my time will be spent seeking out the ancient phrases and the dragon souls needed to unlock them.

D_Davis wrote:

So did I totally miss the part where you get to customize my character's appearance?

When you get off the cart on the screen where you get to select your race there are options for body, face, hair and basically everything else. I can't tell you exactly how it works (I'm one of the PC master race and just slumming it in the console thread; for me it was a row across the top of the screen that I just selected with the mouse) but it's there.

So, what do you guys think of this as a console experience? This is the first Elder Scrolls game I've played exclusively on a console (Morrowind I played on both platforms, oblivion was PC-only), and any hesitation I had about doing so was gone within the first few hours. It took me a little bit to really get a handle on the controls, and longer still to really feel comfortable with the combat/weapons swapping. I can now almost aim as accurately with the thumb stick as I can with a mouse (sorry, Lydia; that double-fisted lightning bolt was totally not meant to hit you).

Overall, SO glad I went with the console version.

I'm beginning to resent our unwashed reputation as console players. I shower on the regs, you guys. Sometimes two, three days in a row!

Also, glad to hear it's better on the 360, was eying it for PS3. Will get it for the brick instead. Thanks for the heads up.

I for one don't miss our old PC overlords. Their sad devotion to their ancient religon doesn't really affect my enjoyment one way or another. I don't have time to be pissing around with mods, even if my PC wasn't 4 years old, and middle of the range when I built it.

I'm a Khajiit assassin. Muddling around at level 6 at the moment. I haven't brought the stone back to Whiterun yet, I'm going on a tour walking/sneaking to each hold capital and picking up fast travel points.

I really liked how distinct each city was in Oblivion, and I was worried that Skyrim would be all Rohan all the time, but they each have their own character.

Anyone gone in the creepy abandoned house in Markareth (sp?) yet? That was pretty weird.

Nicholaas wrote:

So, what do you guys think of this as a console experience?

I wish it ran at 1080p natively and used high resolution textures, but the art and sound design are phenomenal. The presentation definitely draws you in.

I think that long-form RPGs are sofa games rather than office chair games, and I would rather play it on an underpowered console on my telly than any ninja grunty PC in the study. If you have an uber PC connected to your TV with a 360 controller, I imagine you're getting the best of both worlds. However, at no point with any Bethesda game have I felt that I'm playing a compromised or gimped version. They're really well tuned for the console.

I'm really enjoying the game so far as a Wood Elf focusing on being a stealth archer. I recently unlocked the stealth skill that changes the sneak attack bonus for archery attacks from 2x to 3x, and it is great. After playing a straight melee character through 100+ hours of Oblivion plus Shivering Isles, switching to a stealth character has been quite an interesting change.

My only concern at this point is that I will hit a spot in the game where I won't be able to sneak in and get a one or two shot kill and be screwed as my other combat abilities are horrible right now. I think to prevent myself from becoming stuck against larger enemies in the future I am going to try to focus on alchemy and poisons this game in order to buff my arrows. I'm looking forward to trying that out as alchemy is something I avoided in the previous game as well.

I am also interested in how much the game seems to be tailoring itself to my play style of sneaking and sniping for first double and now triple damage. For instance, in the first major story event in Whiterun when the Jarl enlists your aid and gives you an item to help in the fight did everyone receive an item that improved archery or is the item given dependent on your combat method of choice? I ask because it seems that the city guards all seem very cognizant that I am an archer and spout random blurbs such as, "You look handy with a bow, I prefer cold steel myself."

For others that have moved into the archery path, were you as disappointed with the zoom in to aim skill as I was? It seemed pretty underwhelming and doesn't really seem to zoom much at all. Does it become more useful when you also have the "time slows when zoomed perk?"

D_Davis wrote:

So did I totally miss the part where you get to customize my character's appearance?

Yes. At the time that you pick your race, you're supposed to use the bumper buttons to go to alternative menus. I had to stare at the screen for a while to figure it out - the UI design is sort of tragic.

So, have they ditched repairing your armor and weapons?

Loving the game, btw. I'm a magic-focused High Elf, and right now I'm playing through the College of Magic stuff. Feels great to be back in the Elder Scrolls world again.

Playing on the 360 because my wife wanted to be able to watch the game on the living room TV and because it really does work better as a 'sofa' game.

Still, the whole experience works as a massive rebuke to the Elysium's contention that we don't need a new console generation. The game has great art direction and looks like it is pushing the hardware about as far as it can go, but I'm constantly reminded of how much better it could look if it had been designed for half modern hardware. And, this complaint isn't just about wanting to look at pretty graphics. Wandering through the dungeons, I find myself bumping around in the dark, fighting to make sense of the ragged chunky polygons hidden in the high-contrast lighting. Higher polycounts and better lighting - enabled by more memory and more computational horsepower - would really enhance the overall gameplay experience.

peterb wrote:
D_Davis wrote:

So did I totally miss the part where you get to customize my character's appearance?

Yes. At the time that you pick your race, you're supposed to use the bumper buttons to go to alternative menus. I had to stare at the screen for a while to figure it out - the UI design is sort of tragic.

AH. Yes, it really is. There should be ways to sort items, too. Kind of a huge misstep on Bethesda's part. The Favorites menu should be sortable. As it is now, it's just a long list of stuff. Totally not useful.

I am a little disappointed with the PS3 version. The graphics and textures mostly, had a couple lockups too. Horses with their mane and tails not even attached ( you can see in between the horse and hair ), My shadow looks like I am having convulsions, When you look at building tops in the sky when you are moving it looks choppy like Im getting 15-20 fps. Game play is fun except for when you kill a chicken in the town and now the towns people are out to get me. My new PC will be here monday or tuesday so I will pick it up and compare the two.

Here's a question; I've never played any Elder scrolls game for any extended period of time. I dabbled briefly with Morrowwind on the original xbox. I'm thinking of getting in with Skyrim cause it looks amazing and what not. Do I need to play any of the older games like Morrowind or Oblivion to be up to speed in the story? IF I have the time, would I be served well to start with Oblivion now? Or is Skyrim so much better?

I am also interested in how much the game seems to be tailoring itself to my play style of sneaking and sniping for first double and now triple damage. For instance, in the first major story event in Whiterun when the Jarl enlists your aid and gives you an item to help in the fight did everyone receive an item that improved archery or is the item given dependent on your combat method of choice? I ask because it seems that the city guards all seem very cognizant that I am an archer and spout random blurbs such as, "You look handy with a bow, I prefer cold steel myself."

Good point I received a 1h axe and I'm a 1h specialist so it seems the game knows!

Benticore wrote:

Here's a question; I've never played any Elder scrolls game for any extended period of time. I dabbled briefly with Morrowwind on the original xbox. I'm thinking of getting in with Skyrim cause it looks amazing and what not. Do I need to play any of the older games like Morrowind or Oblivion to be up to speed in the story? IF I have the time, would I be served well to start with Oblivion now? Or is Skyrim so much better?

You don't need to be familiar with the other games to enjoy Skyrim. There are some references to the past games, but nothing that is integral to the story. I thoroughly enjoyed Oblivion on both PC and 360 when it came out. I picked it up for about a week in anticipation of Skyrim and I'm definitely enjoying Skyrim more. Just pick up Skyrim and jump into it.

I'm level 11-ish right now and my biggest complaint is not being able to tell from a distance if I'm aiming my bow at a friend, foe, or neutral. In one fort I shot what seemed to be a housekeeper because I thought I saw a blade on her belt. It turned out she was unarmed. I wish you could see the name of things when they were within striking range, or at least have the crosshairs change colors when you were aiming at an enemy (something that would attack you on sight).

Benticore wrote:

Here's a question; I've never played any Elder scrolls game for any extended period of time. I dabbled briefly with Morrowwind on the original xbox. I'm thinking of getting in with Skyrim cause it looks amazing and what not. Do I need to play any of the older games like Morrowind or Oblivion to be up to speed in the story? IF I have the time, would I be served well to start with Oblivion now? Or is Skyrim so much better?

Well, if you want to go back to an earlier game I would say go with Morrowind; I think it was a better game than Oblivion.

As for background, you really don't need it. Skyrim is set some time after the events of Oblivion (Apparently 200 years later!) so the events of all of the earlier games are pretty much just history now. In fact, a few things have confused me (wait... when did the Empire get invaded?) so you may almost be better of without the earlier history.

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