Killzone: Mercenary shoots onto Vita on September 10
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Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault defending Vita next week
Game & Wario was originally going to be pre-installed on Wii U
The Last of Us digital download lets you start playing sooner
Best of 2011 Runner-Up: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
by Shack Staff, Jan 17, 2012 12:00pm PSTAll things considered, it's not really too much of a surprise that the fifth chapter in developer Bethesda's long-running series of sword-and-sorcery has garnered a comfortable position as Shacknews' fourth best game of the 2011. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim once again transports players back to the sprawling land of Tamriel, thrusting them into one of the series' most compelling main storylines to date, set in the beautiful snow-capped landscapes of the world's titular northern region. Few games sucked up as many of our precious gaming hours this year, thanks largely to sandbox design sensibilities and a vast amount of compelling content.
Refinements like a perk-enhanced progression system and grandiose additions such as countless dragons to slay, supplement a rich world filled with seemingly countless optional narratives to explore. We love Skyrim because it's one of those rare games that really lets players choose their own adventure. Thanks to its size and scope, Skyrim is still one of our favorite games to tell stories about (preferably around a fire over some mead and legs of mutton.)
All of this praise comes with a few caveats, however. Skyrim might have made it up higher on our list, had it not been for the different bugs, crashes, and some platform-specific performance issues that gamers experienced (and in some cases, are still experiencing) since the game launched. To put it another way: If you're a PlayStation 3-only gamer, we completely understand if you don't think Skyrim is one of the best games of 2012.
The Shacknews 2011 Game of the Year awards are based on a weighted scoring system between all staff writers and editors [here's how it works!]. Last week we revealed our "Honorable Mentions," which include the titles that did not quite make our overall 'Top Five Games of the Year.' This week we reveal that Top Five list, with our Overall Game of the Year award being announced on January 20.
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This week Shacknews finally reveals its top five games of 2011. We continue today with the fourth best game, as voted by the editors and staff writers: Bethesda's Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
This week Shacknews finally reveals its top five games of 2011. We continue today with the fourth best game, as voted by the editors and staff writers: Bethesda's Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. : Shacknews
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Examples:
How certain things do not scale at all, making them utterly useless. Best example of this are the weapon specific perks like Hack and Slash. Each one allows you to dump up to 3 perk points into them, but because they don't scale, they literally do absolutely nothing by mid-level -- especially on the harder skill levels.
NPC's have no skills, so they gain little to no benefit from wearing armor, so the mace skill for bypassing armor is useless as well.
Other things that are broken due to lack of scaling: Werewolf form (so increasingly underpowered as you level that it is never worth invoking), Destruction magic (or so I've read), the entire armor system, etc.
To elaborate on my mention of the armor system, there is a hard cap on total armor rating (~560ish iirc). Making daedric armor serves no purpose other than aesthetics once you get your smithing skill high enough.
Because the game doesn't rely much of this information to the player, it is nearly impossible to avoid these mistakes without reading wikis. I went on a wiki to try and figure out why hack and slash seemed to have zero effect on enemies.
I think many of my complaints actually spring from a common thread: anything above normal skill level was not taken into consideration for scaling and balancing. The issues definitely go beyond that though.
Way too many of the available perks and spells are pretty much just useless filler with next to no actual benefit. Also I don't understand why the game doesn't let you know which books are skill books, and what skill they will infer by reading them. Gaining a level in a skill I will never use seems counter-intuitive to the whole leveling process.
The forums and wikis are pretty rife with analysis about what is useless and could be improved, and not just random armchair designer theorycrafting, but actual good input based on things that have been found to do literally zero damage, or don't infer any benefit.
Skyrim is a titanic leap over Oblivion in every way imo. I hope Bethesda takes criticisms like this to heart and puts some serious focus on each core gameplay system to make the next Elderscrolls even better.
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