For those of you who played both Skyrim and this.....

[isamu]

.....which did you personally enjoy more?

I just completed Skyrim a few days ago. I began playing Grimrock yesterday and I'm at dungeon floor level 5. I enjoyed the hell out of Skyrim and did all the sidequests as well. No doubt Skyrim is a massive game with a lot to offer and things to keep the player busy for moths. But.....for some oddball reason, I'm finding myself more addicted to Grimrock than I ever did for Skyrim.

Why is that?


Could it be the cold, dreaded stone walls that provide the atmosphere of that terrifying dungeon?

Could it be the immersion I find myself feeling, coupled with the subconsciousness of knowing my party is trapped deep into a dungeon with no way to escape?

Could it be the total lack of music, and haunting ambient sounds that permeate throughout my 5.1 surround sound speaker setup, and sends chills down my spine upon hearing the menacing footsteps of a ghost knight lurking right around the corner?

Or could it simply be because the first RPG I ever played was Dungeon Master back on the Amiga in 1989 as a 14yr old kid, and that experience stuck with me to the point that I've always yearned for a "next-gen" version of that game, and now finally have it?

Perhaps it's all of the above?

[Jirodyne]

I personally think it's the puzzles and secrets.

I don't like skyrim. Your running everywhere, killing everything, usually with 1 over powered hit from a fire spell. Skyrim doesn't have much secrets or... well... Really, anything fun at all. The 'big thing' About skyrim is that it's pretty, and there are dragons.... Other than that, it's just like Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Fallout NV.

This game however, it isn't about killing mostly. It's about solving puzzles, finding secrets, and having fun. Combat is just a side part to make it more challenging. What's more, the game is more simple, easy, and smaller.

In Skyrim, you can walk in a random direction, kill hundreds of enemies, and level up maybe once? What's more Skyrim very much limits how you make your character, with their system of you have to use it to increase it. Makes most of the useful skills, Sneak, Lockpicking, and speech very hard to level up with, since you can't just put points into it every lvl up like the older games.

Grimrock however, you can make your characters however you want when you level up, you level up faster, and most of the skills are useful. (Earth magic, Acrobatics, and Unarmed aren't.)

Grimrock just makes you feel more... better, when your stuck on a puzzle, thinking on how to do it and then figuring it out. While in skyrim.... You click a button, shoot a fireball, and all problems are solved...

[Kukulcan]

Why is that?

The answer might be simple, it is more "condensed".

The density of puzzles is so much higher, same might go for the character development (havent played Skyrim far enough). And even on a technical level, where Skyrim is impressive, down to a lighting/effects per pixel ratio, Grimrock looks better to me, as it doesn't need to take care of large view distances.

For me and some other older gamers this is probably an important factor. With job, wife and children the huge world of Skyrim might not be that attractive as for the young hardcore gamer who wants dozens or hundrets of hours of playtime out of every game. To me Skyrim is just too huge and barren. With the limited time I have to play I feel I can just scratch the surface and most time of that I travel around.

[Greco]

.....which did you personally enjoy more?

I just completed Skyrim a few days ago. I began playing Grimrock yesterday and I'm at dungeon floor level 5. I enjoyed the hell out of Skyrim and did all the sidequests as well. No doubt Skyrim is a massive game with a lot to offer and things to keep the player busy for moths. But.....for some oddball reason, I'm finding myself more addicted to Grimrock than I ever did for Skyrim.

Why is that?


Could it be the cold, dreaded stone walls that provide the atmosphere of that terrifying dungeon?

Could it be the immersion I find myself feeling, coupled with the subconsciousness of knowing my party is trapped deep into a dungeon with no way to escape?

Could it be the total lack of music, and haunting ambient sounds that permeate throughout my 5.1 surround sound speaker setup, and sends chills down my spine upon hearing the menacing footsteps of a ghost knight lurking right around the corner?

Or could it simply be because the first RPG I ever played was Dungeon Master back on the Amiga in 1989 as a 14yr old kid, and that experience stuck with me to the point that I've always yearned for a "next-gen" version of that game, and now finally have it?

Perhaps it's all of the above?

It is old school and this means this means it is better. It has puzzles, it is easy to navigate, it is easy to fight. It is addictive! What else you need to find it better?

[LiamKerrington]

Hi.

Haven't played Skyrim - yet. And did not even bother to play it anyway.
But I played its parent and grand-parent games: Morrowind and Oblivion.
Really nice - at what the graphical engine gives you. Really, and you may run around and around and around ...
But as much as you get lost in the many major and minor quests of those games, you also get lost in this world. I never really grabbed the purpose about why I should play these games longer then for just a few days, when the "amazing" graphics start to look all the same, the combat is resolved in very much the same all the time and in which you learn much about so many none-player-characters, which are there to add some life into the world.
No, Elder Scroll games did not catch me after all ... And that is actually the main reason why I decided to spare Skyrim, because I expect it to be not much different from Morrowing and Oblivion ... Yeah, I know, I am prejudiced ... But am I so wrong?

The last game before Grimrock I really finished playing was Never Winter Nights (the first game, not its expansions), and before that almost Baldur's Gate (only the first one). And not one of those games did to me, what Eye of the Beholder I and II did to me: ask for replay ...

But tbh: I don't exactly "know", why I so much like Grimrock ...

All the best!
Liam

[FreeBooteR69]

They are 2 completely different games and love both of them. Skyrim is much broader in scale than LoG, with a much larger world and more re-playability, but with the coming of the dungeon editor, this may tip the replay scale in favour of LoG. I think Almost Human can become a very successful company if they continue building on LoG.

I dunno what it is about games like LoG/EoB/DM, but they just grab my imagination and force me to dwelve deep into those dungeons and explore every nook and cranny.

[leewroy]

To make it short: I tried to play skyrim and gave up after few minutes. LoG I played few minutes and became addicted

[isamu]

Thanks for the replies guys. Great posts!

[goundalf]

I don't really think you can compare the two. Skyrim has a higher character development path than LoG and a much more immersive world.
But LoG challenges you to best yourself and think harder then just killing some random people with your gloves of fire .

[Greco]

Hi.

Haven't played Skyrim - yet. And did not even bother to play it anyway.

The last game before Grimrock I really finished playing was Never Winter Nights (the first game, not its expansions), and before that almost Baldur's Gate (only the first one). And not one of those games did to me, what Eye of the Beholder I and II did to me: ask for replay ...

But tbh: I don't exactly "know", why I so much like Grimrock ...

All the best!
Liam

Liam reading your writings seems like I was reading myself. The only exception, is that after neverwinter nights, I have played, quite recently and finished Dragon Age:Origins + I played also baldur 2. Though, the last game I remember to have played again, perhaps more than 2 times, is The eye of the Beholder trilogy (the last time I played it was over a decade after my previous play) and especially EOB II.
Grimrock woke up inside me the same old feeling, perhaps not so strong as Eye of the Beholder. You see I am quite old now and with two children, no much time to invest in gaming any more .