xdeath wrote:
I wouldn't call it an unbalanced mess either. I understand that it may not be your "cup of tea", but that doesn't make it "junk".
I was fine with the first 3 ES games, and
sorely disappointed in the last two... Oblivion and Skyrim would be my cup of tea just like the other 3, had they not been disappointing. Morrowind is one of my favorite games ever at this point.
Skyrim though... fehhh, it's like pouring salt on a wound. I maxed out blacksmithing through gooned up mechanics in ~5-10 minutes and was saddened to see that many others found this out too. I also found that enchanting and magic in general allow you to make yourself practically unstoppable as well. While dual wielding spells, you feel a bit like Rambo. At one point I ended up regenerating mana faster than I spent it, so I could just hold the buttons down and lay waste to everything around me while spinning in circles.
Hell, you can even stand there and punch that guy at the start and max out your unarmed fighting. I was also able to kill a bear barehanded (hah) faster than with a sword. I don't know many people that can punch a bear out in 3 punches.
There were a lot of little things like this that I picked up on as I played that made me really not like the setup. OH, and lets not leave out dropping pots on peoples heads so you can steal everything. It all just feels cheap. I feel that if they had put as much effort into catching and tweaking those things as they did with their overblown Gamestop theatric commercials, the game would have felt a lot cleaner. When a game is hyped as much as Skyrim was, and you find all kinds of nonsense like I've mentioned in the game... it sort of blows. I guarantee the modding community will fix the game up, just like they did with Oblivion.
and, I'd barely call the mechanics incredibly deep. They're pretty shallow, cut/dry, and can end up being min-maxed by middle schoolers.
I blame Morrowind. The game was so fun, and had such an interesting mess of nonsense you could discover. It's like they peaked at Morrowind and have not been able to match it yet. Their next one should be better, I bet. It's like Morrowind was a 10, Oblivion was like, a 5. and Skyrim shot back up to around 7.5/8. So, bring on the next one!
Also, Bethesda isn't a Big Timer publisher, those are Ubisoft, EA, and Activision.
I dunno man, with all of the games they've put out recently, and all of the press, along with Skyrim being rated game of the year... I'd say they're a pretty much a big-time publisher now..
Anyway, tangent aside, my point about bringing up Skyrim is that so far, IMHO, Grimrock has a more interesting plot, and more feels more adventurous than Skyrim. Like, if I had Grimrock and Skyrim on a shelf at the store, both for 59.99$, I'd grab Grimrock first.