And there I was. Greeted by the booming, epic theme that had been in my dreams for months. I had pushed start, created a new save data and my journey began. Soon the screen faded into black and I was on a carriage... soon the words SKYRIM appeared. I had realized that there were other people in the carriage with me. As they spoke, I realized I could not understand what they were saying, and thus opened the options in order to turn on subtitles. As I closed the options menu... I realized something. We were not moving... I could not look around and the music just kept going. The game had crashed....
This was my intro to Skyrim.
Now.. I am going to tell you the good things about this game. There are a lot of ways to play it, only limited by the players imagination. You can interact and do whatever you wish to do with the tools Bethesda has given you. And a free world to do as you like... Sounds good right?
Not if you are playing on the PS3...
Skyrim on the PS3 is a clunky, broken, frustrating, annoying, abomination of the game that I had so longed to play. This game that was supposed to let me run free, to let me do as I wish.. would only let me play it when ever it felt like.
However... I'm not surprised...
Why? Because when I saw that Bethesda logo on the box of my game... I was nervous. Would they repeat what happened with Fallout 3? What about New Vegas? I remember playing those games, but gave up due to the sheer amount of glitches and bugs present in all of them.
Yeah they repeated it alright. This game annoys me so much because it honestly always prevented me from doing the quests I wanted to do. The mages guild quest, was a real highlight for me because I wanted to learn new spells and improve on my overall casting abilities. But of course the Ai has to crash thus preventing me from proceeding anymore.
The "A night to remember quest" also was a highlight for me, and apparently a dragon killed someone vital to the quest, thus it would not trigger at all.
I mean... why?
Something I always wanted Bethesda to do was give the player the ability to restart a quest, rather than just reloading a save file. Especially when a variable in the games world is uncontrollable, the option to retry a quest is something that should be implemented.
However, the technical aspects are Skyrims greatest problem. This game is suppsoed to move at a smooth 30 FPS, however in reality it ranges between 28-1 FPS. Seriously, the game looks like a slideshow after I invested over 145 hours of play into the game.
And with this constant freezing a glitching, you see the problems with this game. You realize it is an over glorified fetch quest as almost all the time I am sent to a dungeon it is either to kill someone or retrieve an object... which still involves killing someone. Truth be told, the radiant mission structure they were promising is not at all that exciting. Honestly if these technical problems did not exist I would not have realized that almost all the quests in Skyrim require that I go to some dungeon or town, just to retrieve an object and bring it back to some one, or just go ahead and kill them.
Those incredible dragon fights we saw in those demos? They become repetitive and painful as this lag just acts to annoy me and act as hindrance. HAVE YOU TRIED TO FIGHT AN ANCIENT DRAGON AT 2-5 FPS? Its really makes you want to pull your hair out in frustration as fighting of enemies becomes extremely irritable with this lag.
But even without the lag, dragon fights become tedious and annoying, as the randomness of the encounters can become annoying as multiple dragons will appear at once, driving you to the breaking point of frustration and ruins the pacing of some of the quests. I am supposed to deliver some ingredients to a Khajit, and as I am doing this, I encounter 3 dragons in less than 10 minutes. If Bethesda had incorporated some pacing in between dragons, make them some rare event rather than have them constantly popping up the dragon fights
I still have not scratched the surface with the problems I have encountered with this game.
The guild quests all share the same story plot points, making none of them feel unique in plot, however the settings and characters are vastly different, the plot of these quests is very predictable
1) Start as rookie
2) Discover new power
3) Gain new power
4) Someone in the guild does something stupid or betrays you
5) Leader of guild is killed
6) Get revenge for the leader
7) Become leader of the guild
Honestly it comes down to it in all of the guild quests, except for the Civil War quest. But you know what... I do not want to complain about this game anymore... As I have to address the real issue.
Bethesda's development process.
I mean, why... why.. why.. why, do you keep doing this to PS3 gamers Bethesda? Why? Why is it that we always seem to be cheated out of a good game from you guys? I used to play Oblivion on my Pc and it was great, but I decided to pursue console gaming.
So why did PS3 gamers get the shaft Bethesda? I look at "professional reviews" and all these awards being given out to Skyrim... but whenever I play this game I don't see a GOTY.
I payed 60 dollars for Skyrim... so did my friend. Except he bought it for the 360. So you are telling me that even though he paid the same amount of cash for the same game, he got a better game than me.
And honestly... millions of dollars went into making this game, so why did you, in the multiples of testing you guys had done, not find any faults with this game? Nothing?
This game was and still to this day is unfinished. The myriad of problems just smash the illusion of a great game in front of my face.
And then there are the patches. This review is written with the current patch being 1.3. Some people will rush to Bethesda's defense and state "A game of this magnitude should be expected to have problems". Yeah... I expected problems, but not in a way that makes me want to throw my PS3 out of my house from sheer frustration and anger!
Think about it... Bethesda has released 3 patches to this day. However none of those patches have even acted against major problems. "Trouble with bookshelves and backwards flying dragons" What about the painful framerate. Also, how on earth does a patch make a game worse? Patch 1.2, made the game run even worse, and patch 1.3 was designed to fix 1.2.
YOU MADE A PATCH TO PATCH A PATCH?
How is this even possible? ?
I mean look at games like Mass Effect 2. It had a delayed PS3 release but it was just as strong as its 360 and Pc counterparts. Portal 2 was advertised that the PS3 version would be the best, however did the 360 and Pc get the shaft? No! It was an incredibly crafted game on all consoles.
Why not delay Skyrim? Why not take extra time to polish this game? Why were you so insistent of releasing this game on November 11th? This game was far from polished, why did you not fix it before you released it to the masses?
What annoys me even more is that Bethesda has not formally apologized for this. Look at PlatinumGames, PS3 users were outraged at the shoddy PS3 port of Bayonetta. Platinum not only accepted and apologized for their mistakes, but now have made the PS3 their lead platform. So why does Bethesda get this free pass? Why do we allow them to get away with this? Sure patch 1.4 has been promised, and it has been promised to fix the problems on the PS3, but can we even be sure.
Many people will rush to the aid of Bethesda stating "the sheer scope of the world is so immense, that we must except these problems". I say no. When we look at the 360 version of Skyrim, the problems are usually just glitches and occasional slow-downs that ruin the experience. However on the PS3, we get those multiplied by 100. Honestly their is a limit to what is possible and what is not. Bethesda crammed this game with so much stuff, but the problem is, what is the point of putting so much stuff in, when the game refuses to let you play any of it? Bethesda set out to make a "bigger" game. Why not better? Improve the content of the game, make each quest unique. Rather than have me go to a dungeon to retrieve an object, why not have me go rescue some one inside? Or even let me gather followers so we can capture the dungeon and set up a base of operations? Bethesda has quantity, but they need to improve on quality. When you look at Oblivion, the size of Cyrodill was not as large as in Skyrim, but the game could still be played. Bethesda had waited a year in order to release Oblivion on to the PS3, and their were not that many problems. So why have all this trouble with Skyrim. If you need more time for one version of the game, delay it and just let people wait. This 11.11.11 fiasco just made players on PS3 feel cheated, and now with patch 1.4 coming out. It makes me wonder, rather than having people suffer through what should have been a great game, delay it for the PS3, get everything to work right and then release it. If you need extra time take it! Don't just release it to the masses with all of these problems. I can not stress it enough, don't do a post release patch. TAKE EXTRA TIME TO MAKE SURE THE GAME IS FUN FOR EVERYONE!
But the damage has been done. On my friends list, everyone was playing Skyrim on 11.11.11. Thats around 50 people just playing that one game.
Today? No one. People have gone back to play games like Uncharted 3, Batman Arkham City, Deus Ex.
This was a game that was supposed to last you almost an infinite amount of playtime. It only lasted 2 months.
I can keep beating around the bush all I want but the facts are here. Skyrim on PS3 is an abomination of what should have been an incredible game. I have no doubt the 360 version is a true GOTY contender, rather than what I have been playing. If you are even the slightest bit interested with Skyrim I recommend getting the 360 version, and avoiding the PS3 version like the plague.
But it shocks me that members of the press, even with these pressing issues still award Skyrim with the "overall game of the year" and some even have the audacity to give it "PS3 game of the year".
Skyrim should have been an incredible game on all consoles. But no, I have become frustrated with Bethesda's refusal to change their ways, and are still being showered with praise.
This game is at its worst on PS3, and I expect Bethesda to repeat this trend time and time again.
This game is far from game of the year on PS3, it should be up for the greatest disappointment of the year, and I dare say it worst game of the year. No other game has frustrated me as much as Skyrim in my 20 years of playing video games.
Im just to annoyed and mad to continue anymore. I have vented out all my anger at this game during this review, and am just to exhausted.
Stay away from Skyrim on PS3 and perhaps all future Bethesda games on Ps3, I never want to undergo so much anger ever again.
Replaying Skyrim after 13 years is a reminder of the progress made in western RPGs over the last decade, but also what's been lost.
RPGs are often huge, sprawling endeavours. With limited playtime, we have to choose wisely, so here's the best western RPGs available today.
"I started playing games yesterday" the List... Meh!
How about a few RPGs that deserve some love instead?
1 - Alpha Protocol - Now on GOG
2 - else Heart.Break()
3 - Shadowrun Trilogy
4 - Wasteland 2
5 - UnderRail
6 - Tyranny
7 - Torment: Tides of Numenera
And for a bonus game that flew under the radar:
8 - Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
Not only glorious jank, but the idea that the story can completely change depending on what you do, or say, or side with, makes it one of the most forward thinking games ever. The amount of story permutation is the equivalent of a Hitman level but in Story Form. And it wasn't just that the story changed, no, it was that you met completely new characters, or missed them, depending on your choices. Made Mass Effect feel static in comparison.
Alpha Protocol was absolutely glorious, indeed. And it was, and still is, more Next Gen than most anything out there these days. In this regard at least.
Pity.
The freedom to explore large areas, approach objectives in multiple ways, and stumble across amusing distractions will always be an excellent format for video games, but some do it better than others. To celebrate the formula and parse the best from the best, have a look at the best open-world games of all time so far.
I would personally give it a 1 just because it is still (technically speaking)playable, but everything else I agree with you.
Honestly, if it was anyone else this crap would ruin their reputation and/or cause them severe financial problems. Which Bethesda deserves both big time.
@Bioshocking i'm currently 55 hours into the 360 version and it's tied with Uncharted 3 for my 2011 GOTY. would you have given it such a horrendous score if you had played it on 360?
ahh my bad. i missed that part. I haven't even watched any of the videos of the ps3 issues. didn't realize it was this bad
How can you give a fun factor of 1 and a gameplay of 10!?fun factor and gameplay are joint aspects wend reviewing,your scale is just wrong!
I played it on PS3, and apart from two crashes (30 hours in) and frame-rate when Dragon's appear, I haven't been having many issues. But the frame rate is average, it should be higher.
But I think the game itself is above average. It's mostly just a bunch of "go here and kill this" or "go here and fetch this" quests. It's already repetitive at 30 hours, whereas I played Oblivion and Fallout 3 for 87 and 126 hours and almost never got bored. It's not bad, but I was hoping for a bit more. DOTY IMO, PS3, 360 or PC.