Why Skyrim Didn't Win my Game of the Year: An Excercise in Nitpicking

A little over a week ago we wrote our game of the year articles. Based on all the awards Skyrim has gotten, it might have stood to reason that all of us would give Skyrim the same honors or at least mention it. I didn't. Not because I don't like the game. I like it. Love it in fact. I've poured about 300 hours into it. I just want to vent about my issues with it, and to give a differing opinion that contrasts the 10/10 we gave it. Also, there might be some spoilers. You have been warned.


THE SITUATION NEVER SEEMS DIRE ENOUGH!

Alduin is a world eater. He will (I guess literally?) eat your world. But, he never really DOES much. Sure, he resurrects the dragons, but they had a presence of their own. This is one of the few, but not only, step downs from Oblivion. The only times you see him early in the main quest are fleeting, and the only other times he shows up you either watch him get his ass kicked or you do it yourself. I know you never see Dagon throughout much of the game, but he still always felt present. And when you saw him at the end of the game it made things feel all the more hopeless. The Oblivion crises was always present and dangerous. Hell, at the beginning of the game the Emperor is murdered and you soon find out that a whole town has been sacked. Right from the start you see what Mehrunes Dagon is capable of. With Alduin you kind of just get told. Sure, he see him resurrect a dragon and eat some souls, I guess, but you also spend most the game devouring souls yourself. You never see him do any real world eating. With the Oblivion crises, almost everyone talks about how worried they are about the Daedra invasion. In Skyrim, some people still talk about the "rumors" of the Dragons returning. It just feels like less is at stake, even though this isn't the case. I'm not defending how tedious it was to go into every city oblivion gate, but you can't deny the coolness of going to what was essentially hell itself and kicking ass.  Killing Alduin in Sovngarde IS cool, but Dagon invades the Imperial City for Christ's sakes. And speaking of cities.

I'll devour you! Or something... I guess. Meeeeeh.

SOLITUDE WASN'T AS COOL AS THE IMPERIAL CITY!

This one is, admittedly, a bit of a stretch. Both have their merits. I mean, Solitude sits on a giant natural arch. That's pretty awesome. And as a whole, the cities in Skyrim were better than the one's in Oblivion, but if Solitude was going to be the main Imperial presence I wanted something on par with the Imperial City. I know that the Imperial City, or at least the tower, as there before the current empire so this might not make complete sense, but it had actual districts. It was huge! I wanted another city like that in Skyrim and I didn't get that. I used Solitude for the comparison, because I felt it got the closest and it has the best homes, but it didn't feel as expansive.

See! There were districts! It was awesome!

PEOPLE DON'T RECOGNIZE HOW AWESOME I AM!

This is kind of a problem with the series in general, but more-so here. My accomplishments don't resonate with anyone. When I became the leader of the Companions, I still had guards laugh at me over how I'm the new member of the Companions and I probably fetch their mead. People who see me destroy a dragon and absorb its soul only acknowledge it immediately and them seem to forget. The best example took place after I joined the Imperial Army and defeated the Stormcloaks. By the end of the quest-line I was promoted to a rather high rank in the army, but it didn't mean squat. Imperial troops still talked down to me and treated me like some common rabble. Being the Dragonborn aside, I outrank them! What's the point of being promoted if no respect comes with it. It irked me to no end.

And why do these assholes keep asking about fur in my ears? Is this a reference to being a werewolf? I CURED THAT! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!? WHAT DOES IT MEAN! TELL ME! TELL MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

 WHERE IS MY JOURNAL?!

I loved my journal in Oblivion. If I forgot the point or progress of my mission I could just go read it. Now you just get a few sentences about the overall mission a mission marker for the current goal.

RIP Elder Scrolls journal :-(

THE FUCKING GLITCHES!

This is the big one. The granddaddy of all problems. Yes, all games have glitches. The bigger the game, the more there will be. But some of the ones in Skyrim are absolutely unacceptable. I've seen glitches in big games before. Some of them are odd; some of them are funny. But in a AAA title like this one quest breaking glitches are inexcusable. When millions of gamers can't complete a quest because it doesn't activate correctly you've made a huge mistake. In my case, I can't finish the murder quest in Windhelm. Hell, some of the puzzle pillars in a ruin won't activate and I can't finish the quest to get the drum for the bards college. Then there's just general problems that have since been patched, but even those have no right to exist. Dragons not attacking, souls not absorbing; basic factors of the game didn't work and even AFTER the patch I'm still having those problems. Here's the underlying problem. Game companies, especially Bethesda need to stop releasing buggy shit that they can wave away with a day 1 or week 1 patch. You finish the game and then you release it. Patches are meant to fix smaller problems. In the case of Skyrim, it shipped with major ones and some of them aren't even fixed yet. And hell, PS3 players lost hours of progress when their save game data basically imploded on itself. Skyrim, you are a great game, amazing even, but you just had too many problems to be considered for my game of the year.

This exploit is kind of awesome, though.

I could also throw in my issues with the leveling system, but I honestly think I'm wrong on that one. I just miss gaining perks with leveling rather than having to choose them. The new system is a proven one and one I can appreciate it. Anyway, these are my reasons. I stand by them.