The Learning Curve: 5 Hours with AD&D: Hillsfar

Not all games are Pac-man: the kind you can just pick up and play, with simple rules and fairly easy to understand parameters and goals.  Many games, sometimes even those that seem straightforward, have a steep learning curve which requires you to spend more than just a few minutes working out the nuances of the game play.  Too often these games get dismissed as “too hard” or “too clunky” and get tossed in to the pile of games that are collected and not played.  And sadly, a lot of really good games get lost in the shuffle due to a lack of pick-up-and-playability.  I’m guilty of doing this and you are too.  This was partly the motivation behind my old “Closer Look” series in which I took a hard look, and many hours of gameplay, exploring games that might not otherwise get a second look from the casual gamer.  Through that experience, I discovered that many games are quietly very good, but due to their steep learning curve, they don’t get the play or recognition they deserve.  Uncanny X-men is a perfect example. The litmus test for a game’s accessibility seems to me to be around 5 hours of game play.  If you play a game for 5 hours and cannot get into what the game is trying to do, then chances are good the game is A.) not very good  B.) just not for you. 

So with that in mind, I have vowed to sift through my NES collection, pull out those games that I have dismissed as “terrible” and give them 5 honest hours of game play to see if I am missing out on rewarding experiences due to an unusually steep learning curve.  I will play each game for 5 hours and then write up my experience, providing an hour-by-hour breakdown of what I discovered through my play.  Then I will weigh in with whether or not I find the game to be secretly great, not very good, or probably good, but just not for me.  I would love to hear feedback from you whether you agree or disagree.  You might even point me in the right direction!

AD&D: Hillsfar

Hillsfar, as it will heretofore be referred, is a traditional Western RPG.  The kind of game where you build your own character and set out on a generally wide-open quest in an immersive world.   That fitting because this game is part of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons world, the primordial soup from which all Western RPGs spring forth, at least as far as I am aware.  I wasn’t big into the AD&D scene back in the day (shocker, I know) so I’m not as familiar with the nuts and bolts of how this game ties into that world, but I shouldn’t have to be in order to enjoy a video game, not if it has been made properly.  Hillsfar is one of two AD&D titles for the NES.  The other, Dragon Strike, is more of an RPG shooter, something you don’t see too much of.  That game has more pick-up-and-play appeal so you’ll want to check that out on your own sometime; it’s pretty good.

Hillsfar looks like the kind of game I can sink my teeth into.  I absolutely loved Wizardry and Wizardry II, and as long time readers know, I have an unnatural attachment to the Might and Magic franchise on the PC.  But for some reason, this game didn’t grab me the few times I’ve popped it into my NES and tried to delve into the adventure.  So let’s spend 5 good hours playing and see if we can find the joy hidden in the city of Hillsfar…

Hour 1:

I spent most of this hour just figuring out what the game was about and how to get started.  I created my character:  I started with a thief because traditionally with these kinds of RPG’s having a thief as your first character is a good way to get access to stuff that other classes cannot.  Thieves can pick locks, sneak into places, and otherwise interact with characters that your average Fighter or Cleric cannot.  Whether or not this was a smart choice is yet to be determined.  You don’t start the game at the city of Hillsfar, you start at your camp right outside, so to get to town you have to engage in a very tedious and mostly annoying horse ride to the city.  This horse ride will link all destinations you travel to and will be a pox upon fun.  The horse is sluggish to control and the obstacles are random and not smartly spaced.  And whatever you do, don’t under any circumstance crash so much that you lose your horse.  More on that in hour 2.  

Once you arrive in town it is best to seek out your guild house and get something to do.  It is very easy to wander around town aimlessly and get into general trouble.  As a thief you can pick any door lock and go into pretty much any building if you have the wherewithal and the talent.  Furthermore, nere-do-wells wander the streets making you bad offers that more often than not send you to the arena (you do not want to go to the arena).  Every class belongs to a guild in Hillsfar and finding the guild house will grant you access to the quests that will give your life, and  hopefully the game, some meaning.  Hillsfar is a very open RPG and does not give you a master quest to complete.  Your destiny is tied to your guild and how you choose to play.  That’s pretty cool, but can be meandering if you don’t find your guild and get to work.

So I made it to the Rogue’s Hideout, home of the Master Thief and immediately asked for something to do.  My first quest was simple: just retrieve an item from the sewers. (well, I had to find the Magic Shop and talk to a guy first, but that was relatively easy)  This moves you along to what seems to be the basic game mechanic in Hillsfar:  enter a building, find the thing you are looking for before time runs out, and escape.  If you take too long the guards show up, take all the gold you found and either toss you out or toss you into the arena.  I got tossed out a lot and sent to the arena a couple of times as well.  In the arena you have to engage in absolutely confounding hand-to-hand combat with a monster opponent and, one way or another, emerge victorious or badly beaten (meaning with 1 HP, and given that recovering HP in this game requires a miracle or lots of gold, you don’t want to lose in the arena)  By sheer luck I escaped both times the victor.

Navigating the interior of buildings is also the province of luck, as the layout is randomly selected from a set number mazes and treasures and traps are scattered throughout.  Most chests are locked and require picking.  Many contain gold, a few are empty, and some give you bizarre items like old clothes, or are helpful by revealing the location of floor traps.  Picking chests proves to be a challenge as there is a time limit and if you choose the wrong pick, it will instantly break, leaving you with a useless set of tools.  This happened to me a lot.  Once your time is up, you get a notice saying the exit can now be found (you can exit immediately upon entering through the main door, but where’s the fun in that?) and that the guards are on their way.  From that point on, it’s a mad dash to find the newly spawned staircase, avoid getting pinned by the guards, and escaping with your plunder.  Since the layouts and stair placements are random this is not an easy task.  I spent much of the first hour breaking all of my picks, getting tossed out of the sewer, and generally getting beat up.  At the end of my first hour I had 9 HP, 3 Gold, and nothing to show for my troubles.  Not the best start.

Hour 2:

This hour brought more frustration and futility.  I was able to complete my first quest: finding the rare mushroom in the sewer and getting out without capture, but I had broken 4 of my lockpicks and lost all of my gold.  Needless to say, being a thief with no lockpicks makes you a pretty useless thief, so I spent most of this hour going back into the sewer, running around trying to find unlocked chests full of gold and escaping without being caught.  This was neither easy nor fun.  It might be what passes for grinding in this game.  But eventually I collected enough gold to repair all of my picks and was able to resume questing.  The next quest took me to a Hermit’s Hut to recover another item, a phial of liquid.  After all the sewer diving I had been doing this felt much easier, however getting to the hut and back proved to be a problem.  

To get to the hut I had to go to the Trading Post, a seemingly useless waypoint between Hillsfar and many of the world’s destinations.  At the Trading Post you can buy or trade for a new horse, talk to the guy at the Trading Post, or attempt to walk to Hillsfar if you haven’t a horse or the gold with which to purchase.  That’s about it.  It’s not very helpful, as my experiences soon prove.  

During one of my forays into the Hermit’s Hut, I managed to break two picks, was caught, and tossed out with very little gold to my name.  I decided I needed to return to Hillsfar to regroup and then try another campaign into the Hut.  Whilst riding my horse to Hillsfar, I was thrown off one time too many and my horse got annoyed and left me high and dry.  The game gave me a few options of what to do next, one of which was to look for a new horse, the other was to wait for another passer-by to give me a lift to the Trading Post.  I first looked for a new horse, to no avail.  The I opted to hitch a ride to the Trading Post.  Once there I was given the standard options of buy a new horse or walk to Hillsfar.  New horses cost considerably more than the 3 Gold I was packing, so walking seemed to be the only option.  This was not a good option.  8 times I attempted to walk to Hillsfar and 8 times I was beset by bandits who took my remaining 3 gold, roughed me up and dropped me back at the useless Trading Post.  8 times.  8.  This easily took up 15 infuriating minutes of game time.  Eventually I was able to find a new horse wandering around get back to Hillsfar, but I had lost all desire to ever leave and if I never saw the Trading Post again it would be too soon.

Hour 3:

I had taken several days break from playing Hillsfar after my ill treatment on the road and it proved to hearten me a bit.  I was able to restock my supplies in the city and then liberate the phial of liquid from the Hermit’s Hut with relative ease.  I was getting better with the lockpicks, I wasn’t panicking and breaking them constantly, and I was getting out without getting caught much more successfully.  The really good news:  for recovering the phial I got 1250 gold.  Oh how to spend it?  Well, let’s just say that in Hillsfar, fortune is easy come, easy go.  All it takes is one unlucky trip in a house and you’re back to skid row.  More on that later.  For now, I was riding high with a pocket full of gold and feeling like I was getting the hang of things.  The next quest was to find an amulet.  To do this I would have to prowl about a couple of taverns and the sewer seeking information on the amulet’s whereabouts.  Eventually the search brought me to a Hut located just outside of the city.  After about 6 successful forays into the hut, I began to suspect that the amulet wasn’t there at all.  This is hard to know since the chests all appear at random and you rarely have enough time to search every single nook and cranny of the building before the guards catch you, but after multiple trips coming up empty I began to suspect that something was amiss.  However, I was pleased to see that I was able to make so many trips, pick so many locks, and escape so many times without being caught.  It felt like I was finally starting to get the hang of the basic game play mechanic.  But no amulet.  The one thing I did find repeatedly was a piece of paper encouraging me to pick the cellar door in the taverns back in the city.  So as my third hour wound down I retuned to Hillsfar once again…

Hour 4:

So I picked the cellar door and eventually found the chain the amulet was on, but no amulet.  This meant a trip back to the Rogue’s Hideout to get more information from the master.  Apparently the amulet has been carefully tucked away in the Cleric’s Guild (also known as the Shrine of Tempus).  Getting into the guild house proved to be a bigger challenge than expected.  The lock is impossible to pick as it requires a pick I do not have in my tool set.  I’ve purchased 3 different sets of lock picks and none of them contained the correct pick, so I assume it’s a pick I need to find elsewhere or my luck is just terrible.  But there’s more than one way to pick a lock and a couple of times I was able to get in by physical force. This is a dicey proposition however as the lock is trapped and 75% of the time you will spring it and take 3-5 damage.  This caused several reloads and about 15 minutes of frustration.  Nevertheless I got in several times and explored the guild.  The building layout is static, but the traps and treasures are randomly placed.  This makes definitive exploration nearly impossible.  There simply isn’t time to see all the sights and get out unmolested.  The only upside is the hefty coin pouch I got from all the plundering.  Annoyingly, six trips in and no amulet.  Experience is a great teacher though and I’m no longer taking lumps getting in.  A knock ring purchased for 250 gold got me in nearly every time and with no fuss.  It’s not all good news, though, as this process is a series of diminishing returns with most trips into the Shrine netting an average of 195 gold.  So I’m 45 minutes in and I’m in a downward spiral of losing gold, finding no amulet and sometimes dying due to traps.  I’m back to not having fun.  I feel like I’ve checked every chest and I’ve even started checking walls and dead ends for secret doors or anything that might move the game along.  This doesn't seem like the kind of game prone to such devices, but at this point anything is worth a shot.  Hour 4 wraps with no amulet, a wasted hour of dungeon crawling and me questioning if I can even take an hour 5.

Give me the damned Amulet!

Hour 5: 

25 times I went into the Cleric Guild in search of an amulet.  25 times I emerged with nothing but gold and a few healing potions.  My time with Hillsfar was winding down and I was having decreasing amounts of fun.  So I decided a new tactic was in order:  Start Over.  It might seem a little late in the game for such an idea, but if I was going to salvage anything out of the final hour, this might be the only way to do so.  So I started over, this time as a Cleric.  The thief thing wasn’t panning out so maybe a different character would bring me better luck.  And, maybe due to familiarity with the game, or maybe the Cleric path is just easier, it seemed to be a lot simpler to get going.  I rode into town and checked in at the Shrine of Tempus (they just let me in, a frustrating juxtaposition from my previous experience).  I spent most of the fifth and final hour tooling about town finishing quests with relative ease.  I even had to go to that miserable Trading Post several times to complete quests.  Dungeon diving was much easier as it seems far more chests are just open and ripe for the pilfering than in the Thief track.  I soon accumulated a sizable pile of gold and had quite a few completed quests under my belt when I came upon the Haunted House (bonus points to any RPG with a haunted house).  My next quest required me to enter the Haunted House and find a bandit who had something the guild wanted.  Sadly, upon attempting to pick the lock and enter the haunted house, the only apparent way in, I triggered a trap which exploded and killed me.  The real tragedy: I had failed to save this character at any point during my game.  Thus, my final hour of play, while much more enjoyable, was completely undermined by a failure to save.  The entire hour just wiped away by a single trap.  Frustrating.

Final Appraisal?  AD&D: Hillsfar isn’t a terrible RPG.  It’s clunky and very slow to start, but I think someone determined to sit down and learn its ins and outs will be able to find something here to enjoy.  Some of the game play mechanics are tedious and some are downright incomprehensible.  The bulk of the game is just journey to X find the Y and return with no combat or battle system unless you get tossed into the Arena.  But the world is fairly well constructed and I can see really getting in to it if you are not turned off by the obtuse mechanics.  

Learning Curve:  About 2.5 hours of solid play should get you accustomed to how the game works and what is expected of you.  It probably takes a little longer to get invested in the world of the game, but it is possible.

Will I Finish It?  Unlikely.  Most of my time in Hillsfar was spent being extremely frustrated and the brief moments of accomplishment weren’t enough to help me power through the annoying parts.  I may give Hillsfar another look in a year or so, after I get over the aggravation of this play through, but I’m not inspired to keep the adventure going at this time.

Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor REVISITED

A million years ago when I was first exposed to the Might and Magic series, it was to me then what Skyrim was to me a few years ago:  all-consuming.   I was first introduced to the series through Might and Magic VI: Mandate of Heaven.  It was an RPG like none I had experienced before.  Oh, sure, I grew up with Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy and Ultima all on the NES, but this, this was something else.  Mandate of Heaven so engrossed us, that we literally pulled the couch over to the computer desk and took turns playing for something like 96 hours straight.  One of us would play while the other watched or slept.  Work/classes were either skipped or begged off.  Food was eaten on paper plates and was either delivered or hastily prepared.  For the better part of a week, I literally LIVED Might and Magic VI.  Looking back now, that was a magical and terrifying time.

I tell you this to set the scene for my overwhelmingly "meh" reaction to the follow up game Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor.  I was so enthralled with MM6 that I was super stoked for MMVII to hit and when it did, it seemed at first like the ultimate game.  You see Might and Magic VI was running concurrently to the incredible strategy-based sister title Heroes of Might and Magic III (a pinnacle of strategy gaming in its own right, more on that another day).  Since both MM6 and HoMM3 were such hits, 3DO decided to capitalize on this popularity by taking the enemy set from HoMM3 and using them as the enemies for MM7.  Thus you could RPG battle the same monsters you had fell in love with strategy battling in HoMM3.  I know that sounds like a mouthful, but basically they just took the creatures from the strategy game and used them in the RPG.  (wordy)

Seems like a great idea.  Little did I realize that this would ultimately contribute to my first experience with gamer fatigue.  Turns out you can have too much of a good thing.  I had spent SO much time playing both MM6 and HoMM3 that smashing the two together into a mega RPG gave me too much of things I already liked and not enough new stuff.  I really wanted to like MM7, but I honestly felt like I had already been there before and found myself just rushing through the early levels as quickly as possible to get to something new and interesting.  I never found it and quit the game, fatigued, and honestly, bored about half-way through.  I put MM7 into the game collection and never touched it again.  My final evaluation: a decent game, but a shadow of the two games it spawned from.

I would return to play Might and Magic VI repeatedly in the following years.  I don't think anything can diminish my love for that game.  It stands out as one of the greatest WRPGs I have ever played.  I strongly recommend it for any WRPG fan.  But I never had the urge to give MMVII another look.

Over the years I realized that I was pretty jaded against Might and Magic VII and that was a result of gamer fatigue.  I found it hard to believe that I could be so disinterested in something that was born of games I really, really loved.  So, having not played either Might and Magic VI or Heroes of Might and Magic III in years, I decided the time was ripe to give Might and Magic VII another, non-biased look.

And I'm glad I did.

The game is good.  Really good.  It's never going to be as good as MM6 because that game has transcended in my mind, but it's pretty darn close.  The mechanics are exactly the same as MM6 which means it is easy to access and getting into the action doesn't require much of a learning curve.  There is a tutorial level, which is kind of odd for an RPG, but I think it's there to help ease in those gamers brought over from the HoMM series.  Ultimately, it's extremely brief and inoffensive to even the most experienced RPG player.
The story continues the plot from previous MM and HoMM games, following the drama of the Ironist Dynasty.  When you really immerse yourself into this world, it proves to be a very engaging and rewarding one.  NPC interaction isn't as involved as it will become in the following generations of RPG gaming, but it's still enough to draw you in and keep you interested.

In terms of difficulty, this game might be slightly more difficult than its predecessor.  MM6 starts you out fairly slowly keeping you engaged in the starting town of New Sorpigal for what feels like 50 or so gaming hours. MM7 gets you out and wandering the world well within your first 30 hours of play.  The world is a little bit smaller and each area map containers fewer points of interest than MM6 and there seem to be far fewer minor quests, but that isn't always a bad thing.  MM6 was a bounty of grunt work and just wandering around to see what you could find.  That's great, but it doesn't always move the plot.  MM7 moves the plot.  And overall there is more plot.  This time around, like in HoMM3 you are asked about 2/3 of the way through the game, to choose between the sides of Light and Darkness.  Your choice will determine which towns are friendly to you and which later quests you can access.  This means you kinda get two games in one, as you will have to play all the way through twice to see everything the game has to offer.  Not a novel concept, but it was a new wrinkle in the Might and Magic formula.  This also increases the difficulty, because it blocks you from certain spells or abilities that would make some aspects of the game easier, while opening you up to other advantages depending on your allegiance.  Early on, though, leveling up is tough and the first enemies you meet will give you a solid beating.  On the upside, the leveling in this game is extremely well balanced and there is practically NO grinding.  Yeah, you read that right, NO GRINDING.

That's a LOT of Hydra...

You also get a castle that slowly upgrades as you progress.  When you first get it, the castle is infested with goblins.  After you run them off, you can request that the Dwarves clean the place up, and later upgrades give you shops and open treasure areas.  You never get a place to sleep in your home, though, and overall this new addition to the game seems very under developed.  The castle you get is huge, but the upgrades are slow to come and never really maximize the potential of the "build your own castle" gimmick.

Big Pimpin', Erathia Style

Once the game gets going, it's just as much fun as the previous installment in the series.  Exploring, customizing your characters, finding treasure and taking down ever increasing monsters, all the staples of a good RPG are here.  The plot-directed decision making doesn't have a huge impact on overall game play, but it will determine whether you have unfettered access to the main cities of Light and Dark.

I just finished the game tonight, and it was a very satisfying and full gaming experience.  The only downside is that it commits the one sin I hate the most in fantasy RPG's:  the Sci-Fi Finish.  You know this device.  The entire swords and sorcery world you have been inhabiting is actually a ruse or a staging ground for a wildly advanced culture that has been working behind the scenes for centuries. In the final act of the game the veil is lifted and your team of adventurers suddenly has access to technology far beyond their greatest imaginings.  This, of course, completely derails the fantastic elements of the story and injects an unwelcome influx of robots, aliens, ray guns, and computer terminals.  The Might and Magic series is consistently guilty of this sin.  The upside, is that the lion's share of the game takes place extant of the Future Finish elements and what little robot smashing you have to do is really very minimal and is preceded by an awesome and incredibly difficult underwater area, so it kind of makes up for the jarring shift in theme.  You can also win the game pretty quickly in the final "dungeon" as there is no boss fight and all you must do is locate a certain item and then clear out.

In the final estimation, I am very glad I decided to revisit this game, some 15 years after its release.  It's every bit as fun as Might and Magic VI and I really believe that the only reason I was less than impressed with it the first time around was gamer fatigue, which at the time I didn't even realize was a thing.  If you're kicking around looking for a good, older generation RPG, and you've got a good emulator that can slow your computer down enough to play it, I recommend Might and Magic VI AND Might and Magic VII, just don't play them back-to-back.

Yeah, I used FFVII names, what of it?

All this talk of RPG's is inspiring me to take a look back at some of the other RPGs that had a profound influence on my gaming life.  Might be a subject for another time...

As always, thanks for reading.

How I Lost 200 Hours of my Life...to a Woman.

Who's that girl?

That's right, a woman.

Let me tell you about her.  Her name is Ceolairah (you would say it Solara).  She is a working girl who does odd jobs all across the country, so, naturally she travels a lot.  She isn't particularly wealthy, but she does own property in some major cities.  I cannot really tell you too much about her past, but from what I understand things weren't always as good as they are now (there may have been some jail time early on, but for what is not clear).  She was born and raised in an arid climate near a desert and as a result rarely gets sick, which is a good thing.  She has no particular religious or political affiliations; she just kind of does what she feels is right based on the situation at hand.  Perhaps because of this, she is quick to make new friends and rarely comes into town without someone waiting to see her about something or other.  That being said, she has always kind of been a loner, not really needing or asking too much from her friends or her family (if she has any, I don't really know).  And yet, I get the sense that she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders sometimes.  Not to get melodramatic, but it is almost like she has some bigger destiny or purpose out there that she is chasing. I certainly think she is destined for great things!

Ceolairah is a complex and amazing woman with more depth and subtlety than one might expect when they first meet her. She is strong and fearless, she is noble and yet cunning at times, and no matter what, she always comes out on top of the situation.  Maybe that is why I have been so enraptured with her for the past several months.  Maybe that is why I have done everything in my power to spend time with her at every opportunity since I met her.  Maybe that is why as soon as I am done typing this, I am going to go meet her again.

But Ceolairah is not like other girls, my friends.  Oh no indeed.  Ceolairah hails from a world not like ours, for Ceolairah is a child of Skyrim.  Yeah, that's right, I took two whole paragraphs to rope you in for that big, super nerdy payoff.  And now you have to live with it (sadly so do I because I wrote it and took about 3 times as long to write it as you took to read it).

Ceolairah at home in Riften, ready for battle

200 freaking hours of my life (and counting...) I have sunk into this ridiculous game.  200 hours.  If someone sentenced you to 200 hours of community service, you would just pay the fine or take the jail time.  And yet willingly, no, eagerly, I have spent 200 hours completely engrossed in this absolutely incredible world...errr... I mean game.  And when I say engrossed, I mean like basement dwelling nerd level engrossed. It is sad. Really really sad.  I have not been pulled into a game like this since way back in the days of Might and Magic VI (during which my girlfriend and I literally pulled the couch up to the PC and took turns playing while the other would sleep).  Maybe I am a sucker for deep RPG's like this, but boy did this game zero right in on what appeals to the big fat nerd inside of me.  And as before, I will blame it on a woman, but this time that woman is my wife.

It's her fault.  She's the one that said, "that Elder Scrolls game looks really good and everyone is going nuts over it, can we please buy an XBOX360 so I can play it?"  I wondered if any one game would be worth buying an entire system for, particularly in an era when the XBOX360 stands for everything that I feel is wrong with modern video games.  But, she insisted and I relented.  At the time I was busy wrapping up LoZ:Skyward Sword (probably the most epic Zelda game ever and contender for best Wii game ever and maybe best adventure game ever), so I didn't have time to get involved with this new Skyrim game.  But the wife played it and she got sucked into it, big time.  She was playing Skyrim on the living room TV and I was playing Zelda on the gameroom TV and we were two huge losers that rarely saw each other for about 3 weeks. I am just thankful I married a video game geek like myself, otherwise I have a feeling I would have been packing my bags for Skyrim in the near future...

Finally, I began my Skyrim adventure.  Trust me, I was entirely ready for this to be a disappointment.  Modern video games on the power systems always make me nervous because I don't really buy into the philosophy that gave birth to the power systems.  I am not a graphics whore and I don't dig online play. But the response from the wife was good and the game looked very interesting.  Kids, I had no idea...

Maybe I am new to modern gaming, but this game is incredible.  It is the best RPG I have ever played.  The game is huge, the world is immersive and the adventure feels endless.  This game offers the fantasy RPG nerd pretty much everything they want.  Open exploration is the name of the game.  Even though the game starts you off with the foundation of the game's two major quests, one political and one epic, after you escape your pending execution you are pretty much free to roam.  You can make your choice and follow the faction of your choice, you can head for the nearest town, or you can just strike out on your own and see what the world has to offer.

How freaking cool is this???

And oh my, what the game has to offer.  There are dungeon crawling quests, heroic quests, good deeds, evil deeds, assassinations, thefts, and general bitch work.  In addition to all of that you can learn all kinds of skills from blacksmithing and weapon enchanting to alchemy and pickpocketing.  There is so much to do and so much to learn that it can be a little daunting at first.  But fear not, just pick the first quest in front of you and let the good times roll.  You do have to be careful, however, because there are a lot of quests out there; one estimate put it up there in the four digits.  If you are not careful your quest log can get so full you'll have a hard time figuring out just what to do or where to go next!
While some of the quests can feel a bit repetitive, particularly if you complete a series of barrow quests, which are basically dungeon crawlers where you are seeking an object, back-to-back with noting else in between, but if you mix up your experience you can almost entirely avoid quest burn out.  Quest burn out won't set in for a while, though, because the game manages to keep the level of newness and fun very high and there are cool new things to see and find around pretty much every corner.

More than just Tundra, baby!

Which was another concern of mine.  Watching the wife play, I noticed that this game was dark, visually.  Lots of snow and earth tones, I feared the game was going to be drab and dull and monotonous.  Wrong again.  While Skyrim is a cold northern land, the geography is wildly diverse and features a wide variety of landscapes ranging from the obvious snow capped mountain to steamy hot springs.  You can explore everything from forested groves to sunken ships.  Yes, I said it, sunken ships!  There are pirate coves and entire subterranean caverns illuminated by phosphorescent fungus.  Plunge deep into the heart of ancient ruins of the Dwemer (apparently the dwarves of Skyrim long vanished from the face of the realm) and ascend the frozen peaks of the highest mountains to seek out the homes of Ancient Dragons.  It is rarely dull picking your way across the landscape of Skyrim.  So much to see.

Yep, that's a sunken ship.  And it's not the only one...

But all of that isn't just window dressing.  The game is deep and the world is even deeper.  I'll give you the extreme example right off the bat:  there are books, lots and lots of books, in Skyrim. These books are not just quest items or ways to learn spells, these are actual books.  Someone, somewhere at the creative offices of Bethesda sat down and wrote books to include in this game that amplify the stories and lore of the world.  I am not kidding.  You can probably spend 25 game hours just sitting down and reading all of the books.  Some are short, only a few pages deep, but others are virtual novellas.  These books cover pretty much anything you would want to know about Skyrim from history and mythology to treatises on combat and alchemy.  There is an entire library devoted to writings on the aforementioned Dwemer!  The available knowledge about this imaginary land is so deep it borders on Tolkien.  Don't feel obligated, you are only actually required to read maybe a handful of books to fulfill quests, but the knowledge is out there if you want to know more.
And it's not just the literature that fleshes out the world.  The NPCs are much deeper than your standard RPG fare, and even the stock guards will have different things to say based on what is going on with your character progression or the major game quests.  There are nine major towns in the game and many smaller farms, mining colonies, and villages all rich with characters to meet, interact with, do favors for, and possibly even marry! It feels like the game is actually designed with the purpose of absorbing you into its world.  I would wager that it is difficult to play this game for any amount of time and not be drawn into it.  (If you don't believe me, check out Skyrim mom).

Let me give you a sample from an average day in Skyrim.  I start the game in my house in Riften, the lake town in Skyrim known for its connection to the Theives Guild.  Yes, that's right, I said "my house," because in Skyrim you can own property in many of the nine principle towns.  This usually requires a sizable amount of gold and the completion of several quests specific to that town, but once you purchase a house you own it, you can sleep there, store your gear, and even decorate and upgrade your houses to include things like Alchemy Labs and Vegetable Gardens.  I know; it is very cool.

So anyway, I start in my home in Riften and I decide that today I want to explore some Dwarven ruins.  It just so happens that yesterday a woman in town begged me to take a strange artifact from her and return it to a Dwarven ruin located nearby.  So, I take a moment and scout out the local shops to see if anyone has any arrows I can buy, and then I head out for the ruin.  Not too far from town I am stopped on the road by a thief who demands all my gold.  I have the option of fighting him right there, trying to persuade him to leave, or intimidating him into just leaving me alone.  He doesn't take kindly to the intimidation and so I am forced to pull out my warhammer and decapitate him on the spot (yes you can do that and it is very, very cool).  Semi-random encounters like this make up a lot of the ambient charm in Skryim.  Having dispatched the thief, the rest of my journey to the ruin is fairly uneventful.  I run from a few angry bears and wolves, but other than that, no major problems.  I spend the next few hours plunging into the depths of the Dwarven ruin ferreting out the secret of this mysterious artifact.  The end result is that I get a permanent status effect called Ancient Knowledge that improves my Smithing Skill by 15% and gives me a bonus when wearing Dwarven Armor.  Time well spent.  During this time I also improve my lockpicking skill to 98 and find all kinds of goodies in the various chests and on the bodies of my fallen enemies.

Upon leaving the ruin, I immediately find myself in trouble.  The ground is shaking and there is only one (or two I suppose) reason for that:  Dragon.  An Elder Dragon to be exact and he is right over head.  I pull out my Dragonsbane sword, specially enchanted for killing dragons, and get ready for battle, but before I get the blade unsheathed, I notice that the beast is not after me at all.  It has apparently raised the ire of a passing Giant and is engaging him in battle.  Again, this is one of those ambient moments that make you think that maybe you are looking into a window on a real world.  Wild animals, dragons, giants, and other humans (like bandits) are not just enemies to you; they will in turn attack each other and sometimes have particular axes to grind.  There is one Orc stronghold that is relentlessly beset by Giants.  So occasionally you can get someone or something else to do your bitch work and you can reap the benefits.  In this case, the Giant is taking a pretty good chunk out of the Elder Dragon, which is a good thing.  So instead of barging into the fray, which could get me killed by either or both of them.  I decide to wait out the winner and then take on whichever that might be, hoping that the previous battle will have sufficiently weakened the victor.  It takes a minute, but finally the dragon wins, however it has been pretty severely injured by the Giant and cannot fly.  This makes it easy pickings, so I pull out my bow, crouch in the nearby stand of trees and zip a few arrows toward the dragon.  This gets his attention, but does not kill him, so he turns my way and lets out a blast of frozen breath that slows me down and does some damage.  As I am recovering the dragon is now upon me, so I draw the Dragonsbane and let loose with a power attack!  This just happens to be enough to finish the monster and I am treated to an awesome cutscene of me putting the dragon down.

That's me killing a dragon!

 After relieving the dragon of the two arrows I put into its hide (oh yes you can!) as well as few hundred gold he was packing around and several of his bones and scales, I decide to make my way back home to Riften; after all I have treasure to unload.
Back in Riften, I drop by the house first; since I spent so much time fighting dragons and exploring, it is around 10pm when I get back and the shops are all closed.  Once home, I take a few of the items I picked up and place them in one of my storage chests, a couple of others have new enchantments I need to learn so I take them to my Arcane Enchanting table and deconstruct them to learn their enchantments and while I'm there, add a few enchantments to raise the value of a some items I plan to sell.  Finally, I place a really cool helmet I found, but do not currently plan to wear, on my dressing mannequin for display (I know it's nerdy, but trust me this is so cool).  Housekeeping complete, I hit the sack and sleep until morning.
The shops open around 8am, so I take the things I plan to sell around the various vendors and see who can take which items off my hands.  The shopkeepers do not have bottomless wallets nor does every shopkeeper buy or sell every kind of thing (at least not until you master the art of Speech), so you cannot simply unload everything on one guy. I manage to get rid of most everything and now I have enough money to pay one of the warriors who lives in town to train me in the One-Handed Weapon combat.  Once my training is complete (you just pay and it raises your level) I make my way over to the Temple of Mara, a religious institution in town.  The various temples in Skryim can give you temporary status upgrades that offer various benefits.  After receiving the blessing of the temple, one of the acolytes tells me about a ghost who is wandering the prairie seeking out her lost husband.  The acolyte bids me to find this ghost and help reunite her with her lost love.  Before setting out, however, I need to stop by the Blacksmith and craft myself a new pair of Dragon Gauntlets with the bones and scales I collected, and so the day goes on, you get the idea...

There is so much to do in this game it feels like it will never end, and I guess it really doesn't have to until you literally do every single quest that is offered you and max out every single skill available.  You can spend your time crafting weapons, killing ancient Dragon Priests, you can become a vampire or werewolf, you can raid bandit camps and be the hero of the town, or you can lurk the dark passageways as a lethal assassin.  The game is completely wide open.  Completely.  You can do as little or as much of the main quests as you like.  You can pay as much or as little attention to the world as you like.  The little sample given above doesn't even begin to illustrate just how diverse your experience can be.

Breathtaking views of amazing landscapes!!

And therein also lies Skyrim's biggest appeal:  replayability. I have spent well over 200 hours with this game, I have done countless quests, I have explored as much of the map as I think it possible, I have completed the epic quest, and yet I cannot wait to start the whole game all over again and this time be a totally different character.  Ceolairah is a noble, brave warrior who does what is right and does not take sides in the political upheavals of the world.  She pursues her destiny and helps those in need, living and dying by the edge of her blade, the tips of her arrows, and her unmatched Sneak skill.  I have really enjoyed playing the game with her character.  But next time, I am planning to be a devilish Kajiit (cat-man) who is an rebellious assassin who is an unmatched thief and master of the magical arts.  And I as jazzed about that as if I were starting the game for the first time, maybe more so.

200 hours, people!  Two hundred very, very, very nerdy hours.  I came home early from work, I passed on hanging out with friends, I retreated into my inner nerd just to play this game.  It is that good.  Honestly.  If the game has a downfall, it is the absurd load times and buggy nature that I feel are kind of the trade off for a game this deep.  Those things are annoying, but I was having so much fun and in such awe that I was more than willing to forgive these minor grievances.  If anything the long load times were great bathroom breaks and opportunities to refill my water glass.  You know, the essentials.  Look, I played Skyrim so much I literally dreamed about it...more than once.

Ceolairah at home as the Archmage of Winterhold College

So if you wonder why there haven't been many updates to the blog lately and feared that I had given up, fear not!  I have just been distracted by a very intriguing young lady and her adventures in a snow covered land.  And if you love RPG's even just a little bit, you owe to yourself to give Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim a long look.  Just remember to pick your kids up from school and pay the electric bill, or things could get really tricky...