Not a bad game, all in all, I suppose. It feels like an evolution to Bethesda, but I just wish it didn't feel like such a means to an end for mindless violence. The first I spoke out against this with was the dragons, before the game was released, since symbolically I see a dragon as a creature of wonder and thus a damn near impossible ideal for me to raise a weapon against. But it went beyond that.

To make Skyrim a peaceful, happy place, I would have had to wipe out precisely 99.2% of its population, and the only ones remaining would be those in power, or the corrupt. There's something a bit weird and wrong about that. Normally this doesn't get on top of me, since the killing is broken up by other things, but the constant attempts to get me to kill people dragged me down, and ultimately, poetically, killed off my enjoyment of the game.

The end result is that I feel a bit like Lara Croft or Nathan Drake. You know, this reminds me of how they tried to lampshade this in one of the LC games. They had her put her face in her hands after so many deaths. As if to say "Oh, what a monster I've become..." but this was shallowly followed by "Oh well!" and Lara merrily skipping off to kill more people. Uncharted is worse, since ultimately it's a completely racist affair and it seems to be about America trying to piss off the entire world with its xenophobia.

I don't think Skyrim is anywhere near that bad.

But still, I couldn't help but make parallels due to how I had no other methods, each mission was a linear line of mindless violence to an objective, which almost always meant killing someone (I could probably count the missions where it didn't end in killing someone with my fingers alone).

It's weird, but my favourite moments of the game were those where I wasn't killing.

One of the moments that really, really stood out was Sheogorath's quest, which was loads of fun. I really enjoyed that and it was a break from all the Serious Homicidal Man Must Kill of the rest of the game. I wish they could have done more content like that. That was something that felt almost Obsidian in nature, it was great. Definitely a good laugh. And I enjoyed that there were a couple of small puzzles involved. Why can't we have puzzle or riddle dungeons? Even Landstalker did that.

But ultimately I'm getting tired of how most RPGs are just becoming a means to an end for violence. I mean, sure, I get that with action adventure games, but shouldn't my honeyed-tongue and cleverness count for a damn in an RPG? Again, one of the greatest moments of recent RPG history for me was in Fallout: New Vegas. I made a run through the Legion, mostly ignoring them at the end. I ran up to the Legate and called for a temporary ceasefire so that I might speak with him.

Through logic, wit, and respect I managed to convince him that this invasion would only weaken his empire, and that it was best to leave New Vegas to its own machinations, that it wasn't worth it. And that really, he'd pretty much have to deal with me if he refused. And he listened! The Legion retreated!

Why can't there be more of that?

Or even just a few dungeons set up by an ancient madman as labyrinthine places of puzzles and riddles. Just something a bit different other than the mindless violence.

But it so often came back to...

"Did that old Dragonpriest have to die? He just seemed so old and lonely. I burst into his home and slaughtered him for his staff. Couldn't I have bartered with him or dealt with him in another way?"

"Did they have to die? They were just thieves, not even of the cut-throat. Ultimately they were just defending themselves as they knew someone would have been sent to kill them. Couldn't I have just knocked them out and arrested them?"

"These dragons are supposedly more intelligent than I am, yet they keep doing kamikaze runs at me. Can't I deal with them another way? They're supposedly clever. Where are those dragons that like riddles... ? I could really use one that prefers a riddle about now."

"...Aela, how the hell do these animals keep getting into houses, anyway?"

"Okay, sure I need to retrieve this prisoner, but does he have to die? Can't I just re-arrest him?"

"Do these Forsworn have to die? Can't I set up a political vote for them to see whom the people want as the leader of Markarth?"

"Why can't I just oust Ulfric and Tullius and bring peace between the Legion and the Stormcloaks myself, that way? I could talk some sense into people if I could do that. Why can't I create a lasting treaty?"

"You want me to kill a repentant old dragon who's just been instrumental in saving the world not once but twice? One who's clearly punishing himself every day with his own guilt? One who taught the mortals the way of the voice and kept them learned in it, without which none of the races would have survived? The way that, though he was absolutely terrified of Alduin, he turned against his brother out of compassion for the mortals? You want me to kill the dragon without whom we wouldn't be standing here having this conversation? And you'll excommunicate me if I don't do your killing? Screw that, Delphine. YOU are excommunicated. Have fun, dragonslayers." *Removes essential tags.* *Spawns ten ancient dragons.* *Leaves.*

The game even lampshades it with that one bard (Jon? Something... ?) in Whiterun talking about how everyone is obsessed with death. And yes, they are! I mean, even if I join the bard's college, they give me missions to delve into dungeons and kill things! What a surprise. I thought that would have offered me respite from the whole killing of things. I could have really gone for <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n0vmCqv5yo">Lute Hero</a> style minigame at that point, at least that would have taken the piss out of Skyrim's nature instead of making the constant killing such constant, serious business.

I'm also reminded at this point of how the thing I want to see most of all right now, more than anything, is a Discworld RPG developed by Obsidian. It'll never happen, but I can dream, can't I?

I doubt this is going to be an issue to most gamers, anyway. I understand that.

Most gamers are attuned to and ultimately desensitised to oodles of mindless violence. But me? I'm an imaginative person, I try to get into my character and immerse myself in the world. And if most of the world wants me dead then that's a revolution against me, and I must be a horrible person. It's hard to come out of Skyrim feeling good, or anything other than a homicidal maniac. I just wish the game had been less about killing.

There were points where you could see that they were thinking about it, but they didn't have time to finish up stories, and thus they just threw in some killing to tie it all up instead.

So many good plotlines that could have been so much more.

And Blackreach. Oh the things I could do with a place like that.

I do like a lot of what Skyrim did. i really did.

It was very pretty;
I enjoyed the art style;
I appreciated that, for a chunk of the game, I could play as a werewolf that didn't kill many people at all (I used the fear power to deal with everyone except the main target of a dungeon);
I liked the stories they were trying to tell me (it's just a shame that they half-arsed them, never finished them, and always rounded them off with killing), I really did;
I liked the lore;
I liked the insane level of detail;
I liked the aesthetics;
I liked the khajiiti types and the people of the root (SO much better than Oblivion in every conceivable way);
I liked the traps;
I liked the world itself;
I liked the ridiculously silly world map;
I liked exploring;
I liked gathering herbs and things for my professions (this is always a huge weakness of mine, I'm a massive packrat and I pick up everything I see that I might be able to turn into something better);
I loved the hell out of Paarthurnax, who was a real brodragon (but one of the only two brodragons in the history of ever?);
I liked that you could marry almost anyone, and that gay people weren't discriminated against in this way (though the lack of khajiiti partners was a bit of a kick in the nuts - I know they made an excuse about it being their culture, but they couldn't have included a khajiit who was raised in, oh... say Hammerfall?);
I liked that the UI was clearly laid out, clean, and accessible;
I really dug how the werewolves were handled, because that was very, very, very clever;
I liked the representations of aedra and daedra in the game;
I liked reading the books and lore;
I liked collecting books (though I hated exploding, book-devouring bookshelves);
I liked that the dwemer were back (though they lost a lot of their uniqueness from Morrowind and their stuff looked more akiviri than dwemer);
I liked having the absolutely terrifying Blackreach to wander around (though I felt that they could have done so, so, so much more with it, but ultimately it felt mostly abandoned);
I loved them for teasing me about the possibility of finding the Heart of Lorkhan, which ultimately it was not (bastards!):
I loved that there were so many unique and distinct voices present;
I was terribly amused that the courier, along with several other people, is/are Gear from Static Shock;
I loved that you could do stupid things with the console, like creating a bow that shot werewolves at people;
I enjoyed being an 80ft tall macro werewolf and scaring the living shit out of the peoples of Whiterun;
I liked that there were so many choices of house to choose from, and so many types of decoration;
I liked that the game had me dress up in incredibly silly posh clothes on multiple occasions (yay!), even if half of the time it still resulted in killing;
I ... liked that I could do addfac 5a1a4 1 on the dragons and turn them completely neutral to me (which I admittedly ended up doing with every dragon after a while);
I liked that the dungeons were often really, really storied, and you could see the passion that went into making them (it's just a shame that they were linear point-A-to-B-to-C affairs);
I was amused that the guards would praise me for saving their souls one second, and then insult me the next;
I liked a lot of things.

See, ultimately I had a love/hate relationship with Skyrim. It wasn't the worst game ever, oh no, definitely not. I put too many hours into it for being that, but it was far, far from being the best game, and far from being the best Elder Scrolls game, it was just an entertaining game that was okay. And I'm sure to most people that saying something like that is heresy.

Ultimately though... ironically it just killed itself for me by being so fixated on killing, that was the great disappointment, that's what had me put it down. That damn near all of the content barring a few incredibly rare exceptions was a kill quest. So... many... kill... quests.

I think the thing that bugged me the most about Skyrim was that it encouraged you to be some sort of perfect person - the game was obviously less designed for orcs, khajiits, argonians, dunmer, and so on, and more for the pretty or rugged people. There was a cloying sense of xenophobia. Granted, yes, that might have been the setting but that doesn't mean that I have to like it.

And it obeyed the worst, the <i>worst</i> old rule of development: What normal considers to be subjectively ugly is irredeemably evil. I did notice that they went out of their way to make most of the foes ugly. Even the Altmer, whom they framed as one of the main villains of the tale, was made far, far more ugly than in previous Elder Scrolls games. There's an undercurrent of something... incredibly nasty to this. I can't quite explain it eloquently, but I don't like it.

Pretty/rugged/sexy people versus ugly people. Pretty/rugged/sexy people versus disabled people. Pretty/rugged/sexy people versus everything else. Because pretty people are good and perfect. That's a huge turn-off. There's something just... narcissistic, vain, self-absorbed, even solipsistic about it.

And of course, the player was the only khajiit ever to be magically allowed inside cities.

I don't know, this bothers me. The death bothers me. The killing bothers me.

It's ups and downs, good and bad, and a decent romp but more of an action-adventure dungeon crawler than what I think of an RPG as. Again, I can't slate it because I put a good number of hours into it, but over those hours I did become increasingly saddened and depressed, until finally I snapped because I couldn't take it any more.

And the moment I snapped was with that one Dragonpriest in Labyrinthian. Brust into his home and slaughtered him for his staff. YAY I AM SUCH A HERO.

I don't know.

Like I said, I find this hard to articulate.

Skyrim... so much potential but ultimately so average because of its homicidal bent. It could have been so, so much more.