Gamingheap Special: SKYRIM - Part 1

 Gamingheap Special: SKYRIM 


Part 1

*** THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! ***

And so the adventure begins! Yes, my postman delivered my Amazon package this morning and I proceeded to rip it open, producing  a shiny, sealed copy of Skyrim. With a triumphant barbarian shout I legged it to my room and shoved the disc in. Skyrim also came with a cloth-like map showing the province of Skyrim - a bit like Oblivion came with a map too. I was surprised at the speed of the install. It took no more than 10 minutes!

The main-menu exploded (well, it kinda faded in - but I was too excited) onto the screen and the theme 'Sons of Skyrim' came blasting out of my gaming chair. I listened to it all the way through and then hit 'New Game'...

So, I start the game as a prisoner (how original, although I cannot help this strange sensation of deja-vu...). Apparently I was seen crossing Skyrim's border and arrested. No-one is allowed over the borders as the High-King of Skyrim has just been assassinated by the Stormcloak clan (Sounds familiar...). Now it seems like i'm going to be executed... happy days in the land of Skyrim!

The imperial guards ask who I am - this is when I get to create my character. The visuals are amazing and the ugliness of Oblivion's characters is no longer! Within 15 minutes I have a light-haired, bearded Nord staring at me from the screen with warpaint striking his left cheek. I press okay, name him and voila! My character is born!

Within 5 minutes my head is on the executioner's block and a axe is waving above my head... and then... BAM! A dragon lands on the tower next to me! Chaos ensues, I'm led by some like-bearded nord through the settlement in a sort of tutorial. Imperial guards try to kill me but I manage to kill them all. The combat is amazing - especially the dual-wield aspect. 

Eventually the bearded nord and I escape as the only survivors (fairly cliche but, hey, that's the fun of it I guess!) and I he tells me to follow him to his sister in 'Riverwood'. She gives me some free stuff (booyah!) and then I buy some arrows and take a look around town.

-

I meet this guy called Faendal who says that there's this guy called Sven who wants to ask out some girl in town. He tells me he faked a letter from Sven to give to the girl and tells me to give it to her. I end up telling Sven (I'm such a rebel!) and then Sven forges a letter. I tell the girl and then she says to talk to Faendal. Faendal gives me some gold and follows me to help me on my quests... What an epically confusing side quest!

Anyway, I begin to travel around - get annoyed with this weirdo following me - and tell him to go home. I continue over some mountains. At this time I decided I will play the game as a sort of 'Ranger' role. This involves mainly archery based combat, sometimes with daggers - being very sneaky - and collecting natural ingredients and hunting to produce my own potions and armour to sell. I shoot some bandits and go down the meeting finally arriving the city of Whiterun. The surrounding area is flat and has loads of elk and deer. My favourite activity so far is to shoot these animals in the head from far away. This hunting aspect was never included in Oblivion and was a big disappointment to me. I'm glad it is in Skyrim!

I collect lots of deer skin and make it into leather at a tanning post back in the city. It's really fun to make this leather into strips and make armour and sell it. It feels very rewarding although it takes a lot of time and doesn't give that much money.

-

I ended up killing 2 dragons so far. One in a main story-line quest where I discovered I was Dovakiin (Dragonborn) and can now use dragon shouts against my foes! I have a fire dragon-shout which allows me to breath fire like a dragon. the other dragon I killed swooped down on me, just after I cleared a small fort of 'Orc Hunters'. It was frost-dragon and was actually fairly easy. After 10 minutes it soul was mine!

Over today I also ended up...

• Buying a house in Whiterun for 5000 Gold.
• Becoming a werewolf at the Companions (The equivalent of the Fighter's Guild). I'm not sure how to use the power properly yet.
• Being chased by some random Khajit that came out of nowhere, only to kill it and find 15 bottles of ale and 2 bottles of Skooma! The official drug of The Elder Scrolls games, haha.
• Killing a mammoth - a mammoth task (teehee)
• Retrieving the 'Golden Claw' and getting a reward.
• Killing some random religious elves who tried to kill me when I said I could worship who I wanted!
• Being mauled by saber-tooth tigers

-

Tomorrow I am going to try and find a way to access the Dark Brotherhood!

So far this game is MASSIVE and absolutely amazing! I will blog more tomorrow!...