No really, some of my best friends are Elvish.
"It's a unique blend of fantasy and crap... I've dubbed it: 'Fantacrap!'"
-Jay Sherman
As a guy who digs pretty much anything, why is it that I still hate fantasy fiction? By fantasy, I don't mean "stuff that ain't for real real", because reality is terribly overrated. But let's put it this way: My interest in a narrative is inversely proportional to the number of elves it contains. Something about Tolkien, and the derivatives that his work has spawned really rubs me the wrong way.
Yesterday I gave in and picked up Skyrim, mostly because I was hooked on the last two Fallout games for almost an entire year. With or without dragons, it's another open world RPG from Bethesda, so I couldn't say no. Alas, I'm having a hard time adjusting to the world contained within. Let's examine a few reasons why:
1) Elves. I decided straight away I wanted to be a magic user. Bonking people on the head with swords didn't look like much fun. Who are the best magic users? Elves. I don't mind playing as someone who is Elvish, and I've done it in some other games. But these are creepy, long eared, point nosed, snooty looking elves, and the last thing I wanted to do was look at one for 100 hours. Don't get me started on the cat-people or lizard-men. Is it wrong that the minute I look at races like this I imagine the dork who can't wait to get in touch with his inner feline-man?
2) Backstory. What is it about Fantasy stories that drive people to invent centuries worth of back story, tons of kingdoms, and make up those impossibly stupid names for everyone involved? Why isn't there ever a Barbarian named John? It's always Antharkinn the Elder or some shit. Hard to intelligently discuss things with people I meet when I don't know what I'm talking about. My character is a fully grown man, you'd think he know more than diddly squat about where the heck he came from or what's going on in his own damn kingdom. He doesn't have amnesia or anything either. Bleh.
3) Dialogue. How come the minute elves and dragons are involved in a story everyone has to fake an accent? Why is everyone in Tamriel European? Kind of like that movie "Ever After", which was set in Italy, but full of American actors faking British accents because, you know, it's a fairy tale. That was a good movie in any event, but you see my point. It's also really distracting when one of the Nords, who are hyerdi-hyerdi-bork-bork-bork Swedish suddenly starts talking like Hans and Franz. If you can't be consistent, just talk normally. Forsooth, thus, thou, and whatnot.
I don't really care because the game itself is so phenomenal. Really, it's an amazing sandbox, with a few weird quirks. I don't like how every time you brush someone's shoulder they announce their life story to you. Sometimes you'll be in an intense conversation and some dude will just walk into you and push you across the room while you're in a dialog menu. It's also hard to map things to one hand or the other... just more complicated then it needs to be.
But think about it... it's an RPG where THERE ARE NO BASE STATS. In Fallout, I ended up doing ridiculous things like take a Charisma score of 1 and suffer no ill effects. In Skyrim you pick your race and that's all that really matters, skill-wise. Magic is totally intuitive too, with no MP to really consider. If you cast a lot of spells, your magic skill will increase, simple as that. Spells are in books. It's nice to shift the focus to exploring the world, which is oh so vast and pretty. I'm very excited about it. But I'm starting to hate almost everyone I meet just on general principle. Maybe I'll become a dark wizard. The sweet smell of burning flesh. Could take everyone's money too. This could be fun.
-Jay Sherman
As a guy who digs pretty much anything, why is it that I still hate fantasy fiction? By fantasy, I don't mean "stuff that ain't for real real", because reality is terribly overrated. But let's put it this way: My interest in a narrative is inversely proportional to the number of elves it contains. Something about Tolkien, and the derivatives that his work has spawned really rubs me the wrong way.
Yesterday I gave in and picked up Skyrim, mostly because I was hooked on the last two Fallout games for almost an entire year. With or without dragons, it's another open world RPG from Bethesda, so I couldn't say no. Alas, I'm having a hard time adjusting to the world contained within. Let's examine a few reasons why:
1) Elves. I decided straight away I wanted to be a magic user. Bonking people on the head with swords didn't look like much fun. Who are the best magic users? Elves. I don't mind playing as someone who is Elvish, and I've done it in some other games. But these are creepy, long eared, point nosed, snooty looking elves, and the last thing I wanted to do was look at one for 100 hours. Don't get me started on the cat-people or lizard-men. Is it wrong that the minute I look at races like this I imagine the dork who can't wait to get in touch with his inner feline-man?
2) Backstory. What is it about Fantasy stories that drive people to invent centuries worth of back story, tons of kingdoms, and make up those impossibly stupid names for everyone involved? Why isn't there ever a Barbarian named John? It's always Antharkinn the Elder or some shit. Hard to intelligently discuss things with people I meet when I don't know what I'm talking about. My character is a fully grown man, you'd think he know more than diddly squat about where the heck he came from or what's going on in his own damn kingdom. He doesn't have amnesia or anything either. Bleh.
3) Dialogue. How come the minute elves and dragons are involved in a story everyone has to fake an accent? Why is everyone in Tamriel European? Kind of like that movie "Ever After", which was set in Italy, but full of American actors faking British accents because, you know, it's a fairy tale. That was a good movie in any event, but you see my point. It's also really distracting when one of the Nords, who are hyerdi-hyerdi-bork-bork-bork Swedish suddenly starts talking like Hans and Franz. If you can't be consistent, just talk normally. Forsooth, thus, thou, and whatnot.
I don't really care because the game itself is so phenomenal. Really, it's an amazing sandbox, with a few weird quirks. I don't like how every time you brush someone's shoulder they announce their life story to you. Sometimes you'll be in an intense conversation and some dude will just walk into you and push you across the room while you're in a dialog menu. It's also hard to map things to one hand or the other... just more complicated then it needs to be.
But think about it... it's an RPG where THERE ARE NO BASE STATS. In Fallout, I ended up doing ridiculous things like take a Charisma score of 1 and suffer no ill effects. In Skyrim you pick your race and that's all that really matters, skill-wise. Magic is totally intuitive too, with no MP to really consider. If you cast a lot of spells, your magic skill will increase, simple as that. Spells are in books. It's nice to shift the focus to exploring the world, which is oh so vast and pretty. I'm very excited about it. But I'm starting to hate almost everyone I meet just on general principle. Maybe I'll become a dark wizard. The sweet smell of burning flesh. Could take everyone's money too. This could be fun.