Watch 20 Minutes Of Skyrim Gameplay

Earnest Cavalli

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Jun 19, 2008
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Watch 20 Minutes Of Skyrim Gameplay


You're not busy, right? Why not kill a third of an hour watching the E3 demo for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim?

Courtesy publisher Bethesda Softworks, the footage is essentially just game director Todd Howard narrating a lightly choreographed block of gameplay. It's simultaneously a chance to see the game itself in action, and get a bit of insight on what went into the creation of Skyrim.

The footage itself has been broken up into three pieces, lest YouTube start crying salty, electronic tears. The first part is embedded at right, while parts two and three can be found below my obligatory text wall.

While most people will be attracted to the gorgeous graphics, or the addition of Fallout 3-style kill cinematics, I'm most impressed by the game's new menu system. The player menu and that spell selection menu are a huge step up from the clunky interface in Oblivion and the semi-transparent, clean font work is far more novel than seeing more overwrought "Medieval" (read: like "Papyrus," but not trademarked) script.

That said, there's also a moment in the third clip that I find just hilariously awesome. The protagonist has decided to throw down with some gigantic, half-naked dude, and is holding his own (despite a notable size disadvantage) with a combination of shield blocking and mace strikes. Typical stuff, really.

Then, out of nowhere, the half-naked dude is snatched by a dragon who carries him 50 feet into the air, drops him to his death, and wheels around to strafe the protagonist.

I was fully expecting dragons from this game. I was fully expecting them to fly and be totally scary and dangerous. However, I was not expecting them to swoop in out of nowhere, destroy unrelated NPCs purely for entertainment value, then blast you with a gout of aerial flame.

Dragons have been a staple of gaming since the 1970s, but I can't recall any other game casting them in such a malevolent, chaotic light. I very much like the idea of giant winged lizards that get off on wrecking up the place at random.

Hopefully this pervasive sense of drakonophobia will be enough to distract me from Skyrim's disappointing lack of radscorpions.




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Apr 28, 2008
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I would say the menu system is that improved really. Still seems like it'll be a pain to scroll through all those items. All they really did was move the weapon/armor/ect tabs from the bottom of the screen to the left of the screen.

Though maybe it works better when you're actually playing. I sure hope so, at least.
 

Krantos

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Jun 30, 2009
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I still don't like the horse animation.

Aside from that I don't really have any complaints or input. I want to know a more details on how certain things work, but for the moment I'll just enjoy the view. 11.11.11 cannot come soon enough.
 

Nightmonger

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Jul 1, 2010
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Isnt this the same footage that got leaked about a month ago and then pulled from the interwebz? looks mighty similiar to me.
 

The_ModeRazor

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Jul 29, 2009
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That Creation Engine... just some tweaks to the Gamebryo Engine, isn't it? Still gonna be buggy as all fuck. Ahh, Bethesda never fails to dissapoint me and yet enthrall me with their games at the same time.
 

No_Remainders

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Sep 11, 2009
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Because this totally wasn't posted earlier [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.312471-So-Remember-QuakeCon-Well-Heres-Skyrim-in-HD], right?

Well, as I said earlier. It looks really nice, and I'm looking forward to it.
 
Dec 14, 2009
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The menus look great, the map is gorgeous, the skill trees look brilliant, the music is terrific.


Can you hear that? That's the sound of the best game this generation.
 

That One Six

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Dec 14, 2008
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I already watched this earlier today, and I was very pleased with what I saw. Other than a lack of horse combat, the removal of custom-made spells, and the horse's movement animations, SKYRIM! (it has to be shouted) is definitely living up to my expectations. Let's just hope that this trend of severe awesomeness isn't misleading my excitable mind.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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The_ModeRazor said:
That Creation Engine... just some tweaks to the Gamebryo Engine, isn't it? Still gonna be buggy as all fuck. Ahh, Bethesda never fails to dissapoint me and yet enthrall me with their games at the same time.
Hehe, now I'm not feeling so bad that I decided to wait a few months until after the game is out to get it.
 

Echo136

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Feb 22, 2010
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I feel like Ive seen this exact video before months ago (at least the first part). Its kind of sad I was expecting something different.
 

Braedan

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Sep 14, 2010
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Wonderful. Lets just hope it looks a little nicer on PC....

Though the menu looks tedious to navigate with a mouse and dialog between NPCs looks pretty identical, it looks to be an improvement.

Edit: Is there any word on turning off those terrible 3rd person kill animations though? The 1st person one was great, but ripping me out of my camera view to show some slow mo crap is irritating.
 

-Samurai-

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Oct 8, 2009
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And with that, I preorder.

I did see a few things I didn't like, though.

Still no decapitation. This isn't a "MOAR BLOOOOD!!" complaint. It just doesn't make sense that you're using a big ass sword or axe, and limbs aren't falling off.

Also, it still suffers from the same problem its predecessors had. Two NPCs are having a discussion, one gets hit in the face with an arrow and his lifeless body flies across the room. The other NPC calmly stands there, not suspecting foul play.

Anyway. Looks like a huge step forward.

Also;
Archer: Come on, monster!
And then the dragon eats him.
 

Bambi On Toast

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Sep 9, 2011
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I'm as excited as anyone about Skyrim, I love the Elder Scrolls series.

Just a few observations though. Did anyone think the melee combat seemed choppy or weird looking? I mean weird compared to Oblivion's combat. It looks similar to the animations from Fallout 3, although admittedly I haven't played Fallout 3. Maybe it was just the video but I'm pretty sure I was watching it fine.

I also thought that the physics looked a little weird once a creature/enemy was killed. I can't really describe it, it just looked weird when they dropped to the ground. They look great compared to Oblivion, where it felt like you were playing on the moon for how far you could knock your foes. I may be jumping the gun on this first video, however.

The bow and arrow mechanics looked solid enough. I just hope this game doesn't suffer like the transition from Halo 2 - Halo 3. Everything felt weightless and bouncy in Halo 3, especially with the vehicles. You could really feel the weight of everything in the first Halo.

I'm a console gamer so perhaps without the rumble of the melee combat it did not seem as visceral or immersive. Still really looking forward to Skyrim, and I cannot believe how much the magic aspect of the game has been improved. I never wanted to bother with Magic in Oblivion because of all the generic magic effects but Skyrim's magic looks a lot more promising.
 

Zhukov

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Dec 29, 2009
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Hm. So... it's Fallout 3 in fantasy land? Yeah, they really haven't sold me on this.

Don't get me wrong, I want to like it. The environments look awesome and epic and all that. And the dragons are certainly cool.

On the other hand, the combat looks like arse. I'll get sick of it within about four hours. But the game will have unavoidable combat around every corner. Before long it will become a chore to be worked through just so I can continue exploring. And the only reason to explore will be to get XP and loot that helps in combat... urg.

...

Eh. Maybe I'll pick it up when the price drops.
 

Lord_Gremlin

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Apr 10, 2009
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Normally I would buy such game day 1, but since I prefer playing on PS3 and recently Bethesda released several broken/not functioning games on PS3. I will wait for community feedback, to be sure PS3 version is fine. Actually, as long as it never ever freezes it's ok.
 

Blindrooster

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Jul 13, 2009
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This looks fantastic. I dont understand why people would wait months for tiny bugs to be fixed? I found the little bugs in Fallout 3 to be hilarious (rare as they were.) And if there is a freezing problem, you reset your system. Takes less than a minute. That's 1 minute compared to waiting MONTHS for all the miniscule kinks to come out.

Anyway, November 11th can't come soon enough for me.
 

Lacsapix

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Apr 16, 2010
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how can this ever run on my pc/PS3 the grahpics are cutscene like, just look at the water in part 2....
I'm getting this on day one.
 

imnot

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Apr 23, 2010
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Bambi On Toast said:
I'm as excited as anyone about Skyrim, I love the Elder Scrolls series.

Just a few observations though. Did anyone think the melee combat seemed choppy or weird looking? I mean weird compared to Oblivion's combat. It looks similar to the animations from Fallout 3, although admittedly I haven't played Fallout 3. Maybe it was just the video but I'm pretty sure I was watching it fine.

I also thought that the physics looked a little weird once a creature/enemy was killed. I can't really describe it, it just looked weird when they dropped to the ground. They look great compared to Oblivion, where it felt like you were playing on the moon for how far you could knock your foes. I may be jumping the gun on this first video, however.

The bow and arrow mechanics looked solid enough. I just hope this game doesn't suffer like the transition from Halo 2 - Halo 3. Everything felt weightless and bouncy in Halo 3, especially with the vehicles. You could really feel the weight of everything in the first Halo.

I'm a console gamer so perhaps without the rumble of the melee combat it did not seem as visceral or immersive. Still really looking forward to Skyrim, and I cannot believe how much the magic aspect of the game has been improved. I never wanted to bother with Magic in Oblivion because of all the generic magic effects but Skyrim's magic looks a lot more promising.
The video is pretty old and I read they have improved te physics a lot since they got feedback after they showed a bit at e3 or whatever.
I don't have a source sorry.