Legendsmith said:
BloodyThoughts said:
They're both getting probably the same amount of praise, and as of recently, people seem to be turning on Skyrim for, whatever reason.
For the exact same reason that people turned on Avatar. It looks really pretty, but once you start looking for depth you find that it isn't there.
Depth is a subjective concept. Some people liked Avatar enough to go look for the companion books and to coax the linguist Cameron had hired to design the Na'vi language to finish the job and come up with a complete lexicon. Some people like it enough for fanfics and fanart to be produced. Others don't. The same goes with Skyrim.
I like to go around collecting books to garnish my shelves, and to slowly work up my cash so that I own every single house in the game and fully furnish each of them. I like to take off, ignore all of my quest markers, and go looking for blue butterflies or torchbugs. I like trying to figure out if the designers had a sense of Skyrim's various ecosystems, of which plants grow where.
I enjoy visiting the settlements and Hold capitals and to imagine what these places would be like on a more realistic level. I like to imagine Whiterun as a busier and livelier place, thanks to the suggestion the game already provides me with. I enjoy seeing how the locals draw sustenance from the surrounding natural resources. When I'm bored of it all, I just head West, where the steam vents are. I like seeing how lush, verdant and comparatively warm the place feels, compared to the cooler, grayer tones used elsewhere. I like the locals' banter about how the weather turning *almost* warm in Skyrim is grounds for a joke or two.
Of course, when all of the above fails to maintain my interest, I like how I can slaughter an entire capital's citizens, die in a blaze of glory as I'm hacked apart by guardsmen (potentially decapitated in the process, as well). Then, of course, I reload my latest save and resume being a worthy Dragonborn. I like how everything's possible, as the writers at Bethesda thought up the concept of Dragon Breaks. Everything I do, no matter how silly, is canon. Everything happens in another Skyrim, in another universe of the same exact place. I've been as much of a stalwart hero as I've been a complete maniac. I've been a walking god thanks to the console just as I've been a puny weakling who turned the difficulty up to Master because he was feeling masochistic.
To me, that's depth. Tons of it, in fact. Skyrim doesn't have the literary acumen of the Lord of the Rings series, obviously, but it captures the same epic feeling in a different manner.
Can I be wrong? Could you disagree? Of course. Everything's subjective. Even so, I'd humbly suggest that you give Skyrim a whirl. If you don't blindly adhere to what your quest log tells you to do, you'll find so many things the designers didn't think about or all the little secrets they did think of just waiting around the corner.
Don't dismiss Skyrim as just another case of graphics over substance. It's not just pretty, dude. Get in the right mood, and it'll suck you right in.