10 Ways to Get Ready for Skyrim
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Are you ready for the next Bethesda epic RPG to be unleashed tomorrow?
Tomorrow’s dawn will bring the day that so many RPG-ers have longed for: the release of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Successor to the runaway triumph train that was Oblivion, Skyrim looks set to take the Elder Scrolls series to a higher place with its even more expansive realm of shining cities, rolling plains and broods of dragons circling overhead waiting to swoop down and incinerate the unwary.
Time grows short and the Skyrim release date is almost upon us. So how is the eager adventurer to prepare themselves for the ordeal of several hundred hours of intrepid questing? How indeed? Read on… Dragonborn.
1. Warm up those clicking fingers: If you ever played Oblivion as any kind of melee class, you’ll probably remember how goddamn repetitive combat actually was. Swipe-swipe-swipe-swipe and extra helping of swiping to follow, that pretty much sums up melee combat in Oblivion.
Fortunately, Skyrim seems to have taken a great step forward in terms of refining the system with an emphasis on timed attacks and even dual-wielding to spice things up. Additionally, a cool and intuitive feature of the new controls is that the left mouse button corresponds to performing actions with whatever is assigned to your left hand (a weapon, spell, etc) and the right mouse button for the right hand.
What this means is that your index finger won’t feel like someone jammed it in a vice and sandpapered it after every session of playing Skyrim. However, with both mouse buttons given equal importance, you’d better start cracking knuckles and stretching those clicking fingers out!
2. Revisit the horrors of Oblivion: Oblivion was a revelation, I’m not disputing that. Its unique brand of open world adventure was stunning to behold and Skyrim will doubtlessly take things one step further.
But… and this a great big Kardashian-sized but… Oblivion was goddamn awful in places. Despite giving players a wonderfully grand vista, there were a few gray clouds in the sky. The hideous NPC facial design, the laughable lack of voice acting variety, the broken questlines, these are all things that smudged the shine off a game that still managed to win Game of the Year for RPGs in 2006.
So go back and boot up Oblivion, remind yourself of all the little things that Bethesda got wrong, then sigh contentedly knowing that they’ve been fixed this time around.
3. Prepare an excuse for work/college/etc: You have time commitments? A place of work or learning to go to on a regular basis? Oooohhh… that’s going to be awkward. Best you conceive some sort of lasting excuse that keeps you from being hastily ripped away from your screen.
4. Get in some quality time with your partner: The countdown to Skyrim may as well be the last trickling sands of your social life’s hourglass running out. Take the time to show that special someone in your life that it’s not goodbye forever… it’s just goodbye for the next few hundred hours.
If you’re currently without a partner in your life, then lucky you, who’s laughing now? That’s right, it’s you, Captain Time-is-Your-Own.
5. Get inspired: Watch your favorite epic heroic fantasy flick. Sure, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is a classic, anything with a journey, swords and sorcery will fit the bill. My suggestion: Willow. There’s nothing better than Val Kilmer being a jackass while stuck in a cage.
6. Whet your appetite: There’s approximately a bazillion YouTube videos with various numbers of minutes of Skyrim gameplay floating around at the moment. I personally am not a fan of diving right into a 25 minute trailer of I game I’m keen to discover myself, but each to their own.
Just to give you a taste to whet the appetite, but not spoil it, I think the first part of Bethesda’s gameplay intro from September this year is just the right length.
7. Gather supplies: this will be a long haul, bring chips n’ dips.
8. Prepare the Ground: Just as your character needs to hone and polish their gear for the adventure ahead, you need to prepare your own gaming equipment. Organize your gaming zone, be it the bedroom, study, front room or a fully decked out basement or attic.
Prepare your gaming throne, fine tune those speakers and generally ensure that all is in readiness for Skyrim.
9. Choose Your Destiny: With more character creation choices than you can swing a sword at, it’s best to get a good idea of what kind of adventurer you’ll use for your first run at Skyrim. Some RPG-ers will be fighters till they die, others love the hybrid classes, for some it’s the lure of magic that gets them every time.
Use some of this painful waiting time to decide what form you’ll take as you venture into Tamriel once more.
10. Sleep: Get some zzzzzzz time. You’ll need it.
Skyrim will be released tomorrow November 11 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
Im sooooooo excited, I didn’t preorder so I have to take the chance of maybe or maybe not getting it tomorrow but if my local game stop dont have it I’ll be driving to all the surrounding ones!!