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Top 5 Reasons Everyone Should Play Skyrim

By on October 28, 2011
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3) Streamlined Leveling System and Menus

Leveling worked pretty well in Oblivion, you wanted to level up an attribute you just needed to do things that would increase that. Want single handed weapons leveled up, just use them. This system returns to Skyrim, although it seems to be tightened up just a little bit. The skills have been reduced to 18 this time around though, when Oblivion had 21 and Morrowind had 27. In addition, each time you level one skill it grants you a bonus to health as well as the option to add more health, mana, or stamina. The one addition here, which is fantastic, is the perks system from Fallout. Perks worked perfectly in Fallout, and while the system might not be exactly the same, it is pretty much the same thing. Each time you level up you get a point to use on a perk, and if Fallout was any indication, some of these will be incredibly useful while others will probably be a bit wacky. Combining the leveling system of Oblivion with the perks of Fallout seems like a sure fit.

The thing that’s received the biggest overhaul would be the menus. The HUD has been completely cleared up, adding to the immersive experience. Your health, mana, and stamina bars will vanish after a while if you do nothing to affect them, so the only thing remaining on your screen would be the compass at the top. The menus have been completely overhauled. Gone is the clunky, cumbersome system from Oblivion replaced with a sleek and easy menu system. Compass arrows appear when you bring up the menu. Whichever way you look brings up a different part of the menu. Especially interesting is the up arrow which leads to the skill area. This causes your character to look up, where you see a beautiful network of constellations that are your skills. Not only is it easy to use, it looks great while it does it. To see the menu system in full, go ahead and watch the video below which shows it off perfectly.

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About Hayes

4 Comments

  1. Cifre

    October 29, 2011 at 12:01 am

    Oblivion had a great combat system??!?! Bah…. I stopped reading your article on that point. I’d say rather superficial and boring. Made for mad-bash mouse clickers and back pedal ladies.. I bet you played only as a mage if you say the combat was that great. I don’t have too much expectations on skyrim combat, though I indeed believe it should be better this time.

    • Mike

      November 9, 2011 at 3:04 pm

      haha i stopped reading it too we he said that.

    • Hayes

      November 9, 2011 at 4:26 pm

      I apologize, I honestly don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote that. I did in fact mean to put good or decent combat system, no joke. I by no means thought that Oblivion had a fantastic combat system, but it did get the job done. I must confess, it was probably one of those things I meant to go back and edit later on but didn’t. I’m sorry that my one screw up made you stop reading the article :(

  2. Nuck Chorris

    November 1, 2011 at 2:55 am

    I’m going to have to agree with Cifre on this one, but atleast this game strives to be as immersive as possible. If you ever played a game such as Dragon Age, you know what i’m talking about; “tap X/A/(Whatever on the keyboard) to lose control of your character who will attack continuously without your input” now this was only a problem in DA:O (Fixed in DA:2 aka sh**y sequel), don’t get me wrong it’s a great game, i just feel that the in all ES games i’ve felt that ‘this is my character, i have complete control over him’.

    I’m glad however that this game is getting alot of attention, both from Bethesda as a project and from the media that this game much deserves, yet somehow long-time “fans” of the series don’t seem to like where the series is going with it’s popularity. I remember when these “Fans” wanted the ES series to get much more attention, but ever since Morrowind, and more specifically OBLIVION and now Skyrim they seem to want the game to go back to being an indie game that only they knew of.
    All this talk about Bethesda “Streamlining” the game has again got longtime “fans” worked up, yapping specifically about the armour and skills “Streamlining”, but i’m going to attempt to explain here (Hopefully some will read it) that the armour was “Streamlined” only because:
    A) No armour ever really looked good in Morrowind or OBLIVION because the devs had to work on each piece as sn individual item.
    B) Now that the currias and greaves are combined it makes work much easier allowing for more armour, with more variety.
    Also) You still have a great range of character customization, it’s not all about armour/robes/clothing it’s also about the customization of the protagonist i.e. Tatoo’s, character build (Nimble/Strong), beards (FTW), and whatever detail you wish to enhance in the face.
    Now for Skills:
    A) All the skills are still their, mysticism has been split into the other magic categories wheras Blunt has been split into the 1/2-handed sections i.e. the 1 and 2-handed skills have multiple perk trees whether that be Dagger, Waraxe, (Long/short) sword, and possibly hammers (one handed)
    And 2-handed- Battleaxe, Claymore, Warhammers.
    B) Magic customization is still there only is not performed at alters, but with the spells you know out of about 100 unique spells.
    C) Some skills aren’t even categorised as skills whether it be cooking or mining so there’s still some extra stuff in their ;P.

    Thankyou for ‘reading-my-rant’ and have fun XD XD XD.