The Game of the Ring of Dovahkin

            Alright you cheeto-fingered bastards, let’s get our swords out and start dungeon crawling. There is an echo from deep within the cave, and there might just be treasure on the other side if we can just beat this god damn dragon this time. It’s not like this our twentieth time rushing this dungeon, and it’s not like this game is running our lives, and certainly we remembered to eat this morning, right? Anyway, it doesn’t matter, we are going to cut this thing’s head off and consume its soul and be on our marry little way. No sir, the One Ring will not be helping us today and that’s because we are talking about the wonderful world of Skyrim. This not-so-hidden gem is something of a miracle when it comes to the high fantasy genre.

            Curators of the high fantasy world seem to have their preferred poisons of:  J. R. R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings), George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones), C.S. Lewis (Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe) (I don’t know why these famous authors all have their names abbreviated but I kindda dig it).  Honestly everyone should know who these people are, and if you don’t you should go get cultured with a google or two before reading the rest of this blog post. I can promise you, the troupes referenced here are not for someone who doesn’t know about, at the very least, these three main authors. At the BARE minimum, please be up to speed on your dragon lore.

            Skyrim does a perfect job of blending the realm of paper and ink with that of code and art. There is no other word for a game as beautiful as this one is. Art is the ultimate compliment when it comes to a video game. Pokémon as is Zelda, Crash-Bandicoot on the other hand isn’t art. Skyrim is notable in the department of deeper thinking because it is the first high-definition High Fantasy RPG.

 I shouldn’t have to explain what an RPG is to a bunch of basement dwellers, but just in case someone doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about it means Role Playing Game, or if you’re talking to a member of our military then it stands for Rocket Propelled Grenade. Use your context clues to figure out which I’m going to be referring to.

Taking a step off of my soapbox as well as my high horse, the Artist behind Skyrim have been awarded the VGX Award for Studio of the Year back when the game came out. That is kind of a huge deal. This game was cross platform when it was announced for PC, XBOX, and Play Station. I myself own this game on all three platforms but my preferred poison is PC simply because I can mod it and make the game look even better. Granted, the code is written in C++ and there is no way in Mordor that I would be able to understand how to write it, but I have friends to do that part for me. Go nerds.

Sword swingers and wand wavers rejoice because this game has both. Fans of the magical lands of Middle Earth and the heavy metal of Westeros can find comfort in this world knowing full and well that this game can be played however they want it to. No matter how you want to play the game, Skyrim can please your pallet. The Game offers staves and spells for those who want to burn their enemies to a crisp or more my style, summon demi-demons to do your bidding for you while you sit back and watch the chaos unfold. It even offers an assassin path that can be utilized with the sneak capability, daggers and bows are good here because both are low sound and can go unnoticed. But let’s say you wanted to be an assassin mage, would that work? Well you better count Akatosh’s blessings because you can do just that. There is a spell in the game that allows you to summon an ethereal bow that does mad damage. The best part about this bow is that it doesn’t use real arrows, they come with the summon. There is also a spell for daggers, but they don’t do as much damage as I would like them to. User’s discretion I guess. Just summon the big bads to work for you. Any hunt worth killing is a hunt worth obliterating with sheer amounts of force and magical ability, ain’t that right?

For the fans of Lore, there is plenty of that here too. Skyrim is the fifth game in a series in a world of wonder and gore. There is abundant dialogue amongst all of the characters in the game. Let’s dig into this little thing called the Dark Brotherhood. And by little thing, I mean a murderous cult that worships a possessed corpse of an old woman. You, as the Dovahkin, are the mouth piece of the corpse. And if you think that sounds creepy, you are so so so right. This has got to be one of the strangest things that I have ever done in a game, and yet I loved playing this story line through. Every strange little thing this dead woman wanted me to do, was a ton of fun. This has got to be one of the most interesting story lines in the game because it is literally an assassin cult who is trying to appease a demonic god, but don’t know it yet. The participants of this cult just think they are trying to do the best that they can and make a living. But to come to terms with the reality of it all, you have to re-kill the dead woman and then kill the demon possessing it. It is a really something to work for this, to quote her “Sweet sweet mother,” and then figure out how absolutely awful she is. I guess it makes it all that more satisfying in the end.