I’m not sure if Skyrim can actually end, what with all the Radiant AI quests that the game generates automatically. My interest in the game can end though, and it finally has. The game provided me with 150 hours of top notch entertainment, and I doubt I’ve seen more than 50% of what it has to offer, but I’m done. I’ve done the mage college quests, the Thieves Guild quests, the Companions quests, the Dark Brotherhood quests, and I’ve had a couple of run-ins with Alduin, the big bastard dragon. There’s tons of map markers for places I’ve not been to yet, but I just can’t bring myself to go hunting for new stuff any more.

This is an odd position to be in, as games have tended to get shorter and shorter (compare Deus Ex to Deus Ex: Human Revolution, for example, or even Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which took me four hours to complete, motherfucking fucks). Also, Skyrim doesn’t resort to the “play through a second time but be evil for more achievements” kind of thing; the game world and systems in it are flexible enough (or unaware of what you’re doing) to allow you to be good or bad, you can chop and change your class as easily as equipping a different weapon or spell, and you can do 99% of what the game offers in one fuck off huge go.

Possibly the main reason I was able to reach the point of “no more, no more!” after 150 hours is the fast travel option. Morrowind, the previous best in the Elder Scrolls series, had no fast travel option. If you had to go from A to B, you walked. Or ran. Or bunny hopped. Sure, you could use a silt strider to travel between the cities, but to get to anywhere else meant hiking across countries. Skyrim lets you click a place on the map and teleport there. This meant that I’ve missed out on potentially thousands of things I’d have seen if I’d have ran everywhere, but it also meant that I could blast through the quests if I wanted to, or I could run to somewhere if I wanted to, or I could take a big black horse with red eyes and ride from the far south to the far north of the map because I was on a big black horse with red eyes. It was rare that I’d go to places on foot, but I’d always find something to see or do when I did.

What added to my playtime was my bizarre insistence on dressing my character for the occasion. For example, when on a Dark Brotherhood quest to stab someone in the face, I’d always make my character wear his fanciest clothes and hat as he approached the target, and when he was within range of the target’s throat, I’d make him stick his Dark Brotherhood armour on and stab the victim in the face. Once the deed was done, I’d make him change back into his fancy clothes and hat, so he could sneak away and no-one would know. The game wouldn’t give a toss; if someone witnessed you doing a murder, changing your clothes and look wouldn’t help at all. But it felt like the right thing to do, so I did it. Soooo many hours wasted to flicking through lists of armour to find my “doo be doop I’m innocent me, not going to stab anyone, not at all guv’nor” clothes.

So after 150 hours of exploring and fetch quests and dragon slaying and general face-stabbery, what did I do? I thought to myself “aw, dragons are awesome” and then fired up Saints Row the Third, which made me giggle for an hour. Loving it.

Since my first brain-squit about Skyrim, I’ve kept on playing it. In fact, I’ve not played anything else for longer than 15 minutes since I got Skyrim. In fact, it’s starting to feel like another career, but that’s cos I’m obsessed with it, but I digress. The point is, I’ve now played it for over 100 hours. I’ve still not gone near the Mage guild quests, or had anything else to do with Max Von Sydow, and my initial enthusiasm for getting Ulfric Stormcloak to take over the world waned pretty rapidly when he made a mess of Whiterun and didn’t bother tidying up after himself. So I’ve done a fucking billion other quests instead.

Cos I joined the Stormcloaks, I’m sticking with the Stormcloak armour – Stormcloak Cuirass, Fur Gloves and Boots and a Hide Helmet. They’ve all been upgraded on a workbench and enchanted on an enchanter thing, but they’re still a bit shitty compared to glass armour and all that, but if I’m gonna join a rebellion, I reckon I’d better look the part, so I am. It’s nowhere near the best light armour but it’s better than nothing.

Although I could probably play with nothing, cos I’m at a point where I can pretty much take anything on for fun. I’ve made a Nightshade bow which is fucking ruthless, and enchanted it so each arrow sets shit on fire. This kicks fucking ass. I killed a badass dragon the other day with ten shitty iron arrows. I’ve still not worked out where to go to get Fire Breath upgraded (I’m pretending my character has the same oral hygiene as me), but it’s still effective. And if all else fails, my elven shield and sword of mental fire are a solid foundation of death-dealing to fall back on.

Oh, and my sneak skill is through the fucking roof. Perking sneak and archery up to fuck have made me fairly undetectable; I’m starting to run round ruins looting and accidentally, literally, bumping into bandits, which, due to the sneaking thing making you crouch, means the first time they’re aware of my presence is when I accidentally head-butt them in the groin.

What all this adds up to is that I can be killed by three archers, or one persistent dragon, but only if they see me. Or only if I haven’t shot them first. Skyrim has gone from making me recoil in horror when a dragon decides to land on my face to running straight for the fuckers and giggling when I perforate them with arrows. The dragons have stopped being frustrating, and started being something fun to tackle. They can still kill me quickly and easily, but taking them down isn’t a 20 minute slog any more, it’s a 3 minute shooting gallery.

The criticism I had about the dragons stopping me from exploring has gone away. I’ve started to wean myself off the fast travel option; purposely picking quests that start somewhere new so I have to run / ride over to them, going through places I’ve not discovered yet, exploring them on the way, and finally having proper adventures like what Morrowind let me do.

Don’t get me wrong; there’s still things that piss me off (horses should just fuck off when a fight breaks out, and come back to you when you’re done, and not try to kick a fire-breathing dragon the size of a house to death, for example), but the game is still an absolute fucking belter.

Still only got one house though. And one pissed-off Lydia, who is forbidden to leave my house for being utterly determined to die a stupid death.

Oh, and something else I’m liking a lot; linked quests. I got one quest that needs me to lure a priest into a cave to be judged by a vengeful god. In order to lure the priest, I need to get on their good side, so they’ve given me a separate quest to get an innocent (or someone who likes me enough to follow me) to accompany me to a shrine to another vengeful god. So I need to sacrifice someone to get a priest to follow me for them to be sacrificed in turn. I am a multi-faith holy assassin. This is awesome.

Holy shit, I could get Lydia to be my first victim! Hmmm, but then my little home in Whiterun would be awfully lonely. Hmmmm.

1) Deadly Premonition. I haven’t played this game in aaaages (in fact, Tensing has still got my copy, the bastard). I saw a mention of it on the internet last night, which had a link to the Wikipedia entry for it, which linked to a massive, 10 page dissection of the game and why it is awesome, and I read every last word of it, and that is why I went to bed late last night. That, and I’m still learning the whistling song from it on the guitar. 99% of games leave my memory a week after I’ve stopped playing them. Deadly Premonition just won’t leave. I love it.

2) Space Funeral. This is one of them things in life that make you a bit worried for the future of the human race. It makes me think we’re probably fucked if even just one combination of genes can make a human being capable of making this. I really genuinely mean that as a compliment. Free to download here. Or just watch someone else play through most of it here.

3) Norrland. This is another of them things. Free to download here.

I made a sound effect for a game, and it got picked, and it’ll be in Gunpoint, and my name will be in the credits, and I’m still hyperventilating about it, and it is AWESOME, and Gunpoint is an IGF finalist, and I’M STILL EXCITED ABOUT SOMETHING SO TINY AND TRIVIAL (insert penis joke).

• Best Next GTA Game To Be Released On Phones: Vice City. They gotta do it. GTA 3 made enough cash to glue together to make another planet with, and Rockstar need a new planet to put all their coke and whores on. Bring back Tommy Vercetti!
• Best Next GTA Game To Be Released On Everything Else: GTA 5. It’ll be hyped to fuck and back. I’ll forget all about how much I liked GTA 4 until I realised it was fucking boring as fuck, and then I’ll get sucked in and think it’s gonna be tremendous, and then it’ll be released and I’ll like it up until some cunt keeps calling me in-game to ask if I want to go fucking bowling. Bring back Tommy Vercetti!
• Most Disappointing Ending To A Trilogy: Mass Effect 3. Or, to be more accurate, the first ending I get. I’ll end up with the shittest one. And then I’ll have to finish it again to get the proper good one. And then I’ll have to finish it AGAIN to get the evil one. I’ll bet £5 with myself now that the only ending that’ll be halfway decent is the evil ending.
• Best MMO That I’ll Quit After One Month Cos Everyone Else Is Level 4,000 And I’m Not: Star Wars: The Old Republic. Cos I haven’t got it yet, but I probably will, and by then it will be too late. The time for stupidity and shenanigans and swearing will be over, and groups will be all SERIOUS BUSINESS. Fuckers.
• Best Revamp Of An Old Game That Will Still Raise The Ire Of The Entire Internet: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Emphasis on the word “offensive” there. Valve won’t release it until it is very fucking playable, but the idiot whacko nutjob tinfoil hatted twatcunts will all whinge about how it’s nothing like CS:S, which is nothing like CS 1.6, which had fuck all to do with Pac Man. Ignore them Valve, just update it until the haters go away. And then make another Half-Life game, for fucks sake!
• Best Film To Game Crossover Game: Grosse Pointe Blank. It’s not on the cards. It’ll never happen. But by fuck it would be brilliant if it did. In fact, give Swery (the director for Deadly Premonition) the engine that Rockstar use for the GTA games, the licence for the movie rights and likenesses and soundtrack to Grosse Pointe Blank and get voiceovers from John Cusack, Minnie Driver, and the guy who plays Bobby Beamer, and the resulting game will blow the minds of everyone on the planet. Forever. In a good way.
• Best Hype-Building Exercise: Whatever Lionhead announce this year. Cos they will. The exercise will consist of Peter Molyneux putting the boot into Fable 3, and then hyping up Fable 4 / whatever is next from Lionhead.
• Most Confusing Game Of The Year: The Witness by Jonathan Blow. Fucker made Braid, and it gave me headaches. The Witness will make my brain die.
• Best Game of 2012: Probably Skyrim, hehe