So just before Christmas, I bought Skyrim. You know, to see what all the 
fuss is about. Since this is apparently the best game that has ever been 
made in the history of human existence...

In summary, Skyrim is identical to Fallout, except that instead of a 
boring post-apocalyptic wasteland, it's a somewhat less boring Norse 
wasteland. With dragons, for some reason.

It's interesting the number of names that have to have "dragon" in them. 
It's like somebody is trying to be Tolkien, and failing. Dragonborn, 
dragonstone, dragonsreach... Do you realise, the Jarl of Whiterun 
employs a wizard named "Farengar Secret-Fire"? There's nothing more to 
say about *that*...

The trouble with these mythical lands, much like Tolkien, is that all 
the nouns sound so utterly identical that it's *really hard* to follow 
what the *hell* is going on! Several times I wished there was some way 
to replay what some character said, because I can't remember what it 
was. (Or rather, I can't remember what the psuedo-Norse nouns were!)

The currency of Fallout is bottle caps, and you will never, ever have 
even remotely enough of them. And even if you do, the stuff you want to 
buy won't be available to purchase anyway. The currency of Skyrim is 
gold coins. Now a *gold* coin sounds like it should be worth a hell of a 
lot... but apparently it isn't. I guess because they're so ubiquitous or 
something? Like, 1 apple is worth 1 gold coin. (Sometimes.)

In Fallout, the problem is that you'll never find anything valuable to 
sell. In Skyrim, the problem is that you'll never find anybody who can 
afford to buy your stuff off you. Like, I found a magical staff that the 
game reckons is worth about 3,000 gold coins. I have yet to meet a 
merchant of any kind who has more than 500 gold coins in total. So this 
extremely valuable item appears to be totally illiquid.

Trying to amass 5,000 gold to buy a house was... challenging. There's an 
achievement for managing to own 100,000 gold. From what I've seen so 
far, you would actually, like, *win* something IRL for that!

Even just figuring out who to sell which items to is entirely 
nontrivial. In Fallout, there is (as far as I can tell) only one trading 
post in the entire world, and they buy and sell anything. In Whiterun 
alone, there's a general goods place, an alchemy place and a hunting 
supplies place. (There's also meant to be a blacksmith; I really need to 
find that guy...)

One big difference between Fallout and Skyrim is that there are no guns. 
The only way to hurt somebody is to physically walk up to them and hit 
them with a mace. Apparently a lot of people have commented that combat 
sucks in Skyrim, and I kinda agree; it looks more like you're swiping 
air than actually doing damage, no matter what the health bar says.

I have no idea what a "draugr" is, but Bleak Falls Barrow is full of 
them. And they're surprisingly hard to kill. It seems health 
spontaneously regenerates on its own, so you just need to stand around 
and suck your thumb for a while after you kill one. But if several 
attack you at once, you have a problem!

Actually, it turns out there's quite a few caves and barrows scattered 
around the place where you can go underground and loot stuff. And 
they're almost all infested with draugrs. (Although I did manage to find 
one cave that was spiders and mages.)

Trying to beat the draugr overlord of Bleak Falls Barrow was an exercise 
in frustration. He's just unkillable! If you get close enough to swing a 
mace at him, he'll cut you to bits before you can do anything to him. 
Eventually, in desperation, I tried using magic. I knew from early on in 
the game that magic existed, but I had assumed it would be extremely 
complex and fiddly to use, and utterly useless in combat. It turns out 
it's actually quite effective. To the point that I now no longer bother 
carrying any weapons at all; I just set people on fire from afar.

None of that helps, of course, when you're occasionally required to kill 
a dragon. Now those critters really *are* unkillable! It seems the only 
way to harm them is with a bow and arrow - a weapon roughly as accurate 
as a paper aeroplane. And it does roughly the same damage as a small 
sheet of paper too. And has incredibly disappointing range. The dragon, 
of course, breathes fire. (Except the ones that breathe ice? Wuh?)

So far, I've only managed to kill two in the entire game. Which is 
problematic, because apparently I need another dragon soul to complete 
the next step in one of the side-quests. That means it looks like I need 
to go purposely *find* a dragon and kill it - and that's just crazy 
talk. I don't know, maybe I just need to gather better gear or 
something... but I have *no idea* what would actually help at this 
point. Dragons are immune to just about everything except arrows, and 
nothing increases their damage, accuracy or range, so...

Much like Fallout, it's quite hard to avoid all the people who dot the 
land. Which is a problem, since whenever you meet a person, there's a 
50% chance they'll try to kill you on sight. At least it's harder to get 
lost in Skyrim; the scenery is much less repetitive.

It seems there's still lots more to learn about the game. (Alchemy, 
enchantments, how to learn new spells, etc.) But for now, I've got two 
quests open, and they're both stalled. One requires me to use a new 
Thu'um I just learned, which apparently requires a dragon soul. (Yeah, 
like those are easy to find.) The other requires me to infiltrate a 
party somehow. Rather, I can get in, but then I need to create a 
distraction somehow, and I've got no clue. I also need to figure out 
what equipment I need to smuggle in, *before* I get there, so I don't 
know what I'll need yet. I suspect that picking the wrong stuff makes 
the quest impossible.

Oh well. Let's go watch the sunset or something...

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