 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
As I have written before, when I played the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion,
it was an awesome experience. Completely free roaming on a very
realistic-looking terrain with no obvious repetition, and this outworld
was just humongous. It was the dream of an 80's and 90's gamer: No longer
are you restricted to a narrow path, but instead you can just take a
random direction and start walking to see what's there. (Of course Oblivion
was not the first one to do this, but older games invariably were
significantly more boring, eg. with significantly less detail and more
repetition, and worse graphics.)
But Oblivion kind of immunized me to the whole concept of free-roaming
wide open sandbox gameplay. After a few weeks the novelty wears off, and
after that it's a bit boring.
When I recently started playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I regained
much of that original wonder of just exploring around. It helps that the
terrain in Skyrim is even more detailed and varied than in Oblivion, and
more humongous. Long distances (eg. between towns) really feel long.
The climate of Skyrim is much more nordic, which means that the ecosystem
is mostly of the taiga and tundra type, which makes it much more barren than
the lush forests of Oblivion. Nevertheless, it still succeeds in being more
detailed, varied and interesting than in Oblivion.
Fun fact: I bought a new PC so that I could play Skyrim at ultra-high
detail, full resolution, full antialiasing. A rather big investment for
one game. (OTOH I suppose I'll be able to get the benefit with future
games as well...)
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 12/23/2011 5:06, Warp wrote:
> much of that original wonder of just exploring around.
I saw a post where someone showed a big pile of sunken ships that nobody
talks about and you'd need to be able to breathe water just to be able to
find. Just something to randomly run across if you're actually exploring around.
Stuff like that is cool.
> Fun fact: I bought a new PC so that I could play Skyrim at ultra-high
> detail, full resolution, full antialiasing.
Funny enough, I too almost never buy a new PC except when there's a new game
I want to run that won't run on the one I have.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
People tell me I am the counter-example.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Darren New <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote:
> I saw a post where someone showed a big pile of sunken ships that nobody
> talks about and you'd need to be able to breathe water just to be able to
> find. Just something to randomly run across if you're actually exploring around.
> Stuff like that is cool.
As said, the outworld in the game is absolutely humongous, and full of
detail, and it all looks very natural.
Every place looks like it has been specifically designed to look like
that, but of course this is impossible. It would have taken too much time
and resources to manually put every single rock, bush and tree in place.
Obviously it was a combination of manual design and algorithmic generation
of content. It's extremely well made, since nothing jumps out as being
clearly generated by a program.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 12/24/2011 7:26, Warp wrote:
> Obviously it was a combination of manual design and algorithmic generation
> of content.
I remember cracking open the level-description files for Black&White, which
were like 1-2K of text for the entire level. Elevations, "river starts
here", stuff like that, and apparently the game calculated where the forests
would grow, where the river would run, how much beach you would have, etc.
Not that B&W had large levels, but I certainly would have thought it would
take more than a hundred or so lines of text.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
People tell me I am the counter-example.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
I see that Yahtzee made a mostly positive review of this.
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
This is just beautiful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL5K09mqwZc
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
