For some folks, myself included, there’s not much justification to shell out $60 for a videogame these days. The fact that a majority of the season’s triple-A titles are rushed to market to make bonus bucks off holiday cheer never fails to fuel cynicism. Nor does the fact that they tend to fall prey to the unfortunate dichotomy of Western game design: ‘carbon-copy popcorn war shooter’ or ‘technically impressive but unpolished sandbox adventure.’Skyrim, the newest addition to the Elder Scrolls series, seems to fit within the latter category. But after spending some time with a copy that I thankfully did not pay $60 for (thank you, roommate) I can say that I’m simultaneously impressed and annoyed — impressed because of the surprising depth and detail of the virtual space I was inhabiting, and annoyed because it fails to stop at that. If I had my way, Skyrim would be a game about nothing.Read the rest at Motherboard.
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