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Thursday 12 January 2012

Why Skyrim can go f*ck itself

Skyrim is a great game, but bloody hell does it annoy the piss out of me. Cue rant.

So I'm creeping through a damp, dark cave (as you do) and I come across a 'falmer' - basically a short, hairless, hunch-backed gremlin wearing animal furs and naff all else. He's got his back to me, and seems to be concentrating very intently on a bit of wall.

'This guy's a corpse' I chuckle, as I whip out my Bow Of Hurting or whatever.

A second later, an arrow slams into the back of the falmer's head. Most creatures at this point would probably go limp, but not the falmer. Instead it whirls around and runs straight at me, as if I'd just called its gran a felching mudslurper.

You'd have thought an arrow through the brain might weaken it a bit though, right? Well, I can see from its bulging health bar that - despite a 3X sneak attack bonus - I might as well have pelted the f*cking thing with cotton wool swabs.

I'm not too worried though. Instead, I pull out a big bloody mace and ready my fire spell. This'll put the little shitcake down, har har!

So Mr Falmer gets a non-stop blast of fire right in its face. It keeps on coming, swinging a stick-with-a-bone-attached, but I merrily stroll backwards and keep on blasting. Then I realise that his health bar is still barely trembling.

Eventually my back hits a wall, and the falmer closes in. Now I'm a little concerned, but it's still a case of huge mace versus stick-with-a-bone attached. Common sense would dictate inevitable triumph, but this is Skyrim. Common sense is about as useful as a barbed wire vibrator.

I smack him with the mace, and he reacts as if I'd just flicked his nose. The stick-with-a-bone-attached comes down twice and somehow penetrates my thick iron armour and kills me dead.

The first time this happened, I grunted. The second time I swore. The third time I told Skyrim to engage orally with part of my anatomy.

Thankfully on my fourth attempt, the Falmer got stuck on a mushroom and I was able to burn him to death from a distance. It took about half a minute.

When he was good and dead, I checked out his stick-with-a-bone-attached to see if it had some mystical 'penetrates any armour and deals ridiculous damage' bonus. But it didn't. It was just a stick. A stick with a bone attached.

And that is why Skyrim can go f*ck itself.