slateblog

I stopped playing Skyrim back in July. At level 27, I was stuck and getting frustrated. Whichever cavern I was in had a foe who was far too strong for me to beat, and I just didn’t want to backtrack all the way through and lose all that progress. That was it for me and Skyrim.

But, the year is about to end and it’s time to start thinking about the year’s best stuff – and Skyrim has to be in there. Sure, Draugrs got pretty boring after a while and I don’t have much interest in mixing Orange Dartwing and Mudcrab Chitin (WTF is chitin?). But, I figured I’d see how much more was left in the main storyline.

After loading an older save and losing whatever progress in that one dungeon, I set my scopes for Winterhold (still had never been there before) and embarked.

90 minutes later I had traveled maybe halfway between my closest fast-travel location and Winterhold. Friggin’ Yngvild! Precisely what waylaid me for 60+ hours this spring has done it again! “Ooh, a cave…well…I mean, we gotta check it out, right Annekke Crag-Jumper? Annekke?” Haha…ah, there she is! I got nervous there for a second. I do wonder if Lydia’s body is still there. I digress…

Yeah, so I just had to explore that cavern and this is why I never beat the game.

However, as I began to wander Skyrim’s frozen northlands, the grandeur of this game returned to me. Jeremy Soule’s sweeping score came back to me. I’ve played few games whose soundtracks were more fitting than this. It epitomizes exploration. Sweeping in scope, soothing in its beauty; grand and vast are its boundaries. As the sun set on Fredas, the 9th of Frostfall, I felt peace but yet excitement at what may lie over the next hill.

I probably will never dedicate enough time to Skyrim. I will complete it; it deserves that much. It will also be mentioned on my Best of 2012 article…whenever that surfaces. I’m so glad I went back to this game, even if just for an evening.

This entry was posted on December 30, 2012 at 03:51 and is filed under Blog, Games, Skyrim . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.