I’m still waiting for per-platform breakdowns that will confirm the PC version of Skyrim is as number oney as the all-formats result is, but this we do know: Skyrim is officially the number one videogame in the Christmas UK chart, outselling every other game over the last seven days. That means eight years of Activision and EA Chrimbo-list dominance comes to end in one fell, dragon-based swoop. (more…)

Officially official: Skyrim is officially the fastest-selling title in Steam’s official history. And that’s official. Neither Valve or Bethesda are giving specific sales figures, but Bethesda have claimed that the Skyrim PC outsold any other PC game in North America three to one in its first month. It’s been a success elsewhere too: across all platforms and all territories, the dragon-bothering game has now racked up 10m in sales.

Said Valve’s boss of business dev, Jason Holtman, to Industry Gamers: “Skyrim is the fastest selling title in Steam’s history. Bethesda’s commitment to and understanding of the PC as a gaming platform shows in the great review scores, spectacular launch, and continued high player numbers that Skyrim has received. We are delighted that Bethesda chose to use Steamworks to support Skyrim both at retail and digitally.”> Let me, ah, just pick him up on part of that. (more…)

First: we do not know what the Skyrim DLC will be. I’m not pretending otherwise. But Todd Howard has been musing upon the nature of add-on chunks for the game of swords and shouting, and while he’s obviously PRing to some degree, it sounds like the thinking is along ambitious rather than cyncial lines. Bethesda are looking at “ways to make the game better, not just have more, because the game is so big,” Howard told Joystiq. “So we’re going through ideas right now, and processing everything people are doing in the game, and trying to think of ways that we can improve it.” I would take fixes and thoughtful improvements to abilities and world behaviour over another chunk of quest-littered terrain any day. (more…)

What exactly is going on behind our backs in the lands of Skyrim? Eh? EH? The answer is below.

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Recently, I maxed out pickpocketing in Sykrim. The top perk for doing this is that you can even rob items that people have equipped. This includes, for some reason, their clothes. Yep: they do not notice you removing their clothes.> It’s a handy way of making heavily-protected enemies a little less tough before you go in for the kill, which is about the only reason I can think it was included.

It’s also a way of humiliating an NPC populace that has absolutely no idea it’s being humiliated, and would continue to treat me politely even though I could see their nipples. My cause was clear: every single citizen of Whiterun must be stripped to their underpants. It took me one long, strange evening, but I did it. Welcome to the naked city. And they had no idea of their own nudity. Or did they? Talking to them, I started to get the funny sense they knew what was going on after all… (more…)

We’re loving Skyrim. Nary a spare second of our spare time isn’t spent hacking and exploding our way through it. But we’d really like it if it worked properly. Bethesda’s patches have so far been peculiar in the extreme, seemingly making the game more broken, or just fixing the last patch. With new additions breaking mods, and introducing backward flying dragons, I’d like to suggest that future patches maybe strike a bold new direction and bring in some improvements. But what improvements? Below is a selection of what we think Bethesda needs to do to make Skyrim be the game it deserves to be.

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Skyrim has received a rather hurried patch 1.3. How do I know this? Because my game of Skyrim just crashed to desktop for no given reason, and on trying to restart it, Steam’s patcher kicked in. Maybe it will fix random crashes to desktop?! It does offer “General stability improvements”, who coincidentally was a man I served under in the army in the 1940s. So have they addressed any of the litany of issues on everyone’s lists? Well, if the books not sitting correctly on the bookshelves was one of yours, then you’re a winner! If not, well, then maybe not so much.

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The year’s big guns have all been loosed now, and Christmas wallet-raiding is fully upon us. So, which games will be cleaning up on Steam and at Uk retail? Skyrim, MW3, AssRev, or another challenger? And is the resurgence of Splash Damage’s last game enough for me to justify saying ‘Byte vs Brink’? (more…)

Following a couple of not so great patches, Bethesda have cheered me up immeasurably this morning by sending word that in January they will be releasing the Skyrim Creation Kit.

PC players will be able to download for free the same development tools we used at Bethesda Game Studios to create Skyrim.

That would be enough to make me punch the air quietly in triumph but it’s not all. The tools will tie in to the Steam Workshop, allowing for easy upload, collection and browsing of mods. When I read that bit I did a small celebratory dance. Mid-way through I stopped though, convinced that this was a cynical move to control modding by making it exclusive to a specific platform.

Prefer to use existing modding sites? Not a problem. You’ll still be able to upload/share/access Skyrim mods on fan-created mod sites.

Dancing again. Full details below.

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I’m not a wizened grumblepuss who only enjoys the oldest of RPGs, honest I’m not! I’ve even finally managed to play some Skyrim this week and that’s probably the newest RPG in the world. Unlike most people, I haven’t actually done very much yet; instead I’ve been tinkering around to see how far I can push it before my computer starts weeping tears of molten graphics card. Mostly visual tweaks but there’s some lovely stuff here. To round things off, my favourite new Mount and Blade mod, which I mentioned before its release and now urge you all to download. Urge>, you hear?

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