The new Elder Scrolls offers players variety when it comes to wileding

Nov 14, 2011 23:21 GMT  ·  By

I love all video games where the developers take care to think about the role of the character's hands (I still have very fond memories of how they were modeled and used in Far Cry 2) and I quickly understood that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was a solid experience from how the developers treated hands.

Most if not all of use have two of them and the same can be said of characters in the game, which means that using the two main mouse buttons (or controller triggers) are well placed to control one arm each.

Once this is established Skyrim is to be applauded for allowing the player to use his freedom and decide what he plans to do with each of his arms and how he plans to use them in the game world.

You can go full fighter and use a shield with a normal weapon to strike enemies down with brute force or you can go full wizard and arm to spells to kill enemies before they can get close.

There are also options to use bows and smaller weapons but my personal favorite is to partner one heavy kitting weapon, like a good, solid longsword, with a good offensive spell, like fire, which can help soften up enemies at medium before going in for a killing blow.

One interesting fact is that the right hand of the character is seen as the dominating one but the developers have linked it to the left mouse button with the left hand being linked to RMB.

This creates quite an interesting level of cognitive dissonance for the player and at times I (my problem further compounded by being a lefty in real life) found myself clicking the LMB in order to get my left hand to act and the other way around, which resulted in quite a bit of chaos in the combat encounters early on, with spells taking the place of cold steel attacks at time.

I don't know if all players will have issues with this switch but I managed to control its effects after a few hours playtime, although it tends to make an unwelcomed return every time I spend time away from Skyrim.