First, the story because it’s an Elder Scrolls game and there has to be a terrible blight occurring somewhere in the world.
The story goes like this, your character wakes up inside a Daedric world, ruled by a prince named Molag Bal. Molag Bal’s main purpose is to tear apart Tamriel and sink his nasty hooks into it — literally. Anyway, the wonder/horror doesn’t last long as you’re immediately thrown into a jailbreak. You go through various caves and caverns, drop some enemies and look to free a blind man named the Prophet, who helps you get back to the world of the living to help fight Bal’s minions off before it’s too late. Once back in said world, you are thrown lands apart from the Prophet and must find your way back to him, so that you can continue the main quest. Of course, you have to go through a series of missions before you eventually find the Prophet, who gives you the skinny on how the covenant (a group of extremely evil folks) is trying to ravage the world in the name of Molag Bal. Like any good ES game, it’s pretty straightforward with the story that involves some sort of terrible disaster about to unfold on the lands.
Cool stuff to get the adventure going, right? Absolutely, but the main quest isn’t the shining star in this galaxy.
While the main story is solid as can be, and worth the adventuring, the gold with the Elder Scrolls series has always been the side quests. That’s the reason why people lose themselves in the TES games for so long, and for good reason.Who doesn’t want to mistakenly follow a mysterious fellow into a hole-in-the-ground and accidentally become a vampire, only to find out that it sucks being a vampire (no pun intended)? Again, side quests are the reason why people love these games — at least the main reason. The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited takes that concept from the single-player, offline campaigns and expands upon them, forming continual experiences that keep the online experience of ESO going. Granted, some of the side quests in ESO are a ‘go and fetch’ variety, while others are a mission to take bad guys/girls out. Almost all of them have little to do with the main story, which is fine. Once you finish one quest, another awaits. Once in a while you’ll be randomly tracked down by a secondary character, who offers up a side quest while you’re on a side quest. In short, it’s a bevy of side quests that drive most of ESO, though the main story is compelling enough to remember on the way through. If you’re the type of gamer who doesn’t mind going off the beaten path, you’ll probably fall in love with ESO.
For myself, I love side quests. I think that is what hooked me in the single-player experiences from previous titles in the series. Hell, that’s what hooked me in Fallout 3 when I first played it. Exploring and getting to know an ever-expansive landscape is a good bit of the adventure in big Bethesda Game Studios driven titles. That’s not any different in ESO and it’s a good portion of the reason why I enjoy this title so much. I enjoy going over a hill, through the woods and discovering that grandma’s house is filled full of daedric creatures. I want to find that house in the middle of nowhere and the game design of ESO allows for that to happen.
So, in short, you’re getting the same type of emulated experience that you’ll find from the previous Elder Scrolls titles. I can dig that and, again, this is why I like the game so much.
Of course, what’s a game without good controls? The PC version of this game certainly makes sense when it comes to control scheme, but how in the world does that translate to the console side of the equation?
On the control side of things, the console version ups the ante a bit. While I know that I’m going to be verbally murdered for even implying the following notion, dear readers you must forgive me in advance, I really like the PlayStation 4 version of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited’s control scheme over the PC version. I know, I know, it’s almost unheard of that a predominantly console gamer likes the control scheme of a console when compared to the PC version. It’s especially nuts because of the macros and just the little things you have to do with the controls when it comes to ESO. The good folks at Bethesda Game Studios did a great job with making that control scheme transition from PC elite to lowly console. Using the directional pad, you can scroll through missions without a hitch. The macros during battle are properly placed using single button and combination buttons to get the job done. I’m still not crazy about the character info (a vertical list for inventory, material, etc.) when you get hit the option button, as I think it visually looks cluttered, but it’s manageable in comparison to everything else when it comes to controls.
How do the battles feel with said control scheme? On the PvE side of things, I think that the lack of experience with keyboard/mouse did me in during my PC review. It felt clunky to me and loose — but I’m a n00b at PC gaming (even to this day), so that shouldn’t count against the game. Anyway, the controls on the console feel a bit tighter than on the PC. I had far more success with bad guys during my battles and quicker leveling because of it, which translated into motivation to keep playing. Having the block button as L2 (a natural block button for us console gamers) helped quite a bit. In the end, the controls during fights felt together and tight, which worked out well.
Speaking of enemies, I will say that I’m still just a bit miffed at the upped difficulty of main enemies during missions and side quests, which translates to needing the help of strangers in PvE battle. I get the reasoning behind this, working with your fellow player to get through tough spots can be nice, but I still think that Bethesda needed to ease off a bit when it came to leveling differential. If you’re not understanding my complaint, let me explain a bit more. When you’re playing PvE and you’re up against regular enemies that are level 11, you can generally dispose of them quite easily. If you go up against a mid-level boss at level 11 for some reason they’re much harder to kill. They might be the main target in whatever quest you’re on, but the leveling doesn’t make much sense to me, since there is an obvious imbalance with strength. It gives off the illusion that your character is ready to do battle after killing so many creatures at level 11, which can be frustrating — especially, if you’re not expecting it. I can see the need for someone more important being a bit harder in battle, but not to the extent that most of these enemies can get. With that said, the control scheme helped to alleviate some of this imbalance, but there were still a few occasions where someone would beg to team up with me (or vice versa) randomly with the sole purpose of needing to kill the quest’s main enemy. I like the freedom of grouping quickly, but I’m a loner on these sorts of games — I don’t want to be forced to play with others.
Shifting gears a bit, one part of the game which I love immensely is the amount of lore and items scattered freely throughout the land just waiting to be discovered. You can find books, gems, stones and even do a little mining. The amount of extra things, like finding/reading books, is insane. You also have the ability to forge better armor and improve weapons as you progress through the game. It’s incredibly engaging to do this and it will help you out in fights when you need a bit of extra help on standard weapons/armor. To succeed and proceed you will have to look into this in some way, shape or form. Definitely check into that when you’re ready to explore.
All of this is available under the PvE moniker, so you’ll have plenty to do before you get your PvP on after you achieve level 10 in the game. I’m not a huge fan of PvP, but for those of you who are, level 10 is what you have to get to before you can go get your ass kicked on a regular basis in a different land. The lands will unlock once you hit that level, which really does open up things a bit for the game. Doesn’t that sound fun? I know some of you PvP nuts out there enjoy this portion of the title, and rest assure that it probably won’t disappoint.
On the presentation side of the game, my feelings lie somewhere in the middle. There are portions of the game that scream ‘this is an upgrade’ (the lighting in some areas, random rain storms and lack of pop-ups in the background are a few examples) when played on the PlayStation 4, but the textures and details in general still look better on the PC. I know that the game is huge and there are probably a lot of things for the PS4 to process at once, but I just wanted a bit more texture out the environments and characters, something that says ‘welcome to the current generation’. There isn’t a lot of separation between a Skyrim type graphics and this game. The PC version definitely still rules the roost when compared to the console. Laugh now, PC folks because…well, you’ll probably always have the better looking games. *sigh*
As for audio in the game, the music is gorgeous. You get a fully orchestrated soundtrack that works with place to place. It’s just outstanding and beautiful as you would expect from an TES game. You also get lots of in-game dialogue that, while might be goofy at times, is still intriguing. It’s no worse or better than what you’ll find in the stand-alone TES titles. So, it’s a perfect transition when you’re looking for similarities.
So is this game worth the price and is it fun? This is the complete package and more from ESO. You get everything that your PC counterparts get, plus a little more. Take that, add into a smoother and faster game and you’ll be thrilled with the purchase. I will say that ESO still has its occasional hiccup where you’ll be kicked for whatever reason. I had a helluva time when I first played this on PC, and it smoothed out eventually. This time around on the console, it simply doesn’t happen as much as it did on the PC. I’m sure there are less factors for failure with the game on a console (+1 for us!), so it’s not a real surprise with how smoothly it acts. Anyway, it’s a damn good game that may not grab you as much as the previous titles in the series, but it’s big enough to keep you going for hours upon hours. In short, it’s worth the $59.99 and NO SUBSCRIPTION FEE. I like that last part.
Onto the summary, good folks.
