I can see why people love Skyrim. I can also see why I might not be one of them.

I've played just about every Elder Scrolls and Fallout game, and the prospect of dragging myself through another land of peril isn't quite as appetizing as it should be. The Fallout games, at least, have a radio full of unsung classics to keep you company - Skyrim just has your sidekick quietly following behind you as you walk through the woods for half an hour. Mind you, I enjoy walking through ACTUAL woods, with the nature and the fresh air and all that, but digital woods? Their appeal isn't nearly as strong.

The new breed of RPG - Mass Effect 2 in particular - has revealed a deep and dark secret about some of us gamers: we ENJOY linearity. I know, I know, it's disgusting. But we do. I know I do, at any rate. ME2 is designed explicitly to move you from encounter to encounter, ensuring that you're always engaging in quality content. You have to remember, I'm old. I've been gaming for 25 years. I cut my teeth on the old Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games, where you did nothing but walk around for 50 hours. The idea of spending a gaming session doing nothing but wandering the woods until I find a cave with a minor encounter inside of it? No dice. Not at this point in my career.

I suppose I could just hop from story quest to story quest (the ones I've done so far have been great), but I suspect I'd be underlevelled and underskilled for the tasks ahead. And in the interest of fairness, the levelling system is pretty righteous, rewarding you for improving your skills rather than mashing monsters or completing quests. The ability to improve yourself via diplomacy or cunning is very, very cool. (For the record, my character is a dark elf who emphasizes sneaking and dark magic.) The skill trees - done in a zodiac format - are awesome, other than the terrible UI implementation where you can't see the whole tree at once.

But I dunno. Weapon combat is rather awkward - consisting of flailing limbs bouncing off of hitboxes - and kiting renders most enemies pretty harmless. (Well, except for that giant I met while exploring the east... one hammer blow killed me and sent me flying at least 100 feet in the air. Now THAT'S entertainment, even if I lost 10 minutes of progress.) The vast wealth of weapon and spell options is incredible, though. If only there was a better way to access it all - the 'favorites' function is awful and really needed to be done as a ring menu. Maybe the PC version has a slicker interface?

I'm sticking with it for now, though. I love burgling the townsfolk at night, especially since the game only has three voices and I'm already sick of them.Stealing that smug shopkeeper's entire fortune was bliss! Selling some of it back to him was just icing on the cake...