So I have a copy of Skyrim sitting in front of me.

Yeah. Morrowind: my second favourite game of all time. Oblivion: massive disappointment in many ways, but sweet game. Skyrim? Been excited about it for a while, but watched some video reviews and not overly impressed thus far, it just looks like Oblivion, but basically the thing that I want that Morrowind had and Oblivion lacked is not something that you can put across in a short review: the uniqueness of the world, and the genuine sense of exploration given lack of things like fast travel. You had to work hard to get your character decent, and it was all worth it. And of course the mods, oh the mods.

Now, I was thinking that I have two options for how to play this. Wait until the end of term before playing, and totally immerse myself, or strictly limit myself to a certain amount of time per day and just start playing. The advantage of the former is that, well, it’s the way to do these things, because games like this are amazing. The advantage to the latter is that I don’t have to wait.

But considering things again I’ve realised that I don’t actually have any choice about this: I am no longer in a position to devote myself to a game like I once was, for I have too much to do, and pragmatically I’m only at home for two weeks this holiday so I’m not taking my computer home, and if I just spent my extra time in Oxford playing Skyrim said extra time would be wasted.

Further, I have at least partially grown out of getting totally obsessed with a game like this. It can still happen but (a) it’s not as good (b) I get annoyed with myself for the ‘lurching’ involved in the process, wishing to be more consistent in spending time on lots of different activities.

So once my work deadline tonight is past, so from Monday, I’m planning to play a maximum of 90m of Skyrim per day. This is going to be epic.

I’m kind of annoyed that Skyrim requires Steam. Bethesda RPGs are games to treasure, games to keep forever, and they are usually mostly DRM free, not even needed a serial.