Bladed combat in Skyrim goes something like this: attack, power attack, block, parry. Add some briefly amusing kill animations that add nothing to the gameplay and a slew of mostly useless melee abilities and you have a pretty bland, repetitive mix. Skyrim (Oblivion too) have a massive pile of other stuff to do, so that a moderately dull combat system doesn't matter so much. It's a pretty dull Elder Scrolls player who does nothing but hacks and slashes their way through the quests. Magic, stealth, archery, quests, exploration and all the other features easily paint over that gap to make highly enjoyable games.
I can't be the only person who remembers Call of Duty 2 for the 360. Shit, I reviewed even older Call of Duty and Medal of Honor games for the St. Augustine Record back in the day. First person shooters, in comparison, have become dizzyingly complex since those days. Observe.
This post isn't about the evils of the Call of Duty franchise, so much as I'm using it to make a point. The Call of Duty games have gotten increasingly complex over time (perhaps too much so). First person sword fighting games, though, have a long way to go before they hit the sweet spot between blessed simplicity and byzantine complexity.
What is it about sword fighting anyway? I can think of so many games that fail when it comes to producing a compelling, bladed combat system: Assassin's Creed, The Elder Scrolls, any Lord of the Rings game you care to name, and on and on. Has any game ever really done it right? I don't think so.
I constantly fantasize that someday, someone will make an online FPS in an ancient or medieval world setting, complete with castles, sieges, spears, bows, swords and axes. Could you even imagine the satisfaction of smashing your enemy's skull in with a warhammer over the web? I'm fully convinced it's coming, eventually. But first things first, let's try and establish a baseline for sword fighting in gaming, one that can translate sufficiently cleanly to multiplayer.
K
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