2 Player Cupboard of Shame featuring Chief Problems

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Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

Squidge was fully in charge of hosting, producing and editing this episode. As such, he decided to leave the few swears in the episode without bleeping them. This was done for comedy reasons, as we felt that there is very little in the episode which could offend most listeners.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

Squidge wanted to take a shiny new look at The Cupboard of Shame. The difference being that he wanted to invite some familiar voices onto the show, one at a time, and discuss one game that they want to jettison into the Cupboard of Shame. Since this is the first episode in the new series, there was no better choice than Chief Problems.

For those who don't know, Chief was our very first guest, appearing on the very first episode of the podcast (released back in 2017) - aka "56 Games in 63 Minutes".

The Cupboard of Shame is something that Squidge describes as:

The idea behind it is games that you have bought in your past, played it, but you don't know why you bought [them] but you did anyway.
Any complaints that you have about the game; why you want to stick it in the Cupboard of Shame. We'll talk about the good points and the bad points [of the game], and we'll share some fun facts about the game
- Squidge

Previous Entries into the Cupboard of Shame

In previous episodes of the podcast, Squidge has challenged both G and himself to put some titles into the Cupboard of Shame. The titles that they chose include:

Iron Man the Movie Video GameWETRambo: The Video GameCrackdownFinal Fantasy XIII

You can hear their discussion on these games (and a few more) in episode 47: The Cupboard of Shame - here's a link to that episode

Chief's Entry

Starting things off on the correct foot, Squidge asked of Chief:

What do you want to put into the Cupboard of Shame?
- Squidge

And Chief started the new series off with a truly controversial pick: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - specifically the PS3 version. But why is it shameful?

It's shameful in that I've never really finished it, and that I've given up on it.
That's not to say that it's a bad game, but it's definitely one of the games that I've not finished, just because I can't be bothered to push through to the end.
- Chief

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion had passed Chief by and he hadn't even heard of Morrowind - talk about walking in, right in the middle of the story - and although he had never played any of the earlier entries, he knew that he was going to like Skyrim.

It's like your first Final Fantasy game
- Chief

And the discussion on similar C-RPGs - classic RPGs - of the time, brought up both Fallout and the Dragon Age series of titles, how they seemed more engaging than Skyrim, and how Skyrim's mapping system seemed overly complex.

Characters & Editions

Character creation seemed to be a sticking point for both Chief and Squidge. Not only is the character creation wizard in Skyrim that complex, but it seems that naming characters is also quite difficult for both of our intrepid hosts. But Chief came up with a source of inspiration:

When I watched Game of Thrones, I would just choose the names of the characters that I liked
- Chief

This reminded Chief that Bethesda had released several versions of the game for his console (PS3) at the time, including the Legendary Edition. And of course, he bought the Legendary Edition too

Basically [I bought it again] for the DLC.
The old Guard stuff wasn't bad. And you got to be on a horse, that was nice.
- Chief

Combat

But riding around on a horse wasn't enough to save the game for Chief:

You can just wander everywhere and it's quite picturesque. But the game is shocking, the combat is shocking. I mean, the magic combat is shocking.
- Chief

Which Squidge defends because Skyrim was a simplification of the combat and gameplay system of Morrowind, making it more accessible to gamers. And Morrowind lead to something that Squidge calls "The Bethesda Gambit":

With any Bethesda game you start, learn how it works, then you start again and you do a bit better. And then you just end up repeating it until you get the most optimum character with the least amount of wallops.
- Squidge

Why Chief Bought Skyrim Originally

Squidge asked what it was that made Chief buy Skyrim. Was it the boxart? Was it the fact that you could play as a dragon born? Squidge wanted to know what drew Chief to the game in the first place.

I definitely wasn't bothered about being the dragon born. I was interested in the world that you could be in... that was the selling point for me. The story was just $h!t.
- Chief

At least it wasn't as bad as Fallout '76, right?

The combination of the plot being both predictable and forgettable, and everyone in the world of Skyrim thinking that the player is the chosen one really turned Chief off. But this wasn't exclusive to Skyrim - or video games, really - as the trope of the player being the chosen one was in the series as early as Morrowind - if not earlier. However, since Chief had missed the earlier titles, this was lost to him.

[being chosen to run every group and faction in the world] is borderline ridiculous... I mean, The Witcher 3 does this, but it hides it well, or hides it better than Skyrim does... we don't give enough credit to the audience.
- Chief

...

Full Show Notes

Make sure to check out the full show notes for more discussion on the points we raise, some extra meta-analysis, and some links to related things.

What have you been playing recently? Do you agree with the anonymous review that Chief read during this episode? What would you take with you to the Thunder Plains?

Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, leave a comment on the show notes or try our brand new contact page.

Links

Here are some links to some of the things we discussed in this episode: