Tag Archives: archive blog

Blog: 1 Year of The Bonus World – 08/22/18

Technically, July would’ve been the one year anniversary of The Bonus World dot com existing, but it wasn’t until the following month that the website began to see regular updates, so I figure that’s more of a cause for celebration.

If you want to nitpick, The Bonus World as a brand came into existence sometime in early 2015 when it was just a podcast that we did with some of our YouTuber friends. It only lasted about ten episodes before scheduling became an issue, but it was a blast.

Since the end of that podcast, the whole brand kind of laid dormant while I continued to focus my attention on another, more successful YouTube channel I had. When that ultimately exploded, I made plans to bring back The Bonus World in a real way. The problem was I just kept doing the same stuff as my previous channels. It was fun, but it wasn’t fulfilling.

Fast-forward to July of 2017 when I decided to double-down on my writing efforts and build a website to house it all. Soon after in August we started streaming, which took me longer to figure out than I care to admit, but it also marked the beginning of regular content from us. That’s when I believe The Bonus World genuinely started.

Now here we are a whole year later, and I’m incredibly proud of everything The Bonus World has become. There’s still a ton of room for improvement and I know that, but I’m pretty content with the way things are right now. I’d like to see the return of more video content, but I’m taking my time before I dive into anything right away. Till then, the weekly blogs are still going to happen, as well as the light dusting of articles. Looking forward, I’m brainstorming new and interesting things we can do. There’s nothing set in stone yet, but I have a couple of ideas that I’d like to get off the ground by the end of the year.

All that being said, thanks for supporting us over this past year. And thank you to my friends who have supported me and joined me in this endeavor. This entire thing has been so creatively fulfilling for me, and continues to be one of my favorite projects to keep tinkering away at.

Here’s to another year of The Bonus World.

Blog: My Kind of Party – 08/15/18

Leave a reply

So there I was, sinking into one of the couches surrounding the television in my friend’s home, desperately trying not to fall asleep while watching whatever garbage was currently playing. It was then that I decided to take control of the situation and put something slightly more interesting on. I reached into my “Bag of Too Many Games” and pulled out some of the best party games I could find in an attempt to entertain the soon to be slumbering group of people. Behold, the some of the party games I think are pretty rad.

GANG BEASTS

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned my love for physics-based mayhem before, but it’s a big part of why Gang Beasts is so appealing to me. It’s this wonderful mix of sloppy combat and physics wackiness that makes it so fun to play with other people. Once everyone gets their mind around the way things work in this vibrant battleground, it immediately turns into a situation of who can break the game in their favor fastest. The concept of just knocking your opponent out, picking them up and hurling them off a moving truck is incredibly appealing to me, and it definitely has won over several of the people I’ve shown it to.

DUCK GAME

Imagine a nightmarish scenario in which you’re surrounded on all sides by bizarre costumed ducks with a fondness for the Second Amendment. While it would definitely be among the worst real world situations you could find yourself in, it makes for a really fun party game. The controls aren’t too complex which makes the entire thing a little more accessible to new players. Also there’s a quack button.

THE JACKBOX GAMES

The Jackbox games might secretly be the best party games currently available. The decision to not rely on controllers and use a browser-based solution instead was brilliant. Showing people who never play games this “magic trick” is a high point for me as well because the entire game becomes so much more intriguing to new players when they don’t have to use a controller to interact. Aside from that, the games are mostly fun. There are some stinkers in each pack, but for the most part they’re all good candidates for a fun time with friends. A good way to start would be with Fibbage, which I’m pretty sure is represented in most of the packages.

THE YAWHG

This one is a little more divisive than the others on the list. I think you need a very specific kind of group of people to really enjoy The Yawhg. The way the game works is that up to four people pick a character to control for six turns. You’ll do stuff like get wasted or fight crime or learn magic, all of which grant you skills and gold in return. Once the six turns are up, a destructive force called “The Yawhg” swoops in and destroys the whole city. Depending on what actions you took before and after the incident, your story plays out differently. It’s a multiplayer “choose your own adventure” book that has awesome art and only takes like twenty minutes to play. It’s one of my favorites.

LETHAL LEAGUE

You know what’s great about Lethal League? Everything. It’s this super hectic, fast paced game about hitting a ball so fast it kills your opponents. It’s this mix between racquetball, dodge ball and anime that makes it so fun. While there are some other modes, the main crux of what you’re doing is volleying the ball back and forth with your opponents until it reaches a speed that one of you can’t react to fast enough. I have to emphasize that when I say it’s hectic, I mean it. It can be overwhelming if you’re not expecting it.

GENITAL JOUSTING

Okay, look… I don’t know how the scoring works, or what kind of other multiplayer modes there are in it, but what I do know is that Genital Jousting gets the attention of every person in the room without fail. There’s no good way to describe what you do in this game, but it involves doing penis like actions to other penises. The game itself is fine, but if you’re looking for a showstopper, Genital Jousting is that game.

There are a bunch of other games that I’m failing to mention for various reasons, but if there was an honorable mentions part of this blog, things like Overcooked, Towerfall, Crawl, and Ultimate Chicken Horse would be on there for sure. One last thing – don’t make people play Mario Party, that’s just mean.

Blog: Get Dunked – 08/08/18

Leave a reply

I can’t remember the exact year but it had to be around 1998 that my father took me to see the New Jersey Nets get utterly outplayed by Michael Jordan and the rest of the invading Chicago Bulls. On its own it was an absolute spectacle to see my favorite team get picked apart by the best player in the league, but for my family and I, it was one of our favorite pastimes to enjoy together. Some families are really into football or baseball or whatever, but mine was all about basketball, especially the Knicks and the Nets. I also was really into video games, which was good because it turns out they made a lot of basketball games.

While I don’t follow the NBA much these days, I’ll still pick up an NBA 2K once every few years in an attempt to scratch that lingering basketball itch. A few weeks ago NBA 2K18 was on sale for twenty bucks and I decided to pull the trigger on it and try to finally win the Nets a championship considering that’s basically what I do every time I’ve picked up one of these games in the past. But before I purchased it, I was greeted with the super accurate and never abused user review aggregate score of Mostly Negative.

That doesn’t seem great

As it had been in previous years, NBA 2K18 was filthy with microtransactions and plenty of reasons to engage with them. Using NBA 2K17 as an example, I’ll give you the real quick and dirty explanation of the economy. You’ll create a player to bring into the career mode and some of the various online modes, and depending on how well you do in games and practices you’ll receive a certain amount of in-game currency that you can spend on more skills and cosmetic items.

The problem is that you accrue an abysmal amount of the currency just through regular play and everything worth buying is ridiculously expensive. In an average game, you might earn anywhere from five-hundred to one-thousand dollars of in-game currency, whereas certain skills, like three-point shooting, can cost several thousand in-game dollars to level up just once. That’s also the same currency for making your character wear arm bands or cool sleeves as well as simple stuff like just getting a new haircut. From everything I was reading, it seemed like NBA 2K18 had doubled-down on these crappy business practices, and people weren’t too pleased about it.

BRRAP BRRAP!

Now, my point for writing this isn’t to dunk on NBA 2K18 and its terrible business model, but rather to illustrate how little that means to me. Because for as many bad reviews as I saw I also read that if you don’t engage with that stuff, the core gameplay is really good. Considering all I ever do in these games is play the franchise modes that allow you to pick a team and run them for decades, I was happy to buy the game and do just that. Twenty hours later, I’m very happy with my purchase. It’s become my go-to game for when I want to watch a movie or listen to a podcast, and outside of a few performance issues and the rare invisible player, I think the game is pretty great.

I don’t support the crappy business model that’s implemented in NBA 2K18, I think that it’s gross and exploitative that it encourages people to pay if they want to be competitive in two of their largest game modes. But the game itself is still really good, and it reminds me of all of the great memories I had from when I was a kid and was actively following the sport. And honestly, that’s kind of all that matters to me at this point.

Blog: A Violent Chasm – 08/01/18

Leave a reply

Have you ever played a game that you desperately wanted to like but it actively pushed against you until you eventually walked away from it forever? I had this exact experience with Iconoclasts, a game that released earlier this year, and I felt it once again with the release of Chasm.

I’m sure there will be plenty of people who are going to jive with what Chasm is doing, but I’m finding some of the things I’m encountering early on to be really questionable.

For instance, in the first two hours of playing I’ve come across something like 12 to 15 unique enemies. That sounds great at first, until you realize that you never really have a chance to learn how to deal with an enemy and their attack pattern before they’re replaced with something else. In the span of an hour I went from fighting rats to a flying skeleton that shot fire out of its mouth. I never felt like I was winning encounters, rather it felt like I was just surviving them.

Adding to the frustration though, is the fact that whenever you reenter a room, all of the once defeated enemies will have reanimated. Considering this is a metroidvainia game where you’re going to be running into a lot of dead ends, having to face off against every enemy you just fought moments ago can get really exhausting, really quickly. Which I guess isn’t so bad considering everything gives you XP and helps you level up.

Except it doesn’t matter because you’re just running into more and more powerful enemies and never really get a chance to feel like you’ve powered up. You’re just constantly bombarded with a new group of assholes who want to kill you, who happen to be more capable and resilient than you. “What’s that? You’ve leveled up to the point where this enemy dies in one hit? That’s fantastic news because you’ll never see them again.”

The combat doesn’t feel great either. In the early stages of the game, you’re just too slow and vulnerable to ever feel like a competent fighter. You have a dodge move that will push you backwards, but that never felt responsive enough to get me out of tough situations. It was mostly a game of awkwardly jumping around my enemy because that was a more reliable way to dodge attacks.

All of these individual missteps that Chasm takes contribute to the feeling that this whole game just starts to feel a little too punishing a little too early without really rewarding or empowering the player along the way.

Blog: A New Man’s Sky – 07/25/18

2 Replies

Two years ago No Man’s Sky was released after a lengthy and very prolific advertising campaign and was met with less than stellar reviews from a lot of users and reviewers, including myself. As I’m sure a lot of people did, I basically walked away from No Man’s Sky shortly after it launched and never looked back. That is until today when the “NEXT” update was released.

There isn’t much to say about my time with No Man’s Sky just yet, I’m too early to make a definitive decision about it either way. I was spawned in on a harsh and unforgiving planet that was full of fire, poison and space cops, all of which were things that made completing the tutorial unnecessarily hard. I just wanted to explore the world and figure things out at my own pace, but everywhere I turned was something trying to screw me over.

The whole issue was exacerbated by the still overly cumbersome menus and crafting system, but once I manged to wrap my head around where in the menus I need to look for things, the whole experience became a little more manageable. But that process took me two hours, there’s video evidence of me being nearly defeated and re-rolling a new character on a new and hopefully more forgiving world. It was harrowing to say the least.

I’m not far enough into No Man’s Sky NEXT to make a definitive statement about it either way, but so far I’m enjoying my time with it more than I did previously. I still really dig the vibe of that game, from its retro-futurist visual style to its ripping soundtrack, it has an aesthetic appeal for sure. Hell, even the new character customization options are pretty awesome, even if they’re not terribly diverse from the outset. I am eager to see all of the content that’s been added and changed since I last played the game two years ago, and I think that’s really the driving force for me at the moment.

This whole blog may feel like I’ve basically said nothing about No Man’s Sky NEXT, but it only feels that way because it’s true. I haven’t gotten far enough into it to formulate a new opinion about it. What I will say is that I’m starting fresh and giving No Man’s Sky an honest second chance.

Blog: Dungeons & Dragons – 7/18/18

1 Reply

Someone once told me that Dungeons and Dragons is basically the bedrock which modern fantasy media is built upon. I don’t know how true that claim is, but I could see that. I’ve never been a huge fantasy enthusiast and even less of a tabletop gaming fan, but as of this past weekend I have a new appreciation for D&D that I never had before.

Once a year a bunch of my friends from various parts of the east coast converge back in our hometown to hang out for a few days. This time around we wanted to do more than just drink and play video games, so we asked a friend who was big into the scene to be our Dungeon Master for our very first foray into Dungeons and Dragons.

Our DM went ahead and made some character archetypes with abilities for us to choose from, and plopped us into what was described as a one-shot game. The plan was to streamline the experience to make it more conducive to a 4 or 5 hour session.

After the first half-hour of play, any skepticism I had about the experience going in was long gone. I was playing a hunter character that was just really good at shooting crossbows and was insanely perceptive. Alongside me was a shield-wielding fighter, and Paladin with the power of God infused in his sword. Outside of the canned motivations for embarking on a quest, our characters were just names and stats on a piece of paper that we were to flesh out on our own.

Everyone fell into their roles and slowly became their characters in no time whatsoever. Our Paladin quickly became a man devoid of levity, solely focused on this mission that his God had ordained. His brother (our fighter), was a jealous and greedy man with a chip on his shoulder for not being the “chosen” child. My hunter was man who wasn’t incredibly thrilled to be in this situation, but these were his friends and he was going to stand by them and be the comic relief. And literally showing up late to the game, as well as being played by two different people was our mage, who because of what I assumed was multiple personality disorder, was a wildcard. But more on him later.

Getting into my character was only half of the equation though, the real heavy lifting was on the part of our DM, who was spectacular. He ultimately hammered the fact home that we can do just about anything we want in this game. No matter what crazy bullshit we threw at him, he’d tell us to roll a die and craft a story around it. From my understanding, this is what a good DM does.

Saturday came to end without us reaching a conclusion in our game, but come Sunday we would have to finish it because people were going home later in the day. With that in mind we sat back down with a new player taking helm as our mage. Previously he had been someone who knew his way around some D&D and was basically safely leading us through the campaign. That was fun, but it felt like he knew all the right questions to ask, and spells to use. On this day however, we had someone who was just as fresh to D&D as we were.

Time passed as we fought floating skulls, tentacle panthers and no-faced nightmare beasts until we eventually we got to what was later revealed to be a loot room. With our emotions high, it was here that our final encounter went down. We had to wrap this game up, so our mage pulled our DM aside and concocted a plan. The entire time leading up to this sidebar, I suspected our mage of some nonsense thinking he’d turn on our group or rob us or something. So I made it very clear for most of our stay in this room that I had my bow drawn on him, ready to inflict retribution for any attempts at fuckery.

The sidebar ended and everyone returned to their seats. The mage turned on us and tried to trap us in the room so he could escape. Him and our DM had planned for the mage to blind us with smoke and make off with some magical maguffin that would trap us forever and destroy the dungeon. But as I had established earlier, I had that fucker in my sights this entire time. Before his smoke could go off I was able to fire a massive crossbow bolt that landed square in his chest. He eventually was able to teleport out of the room, but we gave chase and met up with him as he was making his way to an exit. Within feet of being able to escape, I fired one last shot from my trusty crossbow at him.

With luck on my side, I rolled really well and put that bolt right through his back pinning him to a wall. The Paladin then strolled over to this monument to failure and hit him so hard he turned into a cloud of dust. We killed our former friend and had a moment of triumph before we realized it had gotten late. I’m a bit hazy on the exact details, but I’m pretty sure the dungeon collapsed and we all died anyway.

And this was a game that took place over the course of 6 or 7 hours at most. We didn’t really get to create our characters or flesh out our backstories. There was so much we didn’t do that might seem like we missed out on something from an outside perspective, but for us, this was the perfect introduction to Dungeons and Dragons. I applaud the game, my fellow players and especially our DM for making the experience really memorable. The biggest problem is that we enjoyed ourselves so much that we’re chomping at the bit for the opportunity to play again, but we wont be able to do that until this time next year.

Blog: Unhealthy Relationships – 07/11/18

2 Replies

Every time that I end up playing Overwatch, I’m reminded how mechanically sound and charming that damn game is. On its surface, it’s a pleasant game to play and look at. It’s so weird that every time that I finish a session of playing it, I end up feeling angry or dejected. I can probably attribute it to the constant ass-beatings I end up getting from game to game.

Despite all that, I still have over a hundred hours in the damn thing. It’s this abusive relationship that keeps pulling me back in by waving a rolling gun-hamster in front of me only to kick me in the dick for being interested in it again. But it isn’t just me, I have friends who have spent way more time in Overwatch than I have, and have these violent encounters with it. The craziest part is that we all genuinely love this game despite how toxic it can be to us.

And it isn’t just Overwatch either. Dota 2, League of Legends, Fortnite, PUBG, Hearthstone, and so many more, all have their hooks so deep in people. Presumably said hooks are so deep in order to pull you closer and beat the shit out of you.

But playing a game that has the ability to illicit a huge range of emotions is a good thing, right? No matter how angry and pissed off that I get at Overwatch, it’s an experience so memorable I end up writing about it. It’s like seeing a sports team you like blow it in the playoffs. You hate them for losing, but you don’t stop watching them altogether because of it.

I love Overwatch, but I also fucking hate Overwatch. I’m sure there’s some real science that could explain this sensation, but for the time being I’ll call it “The Overwatch Effect.”

Blog: Wrecking Crew – 07/04/18

Leave a reply

There is nothing I enjoy more in games than seeing things get smashed to pieces. I’m not exactly sure but I think this fascination started back when Black was released on the original Xbox, and only exacerbated through games like Battlefield: Bad Company, Red Faction: Guerilla and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The latest game to make that list is the recently released Wreckfest.

Wreckfest is a destruction derby styled arcade racer, meaning you’re driving cars that look like they were made out of parts of other cars as you drive around a combination of dirt and asphalt paths. Despite that sounding overly reductive, there isn’t really a whole lot else going on in the gameplay department. You’ve got various forms of races you can compete in, but aside from some bonus objectives you can go for that involve causing damage or spinning out other cars, you’re just going for first place every time.

There are some fun diversions you can take place in however. There are some destruction derbies you get to participate in, but they range anywhere from mildly entertaining to nearly impossible. There’s one where you drive a combine harvester in a destruction derby with other harvesters, and while that sounds fun on the surface, in practice it’s pretty boring.

The main pull for me is the destruction, and luckily there is no shortage of that. You’re bound to see plenty of it too considering the AI ranges from stupid to downright vindictive. Your opponents like to do their best to just fuck you up at crucial points in a race. They’ll sacrifice themselves to push you off of a cliff, they do not care one way or the other. It isn’t so bad considering that when they go all t-bone crazy on you, pieces of car fly off into the sky in a beautiful explosion of shredded metal and glass.

All things considered, I’m enjoying my time with Wreckfest despite it being a little thinner of an experience than I would’ve liked. The progression isn’t great and the car upgrades are boring, but as a car deforming simulator it’s great. I would probably wait for it to go on sale though, $45 seems like a little too much to ask for what’s being offered in my opinion.

Blog: Me3 – 06/13/18

Leave a reply

There is so much other stuff that didn’t make conference stages that I’m sure will be in my lane, and I can’t wait to hear about them. But from what I saw over the past few days, these were some of the notable games that caught my eye at E3 2018.

Battlefield V

I’ve had a weird relationship with Battlefield over the years. I really enjoy it conceptually, but the actual playing it part usually is hit or miss for me. Part of why I enjoy it so much has to do with the memories I have of playing past entries with my friends. Having reconnected with one of my old Battlefield 3 buddies might be the reason why Battlefield V is so enticing to me, but I hope that game itself can stand on its own merits.

Halo Infinite

I have no idea what this game is going to be or why it isn’t called Halo 6, but I do know that as a long time fan of the Halo franchise, I’m excited to see what this one does differently. I personally wouldn’t mind if this turned out to be an evolving platform for the Halo series going forward, but I’m curious either way.

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit

I really, really enjoyed Life is Strange and am onboard for anything that expands that universe. I felt that way even before I learned that it was a prequel to the upcoming Life is Strange 2, so knowing that all of these games weave into each other is just icing on the cake. And honestly, this game looks whimsical as hell and evokes a weird Calvin and Hobbes vibe with the main character losing himself in these imaginary worlds he’s conjuring. Also it’s free.

After Party

The people behind Oxenfree are making a game about having to out drink the devil to regain their mortality and be returned to the world of the living. I can’t wait to see more of it and eventually play it next year.

Tunic

I written about Tunic before, and all of my feeling about it then still ring true. It’s adorable, it has an awesome aesthetic, and it looks like the combat is going to be challenging and rewarding enough to pull me through the entirety of it.

Dying Light 2

I loved the first Dying Light and seeing the systemic changes they’re making to that game gets me even more excited. I love concept of being able to shape the world and story based on your decisions, and mixing that with the already great mechanics of the first Dying Light is a home run. The only thing I wish I could change about these games is the zombies. I would love this exact game even more if no zombies were involved. But hey, I’ll take this either way.

Cyberpunk 2077

The reveal trailer alone was enough to solidify my excitement, but the additional details that came afterwards make it all the more tantalizing for me. CD Projekt Red confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 is a first person RPG that allows you to customize a character with various stats, “Cool” being one of them. It’s an open world where you drive around (I’m assuming exclusively in a DeLorean) and shoot people. There’s more details here that should get you just as pumped as I am.

Starfield

I don’t know what it is, or when it’s coming, but the concept of a big Bethesda RPG in a sci-fi setting that doesn’t suck (Fallout) is something I’m interested in.

The Quiet Man

I’ll be real here, I mostly included this because the name is so dumb, but the little tiny glimpse of combat we saw was pretty captivating for me. I’m always down for some good punching and kicking in games.

Beyond Good & Evil 2

Another one of those “what even is this game” games, BG&E2 looks impressive visually and mechanically, I just want to know what I’m doing and what the structure is. But that world seems pretty cool to me and that’s enough to keep this game on my radar.

Trials Rising

Trials is fun, you should play a Trials game. That is until you reach the last few levels where the impossible is asked of you. With alleged better tutorialization, maybe I can finally beat the final levels of a Trials game. Probably not though.

The Last of Us II

Games are too happy these days. I need a good ol’ fashioned romp through the morose to bring me back down to Earth. Nothing like a sequel to the heart-wrenching Last of Us to fill that void. Seriously, fuck this game for looking so amazing and making me want to play it. I know how this ends, and it most certainly is in tears.

Ghosts Of Tsushima

Just watch the trailer Sony showed off for Ghosts of Tsushima. That should be all you need to know about why I want to play this game so badly.

Spiderman

I feel like with the popularity of the Marvel movies over the past few years, I should be up to my ears in good superhero games to play. Unfortunately, since the Arkham games wrapped up, I’ve only been left with Lego-based options. Then you got Spiderman over here, shooting his hot webs all over the place, and I’ll admit it – I’m impressed.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

I think what I enjoy most about Smash Bros. isn’t the actual gameplay, but the absurdity of its roster. Seeing shit like Solid Snake punching Sonic in the mouth, or Ryu uppercutting Cloud into space just fills me with a joy that I had long forgotten. Smash Bros. just seems like Nintendo got a hold of a bunch of 80’s and 90’s kids and asked them who would win a fight, over and over.

Blog: The Skyrim Debacle – 06/06/18

Leave a reply

byndrim

A few days ago I got it in my head that I wanted to play Skyrim again. I had this craving for some archery-based mayhem, and this seemed like a good way to quench that particular thirst. I had it in my mind that I was going to try and “get” Skyrim by picking a character archetype and role-play my way through the story as if I was an archer who had no patience for anybody’s bullshit. However the game instantly pushed back on my story with its own.

I thought I remembered how slow the opening of Skyrim was, but boy did I underestimate it. First you’ve gotta escape your questionable death sentence. Then you end up at Whiterun to talk to the Jarl, shortly followed by you getting that stupid golden claw and a tablet or something. Then it’s time to kill a dragon and eat its soul. All culminating in you climbing a godforsaken mountain to talk to these four hermits in hoods so they can teach you to run fast, then make you go find a horn or some shit. This is all made even more unbearable when you’re trying to be an archer, having to fight against the busted shooting system they have in place as well as health regenerating trolls.

Seriously, trying to hit anything more that 20 feet away is basically like playing the lottery. I’ll aim at a bear, put the cursor over its big dumb face and let my arrow fly. What I would expect is either to feed that bear this arrow, or have it fall slightly and hit his big bear feet. But how about the secret third option of, the arrow defies gravity and slowly aims itself up towards the sky. That’s what being an archer in Skyrim is like.

Initially I thought that maybe because I had a low archery skill, the game was doing some cool RPG math to throw things off. So I used the power of console commands to level that skill up and unlock everything on its skill tree. Weirdly enough, nothing changed. Here I was, expert archer with the power to paralyze dudes with a good enough shot, if only I could hit something.

Ultimately I decided that my character was comically near-sighted which is why he was such a terrible shot. Because of his crippling ailment, he would pull out a sword and shield to finish off bad guys who somehow managed to close the distance on me. I became the Mr. Magoo of Skyrim, bumbling my way through dungeons.

It’s shit like this that makes me wonder why the entire internet is so in love with Skyrim. Maybe the story is better than I remember, or maybe people just really like role-playing and Skyrim is a good enough sandbox for them to mess around in. But as someone trying to do just that, I felt like the introduction and lackluster combat mechanics kept me from ever really enjoying my dip back into the Skyrim pool.