Carrying on with our look into Bethesda’s Skyrim bugs and the fantastically weird AI in Oblivion, now it’s time to go IRL. Yes, folks are paying homage to Skyrim’s oddball computer characters. And it’s amusing.
Skyrim Acting
The above is our favourite as the young gentleman nails the nature of Skyrim’s various non-player characters (NPCs). Right down to the little details.
For context here, Skyrim is a fantastic game—but it does have its issues. Most gamers overlook them and treat it as part of the experience.
But the “Hey outsider” clip highlights the problems with the AI. Many act like blockheaded morons, carrying out their scripted actions regardless of whatever is in their way.
But they also have odd body movements. Jarring shifts in limbs, sometimes wandering off at bizarre angles or ending up stuck on top of objects.
They’ll then converse with you, the player, as if everything is as normal as normal can be (this gentleman, JinnKid—his eyes aren’t really like that, it’s some sort of effect).
Full credit to anyone who can get this right, which the above two do perfectly. That’s genuinely what it’s like playing the game at times.
Not always, as some of the AI, voice acting, and character physics are still pretty gosh darned good.
But, taking the bad elements to logical extremes, some fans went for high production values to show off some of Skyrim’s weird logic.
It’s common for NPCs to see something horrific, or have somethin appalling happen to them, but then forget it within a few seconds.
We did some extra research on JinnKid as we like his ongoing viral series of Skyrim IRL videos. Turns out he’s singer, voice artist, and comedian.
Not the biggest surprise in the world, eh? You wouldn’t expect him to be a office administrator now, would you?
And, again, yes this type of thing happens a lot in Skyrim. You can lockpick someone’s house, wander around inside, have them demand you leave, and then they go to bed.
That’s video game logic for you. And Skyrim is one of the more robust AI systems around.
You know, we could have rounded all this off with our own video, couldn’t we? Our esteemed editor, Mr. Wapojif, doing some crap IRL interpretation.
Well, tough. Above are the experts. We’re busy PLAYING bloody Skyrim. Not acting it out. Best regards.
Professional Moron 
I’ve never played Skyrim – have been focusing on Borderlands 1 and 2, where there are also various glitches etc but the AI side is largely scripted. I felt they did that pretty well in the sense of creating, at times, an immersive story/movie feel. That’s a different purpose than an interactive world with AI and likely less challenging in that sense.
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Borderlands I’m very keen to get to, although my laptop won’t be able to run the latest one. There’s a new Half Life game coming in March with Valve trying to hawk its VR hardware, which most people won’t have the specs to play, unfortunately.
Skyrim is terrific, though, it really draws you in. A massive adventure. Lots of politics, intrigue, and backstabbing. It’s a big old title though, I only tend to do one big game at a time.
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