Gavin Annand

In late 1996, industry veterans John Romero (formerly id Software) and Tom Hall (formerly id Software and Apogee/3D Realms) founded Ion Storm. This studio would, in its brief existence, have an enormous influence on the games industry at the turn of the century - both positively and negatively. Ion Storm's debut title, released in 1998, was the confusingly named Dominion: Storm over Gift 3, a middling RTS that couldn't hold a candle to contemporaries like StarCraft and Age of Empires.

Recently, after recovering from a week-long bout of a horrendous stomach bug, I went in search of a "comfort game" - something familiar, enjoyable, and immersive to aid in my recovery. Like so many gamers before me, that comfort game ended up being The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. On close analysis, Skyrim isn't really that great a game, especially 13 years after its release. The RPG mechanics are half-baked. The story is bland and derivative. The combat is boring and unbalanced.

I'm somewhat of a late bloomer when it comes to role-playing games, both in video game form and their tabletop origins. My early gaming experiences mainly consisted of first-person shooters, strategy games, adventure games, and space sims.