Skyrim Kinect Update Lets You Shout People Over Cliffs

Bethesda has already been good about implementing updates and patches to its western role playing epic, Skyrim, which was last year’s game of the year. With the announcement this week about Kinect support – featuring more than 200 voice commands–  the company has really outdone itself.

The update will come free of charge and allow adventurers to use their voice to trigger dragon shouts, change inventory items, and even issue commands to their loyal followers. It seems like the new ability will make some of the minor gripes of the game a little bit more tolerable. For instance, one small feature that’s got me really excited are the simple interface commands, like bringing up the map, which can now be summoned by simply saying, “Quick map.” If you’ve spent a hundred hours in a game, even a few button presses to access a menu over and over again can get really tiresome.

Bethesda hopes the addition of Kinect’s innovative technology will make its triple-A title more immersive than ever. It would have been nice to see some kind of motion support – the combat in the game could really benefit from more fluid swinging and movement – but as the game has already been built around button and joystick controls, it would likely be much harder to implement than voice commands.

Skyrim is the fifth game in The Elder Scrolls series, which has been released across both computer and two generations of console platforms since 1994. The fifth installment released late last year to rave reviews, and were many gaming outlets choice for best game of 2011. The title sold over 7 million copies in its first week alone.

Having just recently bought a Kinect, I’ve been looking for any excuse to use the fancy black bar sitting underneath my TV. With the new ability to shout silly dragon phrases like FUS-RO-DAH and send enemies pinwheeling down the hillside, I might have to take another lap around the snowy, craggy world of Skyrim.

I apologize in advance to any of my neighbors who are reading this. Just know that the nonsensical yelling you hear is me battling dragons.