The Elder Scrolls: Chapter II - Daggerfall

The Good
...if you like non-linearity. That's the name of the game in Daggerfall, whose landscape is twice the size of the UK. Plenty of versatility: you can do almost anything imaginable and certainly just about anything you'd ever want to. Tamriel is a second home to many, and for good reason.

The character creation system is wonderful. So many options to choose from, you could literally spend hours tweaking your character until he was JUST right. Fortunately, for the most part creating a character goes much quicker than that. It's easy enough to quickly slap together a generic character with a pre-made class, but so much more fun to spend some time learning the nuances of the custom class generator.

The game itself plays out in the third-person perspective, using the mouse quite a bit, as you can move and look around with, as well as the all-important feature of swinging your weapon.

For those who LIKE that sort of thing, there is a storyline to follow, but for those who prefer to chart their own course, Daggerfall is very generous in that category. Become a warrior striving to uphold justice in the land; become a thief, preying on the rich merchants of the Illiac Bay; become an asassin, creeping stealthily behind your enemies to deliver a crippling blow. In Daggerfall, (just about) anything goes.

The Bad
Buggy, buggy, buggy! That CAN be gotten used to, though. However, if you're not using the latest patch (2.13), you're in for a rough time. The game overcomes this with all its other features, though, and redeems itself in the long run.

The Bottom Line
VERY non-linear! Excellent role-playing game, for those who like to experience life in another world. Not the tightest story, but that allows the player to create their own history as they adventure through Tamriel. A true world simulator, if there ever was one, wrapped up in a tasty CRPG package.

The Good
Probably the most open ended game I've ever played! You are free to go anywhere, do anything to anyone...at least that's how it feels. Though having certain technical problems, it is a very atmospheric game...when you are crawling in the dungeons with the lights off, you actually get scared. Also, the possibility of owning property (houses, ships and a wonderful wagon) was unique in those days and very rare, these days.

Wonderful game.

The Bad
It was full of bugs...

The Bottom Line
Superb...

The Good
Daggerfall is without question the biggest game I have ever played (Yes, I have played Elite) in a lot of aspects. It contains a world, too big to describe, a main story that's long, intricate and very hard to complete (for many reasons). It also contains mounts, ships, houses, guilds, royalties, assassins, monsters, dungeons, crypts, magic, love, well, you name it. It's all in here. You can spend a year real time immersed in Daggerfall without ever even touching the main storyline. There's so much to do and to see it's almost overwhelming. Even though it came out in 1996 I am still playing it. I even got it to work on WIndows XP!

The Bad
The bugs. Unfortunately, Bethesda discontinued the support for this game in 1998, leaving it in a sad state. When in dungeons you'll want to save often because sooner or later you know you're gonna fall through the floor and die. The main story is so easily breakable it's almost funny. And whatever you do, don't take advantage of all the weaknesses found in the advancement system since it makes the game really boring, really fast.

The Bottom Line
Daggerfall is gigantic. It is also one of the best free form RPG's of all time. If it weren't for the horrendous bugs and the somewhat oversized dungeons this would have been my all time classic. (Which is Wasteland)