The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

The Good
The Elder Scrolls franchise has always been one of debate. Some love it others hate. With it 3rd installment Morrowind, we find a game that not only lives up to it’s predecessors, but surpasses them. This was the best of the series until Oblivion that is.

“Each Prophecy Is Preceded By The Coming Of The Hero, If They Fail To Appear…”

Morrowind opens with a somewhat cryptic montage. You awaken from your dream, or was it a vision? To find that your are on route to Morrowind, the newest province of the Empire, it is the continent of the Dunmer, or the Dark Elves. You have been released by writ of the Emperor himself. You have been instructed to travel to Balmora, and report. Of course you do not have to. That is the point and fun of Morrowind. You can play 100 hours with out ever completing “Main Quests”. Or just breeze through the campaign and finish under 40 hours.

The main plot, should you choose to except it, is very good and very well written. It involves you being the reincarnation of The Nevaraine, an ancient hero of the Dunmer. Upon his death Lord Nevar, said he would return again when his people needed him most. That time is apparently coming. As Dagoth Er, is also being resurrected, he means to crush Morrowind under his heel. And is a former friend of Lord Nevar.

The story is filled with twists and turns. As you try and fulfill a ancient prophecy. And the conflict between The Nevaraine and Dagoth Er, is the classic Hero/Villain conflict. The plot is very rich and has everything. Prophecy, revenge, betrayal, conflict, and everything in between.

Who Are You?

Character Creation in Morrowind, is astounding. You have control over everything. From your race, there are 10 total. Your class, there are tons, and you can create you own Multi-class, by mixing and matching, or by using the editor. Speaking of the editor, Morrowind, for the PC includes a Tool Set disc. With this you can create quests, classes, weapons, structures, and even NPC’s. It is incredibly easy to use, as even I was able to use it, and I have no experience whatsoever designing games.

Leveling up is handled a little differently than most RPGS, as you do not gain EXP. Instead you learn by doing. If you want to be a master thief, you must pick locks, a swordsman, you must use your sword, or ply your other various trades. It makes for a more realistic gameplay experience, but may turn some players off.

“Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting….”

Combat in Morrowind, is visceral, and can be great fun. With various implements of destruction, you can slash, stab, and chop your way through various enemies. Blocking is a passive skill, which sort of sucks, but what can you do? The real fun is when you do battle with humans and humanoids, as dueling a fellow swordsman is more fun, that cutting down a monster.

Crime and Punishment

Will you be a model citizen, a thief, or even cold-blooded killer? However beware, unlike some “open-ended” games. Ahem, GTA. Crime can gain you actual punishment. From jail-time, which can lower your hard-earned stats if you gain a long sentence. To banishment. Or even death.

But remember, it is not a crime if you are not caught.

When It Comes To Graphics This Game Steals The Show

The visuals in Morrowind are excellent. The continent of Vvardenfell, or Morrowind. Manages to look alien and realistic all at the same time. As tall trees and enormous mushrooms, fill dense forests. Strange and familiar creatures wander the landscape. Small villages and monolithic cities abound, as well as dark dungeons and tall mountains. The human and non-human inhabitants look real alike. The lighting effects excellent, the sun lights the sky and depicts realistic shadows, as does the glow of the twin moons. The changing time of day and weather also effects the look of the game. And the torch-light cast on your avatar looks stunning.

The sound and music is excellent as well. Combat sound effects are loud and reverberate. Voice overs sound great. But are not that common. Monsters roar, and spells sound eerie. There is lack of ambiance, but that can be solved by downloading a quick add-on.

The music steals the show here. With an epic score composed by videogame maestro, Jeremy Soule. The tunes range from, epic, heroic, to frantic as your engage in combat.

The Bad
The Bad and The Ugly

Well, the leveling system, is not for everyone. And Bethesda could have taken measures to make the world seem more populated. But this is a flaw in most games like this.

It can be very difficult getting started, combat will be very hard, and the game can overwhelming. Yet towards the end the game is too easy. Other balance issues abound.

The game also tends to very buggy. But at least updates are common.

This game has fairly low system requirements considering how impressive it is. Yet still may be too much for some systems, and others may have trouble getting it to work properly, despite the fact that they meet all the system requirements.

Passive blocking is the bane of this game. Why do you have no control over your shield, and weapon when it comes to blocking? At least Oblivion remedies this.

The Bottom Line
In the end Morrowind, is a fun, and addictive RPG experience that over comes it’s many flaws. And user-created content just adds to an already huge game. Live another life and have fun exploring and adventuring in the vast world of Vvardenfell.

The Good
The 'good' section could go on for quite a while, so I'll try to keep it as summary-ish as possible while still detailing all the marvels of this game.

You start out as a released prisoner who's been shipped off to the island of Vvardenfell, on the far northeastern reaches of the Empire of Tamriel. Why, you don't know (and similarly you have no other knowledge of your past). You at once enter a charming little medieval village filled with great architecture and people milling around randomly. Of course, as soon as you talk to a few NPCs, the less-than-charming undercurrent of events in the town becomes evident: the local tax collector has vanished, and probably killed by the way people talk of him. The guards are corrupt. People at once offer you quests of stealing from other people. And this is before you get to cities with the assassin's and theives guilds! (There seriously is an assassin's guild, and what's more it's totally legal--a writ from the guild being literally a pardon for murder!)

Once you've gone through the preliminary steps of creating your character (which is cool because you can choose from a huge list of diverse characters, or--as I think most people did--just combine whatever skills you want into a character of your own choosing) then you can head out into the next room from the census officer and proceed to rob it of all its silver plates and lockpicks and money, if the urge strikes you. From there on you can do whatever you want. No limitations, no orders from anybody except directions to go to another city and find some guy, which you can put off forever if you like. You can explore around the gigantic island of Vvardenfell, which has impressive landscapes: the coastal areas are green with grass and mushroom shaped trees and lakes, but as you move closer to the volcano in the middle of the island it becomes a maze of paths in between rocky, blacked mountains, with buildings made from the shells of giant insects and bazillions of dungeons and tombs throughout.

There are numerous guilds and feuding factions you can join and do quests for them to gain respect and services. There is a main quest, but you can just ignore it and go explore the island, discovering every little secret plot, historical mystery, or evil shrine that is has to reveal. After a good amount of playing, my character has still only explored the western coast of the island, which leaves lots more to see, and has never run short of things to do. Many secrets await (such as being turned into a vampire, sometimes inadvertently) and little flashes of humour too (sometimes unintentional: one time I sold a huge heavy shoulder pad to a wizard in a robe, and if you sell an expensive item to anyone, they'll put it on. She put this on, and it looked hilariously funny)

Even out in the wilderness are NPCs who offer you quests: I was walking around one time and some lady asked me to direct her to a place where she was making a pilgrimage to. She knew where it was, so I don't know why she needed a guide. But she offered me 150 gold, so I obliged. Along the way, we were swimming through a lake when I noticed that her dead body was floating on the surface of the water, having been killed by a hostile sea creature. it was all the same to me--the gold was on her anyway. Etc.

The game is totally opened and it would take months or maybe years of playing to full explore the island--and there are two expansion packs as well, Bloodmoon generally being considered the better of the two.

Anyway, graphics are awesome, there's a wierd variety of creatures, that, combined with the wierd 'Ashland' terrain almost feels like you're on a desert alien planet. The architecture is extremely varied and carefully done, and every little detail is in place. You can do anything you want, almost, and lead your character down any path you like. Live as a knight, running around freeing slaves and saving lost pilgrims. Or become an outlaw, sneaking around towns and hacking up citizens for their valuables--which works fine as long as you don't get caught. Well, Looking at how much I've written, it's probably almost enough. So on to the Bad.

The Bad
The majority of my gripes with this game are of the 'it could have been even awesomer' variety. As it is, the game is better than most, but I still find myself seeing ways it could have been better done.

A more serious problem first: The quests are often repetetive and boring, consisting of go-get-this-item (or, even worse, gather a batch of alchemical ingredients, for which you have to go rooting through every little plant in the countryside hoping to find it) or go kill such and such a person or monster. I hear the quests are a lot better in the Bloodmoon expansion, which I haven't played.

Secondly, you need an incredibly powerful computer to run the game, due to all the great graphics and huge extent of the place, and most people probably don't have the required system specs. And even with a great computer, you'll encounter frequent sandstorms in the Ashlands which drive your framerate down to horrible levels.

While there are plently of different NPCs to talk to, they seem bland and undetailed, most of them apparently having no in-game reason to exist--they don't reveal any information that other people don't, they don't offer quests, etc. And the time of day doesn't affect them in any way: they still wander around the streets, meaning it's no easier to commit a crime under the darkness than the light. The only difference is that the guards carry around torches at night.

The crime and legal system could have been a lot better. Let's give some examples: I can walk into a guard tower and find a guard standing up there, doing his job. I decide to wait until his back is turned and then grab that incredibly valuable armour sitting on the table behind him. My crime is unseen and I walk out (he doesn't notice. 'Is that an iron longsword in your pants or are you just glad to see me?') but you'd think that he'd have had a good enough look at me that when they notice the stuff is gone they'd come looking for me. Or I can go up there and kill the same guard, and beat him to death instantly, but somehow I get the message box that 'Your crime has been reported' and I have a bounty on my head--making people unwilling to talk to me, among other things. Even though the only witness is stone dead.. Could it be that someone saw me on the way out? No, because I got in trouble the second I hit the guy. Another example: I can kill a villager while nobody is looking, then sit next to the body poking at it with my sword and playing paper doll with it, putting different clothing and armour onto it, and a guard walks right past, not having any second thoughts. And nobody ever mentions that the person died, either. And finally, I can find someone wandering in the back alleys and hit them. Then they run away and out into an open area full of people and guards, and I then catch up and kill them. But the guards didn't see the beginning of the fight and don't pay any attention to it.

Enemies don't go through doors. Every location, even a cave, has a door, and if you're being overpowered, you can just walk out the door and sleep for a couple hours to regain your strength, while presumably the enemies are beating on the inside of the flimsy wooden door, unable to open it.

And your actions, ultimately do not affect the game world. You can do whatever you want, become head of any guild, or the leader of a ruling house, but you can't affect their political relations with the other houses, or send people on the same missions you fought through to get to your position. But forget about all this. The game is still awesome.

The Bottom Line
This game is incredible. Get it now. First get all the necessary computer upgrades to run it, but still get it. And tell all your friends!

The Good
Morrowind is a wonderful step up in first-person RPGs. Compared to the few first-person RPGs out there, Morrowind is in many ways on top of them all, both in graphics and gameplay.

Unlike Bethesda's previous first-person RPGs, Morrowind's landscapes are all uniquely put together. No longer will you see endless flat lands with rocks and trees scattered around randomly. Instead, you'll see rolling hills, bridges, ancient ruins, roads, rivers, lakes, swamps - the list goes on - all placed there for a reason, and each one holding its own certain significance in the game. The game engine is also capable of letting you roam a world as large as your hard drive can handle!

Also unlike Bethesda's previous first-person RPGs, the dungeons actually look like dungeons. Cave walls are eroded, with stalagmites and cave-ins within its deep interior, as well as underground pools, and rivers connecting to other caves or areas on the island of Morrowind. Mines and tombs actually look like they were built by people for a reason. They are built to maximize efficiency and organization.

Every single area was put together with careful and reasonable detail. You'll find dressers full of clothing, a bookshelf with many different books, a study equipped with spellbooks and scrolls, etc. Looking into a half-hidden cave in the side of the mountain and you might find the remains of an unfortunate adventurer whose fate may perhaps forever be a mystery - or perhaps not, for further investigation might cause you to conclude his death was caused by a man you had met in a town just a few minutes before! You may find a ring at the bottom of a lake that had slipped off someone's finger during a swim, you might discover a so-called noble man's stash of illegal drugs in a locked chest in the back room of his house. The details that were added to the game is very impressive.

Another detail that sets this game apart from ALL other RPGs is that looting the corpse of a mud crap will uncover crab meat and nothing else! Kill a guard and you can loot his armor, his weapon, and his money and whatever else he had on him. You're not going to find a bunch of monsters carrying strange items that there is no reason they should have. Why would a rat be carrying around a dagger, unless it was stuck in its back?

The graphics and model details in Morrowind are very good. Most of the textures are wonderfully done, and everything is 3D modeled. Even paintings on the wall have 3D frames. Banners hanging from store windows have several polygons in them. The amount of detail in the graphics is truly astounding. If you have a computer capable of running it all, that is.

By far the most spectacular feat of the graphics in Morrowind is the water. I've never seen such realistic water effects in any game before. It looks real. While it is a flat plane, the animations truly fool you into thinking there are soft waves brushing against the shore. When it rains, the water ripples. And not just a few ripples either - thousands of ripples a second, as far as the water can render in the window. As you swim through the water, you cut through it as you would in real life. The water even reflects landscape, and imitates refraction (if you look at the water at an angle, all you'll see is reflection, but looking straight down and you'll see the floor of the lake/river/pool).

The variety in your character is also a lot of fun. There are many races to play, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, and many factions to join, each with its list of quests to send you on, with its own rewards.

As with previous Elder Scrolls games, the more you work a certain skill, the better you are at it. Running a lot raises your athletics skill. Jumping increases your acrobatics skill. Fighting increases your armor skill, your weapon skill, your blocking skill.

The game comes with a fully functional editor that you can use to create just about everything you saw in Morrowind - if you're good. And it's very easy to use mods other people have created using the editor.

<center>***</center>

I've decided to add this bit several months after originally writing this review. I did not like the game very much at all, but I had a sort of urge to play it again and I've discovered why. Despite all the things wrong with it (which I assume you're about to read) one thing stands out among them all: the game is very easily immersive. I might say that it's the most immersive game I've played. The graphics, the music, the whole atmosphere of the game, and the fact that you're never limited in where you can travel really makes you feel like you're somewhere. If only they had avoided all the bad things with the game, this would, without a doubt, have been the best game ever made.

The Bad
Sadly, apart from great graphics and wonderful detail, the game is downright bad.

Let us start with the quests. For a game as open-ended as Morrowind is, it is awfully linear. There are an uncountable amount of quests you can do in the game, and one main quest that you must do to move the story along. The main quest involves fifteen or so subquests, many of which have subquests of their own. So, even if you don't do any quests but the main quest, you'll be spending up to hundreds of hours until you complete Morrowind. I would have mentioned this in "The Good", but you'll find that after the third or fourth quest, the main quest is rather uninteresting and the quests are simple and dull. One of the first quests you do in the main storyline is obtain a "Dwemer Puzzle Box" from some Dwarven ruins. This is a good quest, if a bit hard to find the stupid box. But after this initial quest, it's all downhill. The next quests involve tracking down people, talking to them, and being their personal errand boy for a little while. You'll soon find that being an errand boy is pretty much what the game is about. The main quest does improve greatly about halfway through, but once you've trudged through the first half, you probably won't care and will be forcing yourself to get through it just so you can kill the bad guy. Yes, you can visit the big bad boss at your leisure, but you cannot fight him until you've done all the other quests and subquests and sub-subquests in the main quest.

There are a lot of guilds and factions you can join in the game. Join the Fighter's Guild and fight the enemy with might and steel; join the Mage's Guild and destroy them with sorcery; join the Thieves' Guild and be victorious with stealth and cunning; join the Morag Tong and perform assassinations; join one of the Great Houses and perform duties for them. Knowing the choices that lay before you would inspire you to make your character's class something along the lines of what your line of work will be, but you'll find out that was pointless, as the definition of what your character is is often too blurry to tell - or care. A thief can spend all his time working up his stealth skill, whereas a fighter can just grab a ring that makes him completely invisible and do the job better than any thief ever could. And likewise a thief can use a sword almost as good as a fighter can, with enough practice. The only thing a character class does is alter the points in the beginning. So your class really only matters for the first 5% of the entire game. Once you become proficient in all skills, no lock can stand in your way; no guard can detect your thieving; no monster can survive your blade; no mountain is too high to levitate over; no sea is too deep to swim. You not only become too powerful too quickly, you become a superhuman God (there's a pun there, but I won't explain it for it would spoil the game). I often bickered about the reasoning behind most fantasy games that didn't allow mages to use swords or wear armor. I always thought the classes should be able to blend a little, but in Morrowind, they don't just blend, they merge into one big giant supermonster.

Back to the quests. One would think it would be great playing as an assassin for the Morag Tong. One would think that, but it really isn't. At all. The main task of the quest is to track the guy down. Killing him is simple. One hit. Bang. Dead. But you have to find him first, and this usually involves talking to a number of people until you find someone who knows something. And then you have to get to the guy you're supposed to kill, which usually involves one hell of a long hike in which you're destined to run into cliff racer after cliff racer after cliff racer after cliff racer. (Cliff racers are pterodactyl-like birds that spawn wherever there is rocks - and there are rocks everywhere.)

Each faction has its own individual mission, but after a few quests in each faction, it's hard to tell. While they have their own missions, the quests are the same. It's either "Go here and talk to this guy" or "Go here and kill this guy/these guys". Always. Sometimes you'll have to deliver a message, or retrieve an object, to spice things up.

Fortunately there are other quests that don't involve any of the factions. "Yay!", right? No. These quests are even worse, and just plain pathetic. You might find someone along the road. You talk to them. They say, "please save my husband from monsters!". You, being the big hero, go and search for the husband, and you find him "trapped" by a few near-harmless monsters. Whack-whack-whack, he's saved, you bring him back, and your reward? A useless amulet. Or a useless ring. Or a useless ring with a useless enchantment. If you're not "rescuing" people in these non-faction quests, it's escorting them somewhere, and that's where the hell really lies. The pathfinding in Morrowind is awful. When escorting someone somewhere, you'll want to stay as close to them as possible, because if you take a step or two ahead of them, they suddenly get lost and will either run around in circles, run up a hill, turn around and run back to where they started, or get stuck somewhere. It's better just to kill them and take whatever pathetic reward they would give you when you brought them the whole mile down the road they were headed.

The game is very unbalanced in your favor. It's a wonder the monsters exist at all on Morrowind, as you'd think a bunch of angry farmers with pitchforks would have eradicated them all. Got some armor? Can you swing a sword? Then you can conquer the island! By level 10, most monsters will be dying with a single swipe of your sword/cast of your spell, even on high difficulty levels. You are unmatched, even in early stages of the game. Your only threat in the game is the mages, as they can cast spells that can lower your strength to the point where even your armor is too heavy to carry. But if your opponent is not a magic caster, you have nothing to fear, for if you're a fighter, you can win. Always. Unless you spent all your time in the game with a dagger and suddenly decided to switch to a broadsword for this battle, you have nothing to fear. Even if the difficulty is cranked up, you'll still win. If you're a mage, then just cast your spell and run. Cast and run. Cast and run. The only thing you have to worry about is your fatigue or mana running out, and unless you were out of both when you fought, you're going to win. And hey, if you're about to lose, just exit the dungeon. The monsters never (I mean never. They can't.) follow you outside. It gives you time to rest and rejuvenate, then go back in swinging/casting.

The game isn't unbalanced in your favor just for fighting. No: thieving has never been easier! Want that sword but just can't afford it? Is your steal skill nonexistent? No problem! Just move around the corner, behind a barrel, whatever! Just as long as nobody can see you. If nobody can see you, you can steal, unlock, take whatever you want, and nobody'll be the wiser, as long as you don't try and sell it back to them. And if you can't arrange yourself so you're not seen, just cast a chameleon spell and you can take things right in front of them and they won't notice.

As I said before, the architecture in Morrowind is very detailed and impressive, but it gets to the point where it's just excessive. There are parts in the game that look like it was designed by Picasso after dropping acid. While many of the areas look nice, they're completely impractical and near impossible to navigate. Fortunately, your map does tell you where entrances to buildings are located, and that is incredibly helpful.

I was too harsh. The insanely designed areas are few, and the inhabitants are somewhat mysterious, so that is certainly forgivable, especially in light of the other flaws of Morrowind. Like the caves. Yes, I said the caves were nice in Morrowind, and they are, but they're all nearly identical. How many caves, dungeons, tombs and mines are there in Morrowind? Too many to count. But once you've seen two of each, you've seen them all. Most caves (aside from quest-specific caves) start out the same. "Go down, then to the left. Then you'll enter an open area with a platform, some thieves, and some boxes. Go left. You'll come to another opening that leads to two more areas. One area leads to a dead end. The other leads to another platform area with another passageway." and so on. There is some variety. Sometimes you go left, instead of right. but the caves are all built identical, and it gets annoying very quickly. Instead of entering caves to explore, as you did in the beginning, you'll be entering caves to see what types of bad guys in it to see if there's anything worth going in for. Tombs are built like this as well, but considering they were built for a reason, it's acceptable.

The combat system downright stinks. It was slightly improved with a recent patch that made the enemy's health visible, but it has a long way to go before it's any good. It couldn't be more dull. Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack. All you do is swing your sword or cast spells. You might take a second to drink a potion. You don't have to worry about blocking, because if you have a shield it does that for you. Battles are often quick and boring. Find your opponent and whack at him until he does. Or, if you're a mage, cast spells and run around.

Dialogue in the game gets the job done, but is still disappointing. There are no dialogue trees are voice-overs, except for the initial insult they usually spit out. The entire dialogue consists of topics you can ask about and they'll tell you what they know. If you bribe them a bit, they'll sometimes tell you more, but usually only if it's specifically quest-related. Every NPC has their own "ask me about me" set of dialogue options, which sounds more like a personal's ad than anything else. "I am a knight. Knights are good and powerful. I am a lizard. Lizards are green and scaly. I like to fish, I like to dance." Just an example, but it's what they sound like.

For some quests you have to get information out of someone. To do this you have to raise their disposition toward you, by "persuading" them. You can either bribe then 10, 100, or 1,000 gold, admire them, or try your luck at intimidating them. Unless your speechcraft skill is very high, your best bet would be to bribe them with money, as anyone can be bought.

A personal annoyance in the game is the fact that there are neither any flat lands nor forests. Everywhere you travel, it's rolling hill after rolling hill, if not a scorched mountain or a swamp, and the swamp is the closest you'll find to a forest. Granted, the island of Morrowind is basically a giant volcano, but forests would have been nice. Also, there are no cliffs at all in the game. Every mountainside is shallow enough that you can slide down without taking any damage at all. I would have liked to have seen (particularly on the mountainside) a cliff near impossible to scale, where dangerous creatures and winds attempt to throw you off. But that's just a personal thing - there was a lot more I would have liked to have seen.

There aren't very many types of monsters, and many of the cool ones from previous Elder Scrolls games weren't included. While you can become a vampire in Morrowind, you can't become a werewolf. Also, instead of a somewhat humorous list of various diseases you could contract in Daggerfall, you're only left with "disease" and "blight" in Morrowind.

There is certainly more flaws in the game, but most of them are minor.

The Bottom Line
The story is okay, and the graphics are wonderful. If you want to play by your own rules and have a very large island to do it on, this will be a great game for you. But with bad and repetetive quests and more flaws than you can shake a Daedric Dai-Katana at, I'd recommend waiting until it's in the bargain bin.

However, the game ships with a fully functional editor, so maybe someone can right all the wrongs before Bethesda gets greedy and releases an expansion for the game.

<div align="center">

***

Good:
+Nonlinear gameplay.
+Great graphics.
+Great music.
+Progressive RPG elements (your acrobatics skill increases if you jump a lot, etc.).
+Multiple races to choose from.
+Comes with construction kit.
+And easy mod installment interface.
+You can be a vampire!
Neutral:
oSystem specs can be quite steep, but very rewarding if you have a good computer.
oStory could be better, but it gets the job done. It's not like the story is the main focus of the game. Evil:
-Way too easy.
-Worst journal system to date.
-Uninspired quests with little diversity.
-VIVEC!
-Lack of cool monsters from Daggerfall.
-Undiverse landscape.
-Boring NPCs.
Score:
7.5/10 Despite all that's bad about it, the graphics and the music and the atmosphere really lure me in. With the right mods, this game could be good.