The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

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.

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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.

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***

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.

The Good
I don't know how they did this, how long it took, and how much effort was put in it, but I do know, it is the best game ever.

When Arena was released, it tried to break away from other RPG's and distinguished itself. It could have been great, but Bethesda failed to make it fill its potential. A while later, Daggerfall came. It could have been great, but the graphics and stability pulled it down. And now, Morrowind has arrived, and boy is it good! The game features some of the best graphics ever seen, along with a very impressive array of races, characters and quests. But still what astounds gamers is the size. You can explore Morrowind to its greatest. You can follow the main plot, take some side plots, or join a guild and perform duties. Or you can just do anything you want. The hundreds of items and weaponry is very impressive, and the detail put in the game is simply amazing.

The Bad
The only thing I didn't like about this game was the character build. Polygon placement in coordination with the "spine" (as i call it) build makes some characters move stiffly, and it looks rather stupid.

The Bottom Line
Nevertheless, this game is a must have for gamers, whether you like RPG's or not, this game is a must.

The Good
I have to admit I'm only barely acquainted with the previous Elder Scrolls titles, having played Arena ages ago and skimmed past Daggerfall but pretty much missing out on it when it got released. Still I knew enough of what was in store for me when I installed Morrowind, and in some aspects I am happy to say I got what I wanted.

For starters Morrowind delivers on what it was it's most hyped feature: the sheer size, detail and freedom of it's game world. So far this is THE game as far as expansive "sand box simulators" go. Ultima Ascension, Baldur's Gate 2, GTA, etc. etc. Nothing comes close to the sheer size of Morrowinds gameworld. And the amount of npcs populating it, quests to do, dungeons, items and assorted stuff is second to none. I played the game for months as far as I can recall and while I didn't log any "official" gaming hours I must have played three times the lenght of Baldur's Gate 2, and a quick look at my world map by the endgame only showed about 75% of it as explored...

For as extensive as it is, Morrowind's gameworld is also very detailed, with five distinct architectural styles (the classic "ye olde medieval" castles and keeps, the bizarre, organic dwellings of the elf mages, the indigenous villages of the local dark elves, the stylized settlements of the deserts, and the gargantuan leftovers of a long-forgotten civilization). These styles are applied to lots of cities and locations, some small enough to explore in 10 minutes or so, and some others sprawling over 5 loading zones and needing a transportation system of it's own like Vivec. Thriving in these locations are dozens of underground societies, guilds and mob families, each having their collection of quests, sideplots and characters for you to explore with total freedom of action (Want to become a slaver and aid hunting raids? Want to oppose slaving and go across the land aiding a Greenpeace-like society that liberates slaves? No problem either way).

Of course, handling such a gameworld would be a nightmare through the classic sprite 2.5D engine of the previous games, so for the first time the Elder Scrolls goes 3D, and the results are nothing short of amazing. The graphics engine manages to render the entire gameworld with smooth, detailed textures and models, as well as special effects that help create incredible foggy swamps, blinding sand storms, stormy weather, cool magic effects and one of the most amazing water effects conceived to it's date. Make no mistake, you do need one badass machine to run this one, specially since you are going to want to crank up the resolution to take in all the detail in the game, which includes unique models for each item and armor piece as well as for those tiny forks, plates, and decorations that fill each house.... amazing doesn't even begin to describe it. And then there's the complementing music and effects, which fits the game perfectly thanks to some stellar orchestrations and moody tunes.

As for the story, the game falls for the typical "legendary prophecy" stuff, but manages to inject some interesting twists on it by including government conspiracies, and generally playing around with the "requirements" you need to meet to fulfill said prophecy. Basically there's this ancient evil god sealed behind a magic wall at the center of the isle of Morrowind, the ancient god is awakening and threatens the known world and whatever, with only the help of another reincarnated god as the last hope.... at least that's what the natives of Morrowind believe, and knowing this, the government across the sea sends you, a former prisoner, as the reincarnated deity, tasking you with fulfilling this "prophecy", and aiding you along the way, but with their objective being getting a key person inside the reclusive Morrowind society and messing around with the local government. As expected both plotline share their place in the spotlight and intersect many times, generally making for a pleasant, if not extremely original, storyline.

All that plus diseases, the ability to become a vampire (and boy does that open up a whole new set of rules), fly around, make your own spells, potions and enchanted items, and fool around with an editor!

The Bad
Unfortunately this extremely ambitious title reached it's goal but disregarded some elements that can only be described as really hardcore design flaws, poor balancing and lame gameplay.

The design of the game was to make a massive, all-encompassing rpg, so it's a priority to have functional elements to help you keep track of what you are doing and what's going on around you. As in every other rpg out there this translates into a journal, however rarely has an rpg had such a poor excuse for a journal as this. Suffice to say that only the useless journal in Ultima Ascension is worse than this piece of crap. Well, actually they are pretty much the same! They both just write down whatever happens cronologically. Yes, Morrowind adds an hypertext linking system for easier navigation, and separates completed quests from the rest... but that's it! I can't even begin to recount the amount of quests I lost because I forgot about them and/or couldn't find their information in this godawful excuse for a journal.

Other holes in the design come in the form of zero damage feedback for combat, do you want to know how hard you are hitting your enemy? Or if this weapon is really better than that other one against that type of baddie? Well wait and see how long it takes for it to drop down, as there's no other way of telling... And I just loooooove the psychic police forces of Morrowind. Picture this situation: you (a thief) pull out a major heist in a mansion and leave town with dozens of unique and valuable items, right? Now in a city that's in the other side of the island you get caught pick-pocketing. And guess what? After paying the customary fine the cop takes what you stole that time, the loot you got from that amazing heist and every item you ever acquired by thievery, no matter if you have been using it from the beginning of the game! That is a real encouragement for thief characters, isn't it? And every time you run into the law it's the same... lovely. Thankfully if you dump everything you have on the floor right next to you the cops do nothing and leave, but it's still pathetic. Maybe even more so.

Moving on, the rpg mechanics are handled by a sturdy skill system similar to the previous Elder Scrolls games which improves not by the acquisition of generic experience points, but thanks to it's actual use and/or paid training. In other words: jump around a lot and your athletics skill increases, sneak around successfully and so does your sneak skill, bash lots of heads and you get better at handling that particular weapon, etc. I've always liked this type of systems, but whenever done correctly they would become extremely challenging and slow paced... fortunately that's not the case here, as the poor balance means you can max out most skills in no time and the "no classes" approach to gaming means even a thief can be a mage-slaying powerhouse and a giant barbarian can sneak around and steal like a pro thief... so much for specializing.

As for the gameplay and the many quests that populate Morrowind, they are completely filler material, with really uninspired quests that call for you to get this or that item and deliver it to X character and on and on and on. To be fair most of the main plot quests are cool and there are many sideplots worth exploring, but they are lost in a sea of mundane and stupid quests. Quest which would still be worth doing if at least you met interesting characters to interact with. However save for a couple of key characters in the game the rest are soulless drones. It really puzzles me the way Bethesda handled npc interaction... talking to a character opens up a dialogue window from which you pick up the desired topics of conversation as hypertext links... (Hi! I would like to ask you about....monsters,you,this city, etc...) The resulting conversations unfortunately are all generic lines blurted out on and on and on in the same way all over the island. Should you ask a key warrior character why is he a fighter he would suddenly abandon whatever demeanor he had previously and blurt out the same generic, resume-like explanation of what a fighter is and does as every other character in the rest of the island and the same with everything else (but those class descriptions really are the pits, really, whoever wrote that deserves to be shot on sight). It really is mind-boggling how could Bethesda waste so much time populating this gigantic gameworld with drones and think they had done a good job... Congratulations Bethesda: you officially have the game with the worst case ever of "signposts npcs", not even japanese rpgs match up to your title! And you know what? This takes it's toll on the game's freedom of action. After all, what's the point of straddling morally bleak lines if you get the same reaction from everyone either way?

Aside from that there are lackluster character animations (everyone moves as if they had the proverbial stick up their asses), so little monster variations that you'll think you are in a pterodactyl-only sequel of Carnivores and assorted problems with game balance and combat that make it significantly less of what it could have been (just whack away!!).

Also the ending SUCKS ASS. After the countless hours I spent in the game I get a half a second cutscene and that's it??? Damn you Bethesda!!

And where the hell are the horses? One of the coolest things in Daggerfall was having one and casting a levitation spell!! Ride of the Valkyries baby!!

The Bottom Line
An extremely ambitious title that achieved it's giant scope at the expense of some critical design elements that kills it in the minds of many gamers, or just make it less than perfect to others. I think I fall somewhere in the middle, as I think the game is horribly flawed, but also has a lot going for it and it's achievements deserve recognition.

Make your own mind about it, two things are sure about it: It's the biggest most gigantic crpg experience ever (and that's without taking into account the expansions) and it's almost equally annoying in it's problems.