| Publisher: |
Developer: |
Genre: |
Players: |
ESRB: |
| Bethesda |
Bethesda |
RPG |
1 |
Teen |
Morrowind
Reviewed by: rattman1
Morrowind represents a perfect schism between two hardened camps of video gamers. Those who are role-playing adepts will quickly fall in love with this game and its limitless potential. Those who are not strong Role-Players will quickly become overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of the world and the astounding number of things to do that have nothing in relation with the main quest. All things considered this is a fantastic game, once you are ‘in.’ The only difficult part is getting there.
Gameplay: When you are suddenly dropped into this fantasy world, you arrive with nothing, not even a race. Through a series of NPC’s you will find yourself answering a few relatively short questions that decide everything from specialities to race. This is a very nice change from other games which make you feel like you are taking a statistics exam when you first begin the game. The decisions you make here set the tone for the beginning of the game, and it will become very apparent whether you made wise decisions or not.
Specializing in one attribute at character creation is a must, or you would soon find yourself unable to defend yourself. One serious issue is that it can be very difficult to tell whether you will be able to best the simplest of foes early in the game. You may walk up to a small rat per say, and smite it with one blow, or you may stand there swinging at it for minutes without landing a single hit. This issue will resolve itself later in the game, but it can be very frustrating for the newer player.
At the core of Morrowind, there is a very strong main quest which has you run all over the continent (and it is a REAL continent). The issue here is that there are literally thousands of quests from people ranging from bodyguard work, to stealing various items, or hunting down necromancers. These quests are almost all well done, but you can quickly become lost in them, and completely forgo the main quest altogether. The advantage to this, though, is the nearly limitless replayability. In addition to the quests, there are also hundreds of tombs and dungeons just waiting to be explored and routed in search of bandits’ loot or smuggler’s contraband.
If you are not fond of reading, I may recommend that you give this title a pass. Bethesda says that there are more than six full novels worth of text in this game, and I am not about to question that figure. I myself read as much as I could and found that is was much easier to read only quest information and to read closely when people wouldn’t give me a straight answer. There is more than enough reading than in an entire set of Encyclopedias, and should you care to read it all, it is very well done, and is written in the dialect you would expect from a good fantasy novel right down to the distinct grammatical structures of some of the more bestial races.
One last thing worth noting, while they can be avoided largely by traveling on foot to your destination, Morrowind has extremely long load times when taking any of the more expedient routes (teleporters, recall spells, etc.). The load screen itself is rather boring, but informative. Cycling it’s many sketches of monsters, animals, and character races with little tidbits of information from the control layout, to the benefits of being a high elf. The load times for entering rooms and dungeons is admirable, and is reminiscent of Half-Life’s loading screens where the world freezes for a few seconds with the word “Loading” spray painted on your screen. All said and done, the load times aren’t all that bad so long as you don’t keep dying repeatedly . . . then the load times can be a real bear.
Morrowind is a fairly stable game. I have heard tales of people having a variety of problems, but I have only been able to crash it once, and I was trying fairly hard to do so. The only issues I’ve seen reported were mysterious “dirty disk” errors on clean disks and in one case a lost save game file, but I am in no position to confirm nor deny those claims as I have had almost no issues with the stability of the game.
Graphics: Morrowind can be a truly gorgeous game, especially when looking at some of the scenery. When the weather is good (more on this later) you can see a fair distance and the land is lit up beautifully. The weather is not always good though . . . Morrowind has a great way of spicing up the scenery, frequent and accurate weather. On the western coast of the island there are frequent, and almost constant rainstorms, and when you get closer to the mountains, you begin to see visually stunning dust storms, which both your character and the NPC’s react to by covering their faces. Another feature that cannot be forgotten is the awe-inspiring water. It is not difficult to lose a few minutes when you first enter the game world, simply looking out over the water.
Now, to the other side of the coin. While many of the NPC inhabitants of Morrowind have fairly unique looks to them, and can look fairly convincing, there are some instances, mainly with the Imperial Guards, where the model (yes one) looks to be rendered in a much lower resolution than the rest of the game world. This poor fellow seems to be almost every single Imperial Guard you meet, no matter where you are.
Getting down and dirty, it should be noted that the character models can look downright bad when stripped of clothes. Models are blocky and do not have much detail considering the rest of the world, and the fantastic job modeling clothes and armor. There is a time where you have to strip down to your ‘bare essentials’ for a quest (it’s quite comical in context, I assure you), but other than that and the lovely brothel, you will not see the characters out of ‘costume’ and this will not be an issue. The clothing and armor is very well rendered in the game so you will have no need for worry so long as you keep your pants on.
Controls: Bethesda really hit its mark with the controls in the Xbox version of Morrowind. They are very comfortable and relatively intuitive. The game responds to your input very well, and it doesn’t take long before you have mastered them.
The inventory and spell book can both be manipulated during battle (conveniently paused and greyed out) and allow you to drink potions or quickly change spells. The only issue that comes to mind is the generic potion bottle images, which can make it difficult to find that one or two health potions amongst the dozen or so levitation, cure disease, and almost any other type of potion imaginable. This is no real issue, just something to be aware of.
Your inventory, spell book, map, and character statistics pages are all on their own menu page, all of which can be navigated with ease. Here you can manipulate objects in your pack, see how much longer it will be before you next level up, and tell where you are on the massive island upon which your future is bound.
Replay: If there is a single player, non-sporting game out there with this much replayability out there, than I would like to see it. When the main quest you follow in the game ends, and you have achieved your primary goal, the game sets you loose on the thousands upon thousands of clan quests, guild quests, and random mini-quests to do or ignore at your leisure. You could replay Morrowind forever and a day, and still not be done. The hundreds of dungeons, the thousands of quests, the billions of spells, and the hundreds of billions of different characters to play make this game one of the most open-ended, infinitely replayable console games ever.
Sound: A category in which Morrowind excels in without the slightest issue. The background music changes seamlessly as you move around the different environments. Tracks range from the nautical tunes of a small fishing village, to the truly impressive, regal instrumentals of the imperial fortresses.
Voice acting, for what little there is, is done reasonably well. Many characters of similar race will have the same line of dialect in the same voice, but usually you don’t notice this. No NPC that I have yet found gives you more than a one-liner as you pass them by; in which they acknowledge your presence, which can vary with their personal opinion of you.
Overall Presentation:
Scores:
Gameplay:  8
Graphics:  9
Controls: 9
Replay:  10
Sound: 9
Total Score: 9
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