The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

"Possibly my favorite RPG ever, but it has some flaws"

Possibly my favorite RPG ever. Being that RPGs are my favorite genre of games, that is no small task. It may have beaten out Baldur's Gate II for the title. To think that I didn't play this masterpiece of a game because I was "turned off" by the first person view. Since I am not a guy who likes the FPS genre, I didn't even consider this game for about 2 years. It was only after I tried this game because it came free with my new video card that I was interested. After playing that, I decided to get the GOTY version for $20 and the rest is history.

However, this game is not without its flaws, let's list some:

* this game crashes......a LOT. You'd better quick save every few minutes and that is no joke.

* this game is HUGE. while some see that as a very good thing, it might be too big......especially on foot if you plan on walking everywhere. I don't know how long it would take to walk from one end of the island to the other but I'm guessing a couple of hours. Now there are many ways to transport from here to there but often times you have to make a half hour trek to get to your destination for a quest. There are areas that most players will never see. Also, there is a good portion of the game that is just ugly landscape.

* did I mention this game crashes.........a LOT? I hate game crashes.

* this game has tons of spells, and you can make your own spells. While you can delete the spells you no longer need you are often stuck with a huge list of spells, making navigating through the list to get to the one you want a time-consuming affair. A better way would've been to select which school you want and THEN bring up a list of spells. Much easier to navigate that way.

* it's pretty frustrating for the first few hours. Your skills are so pitiful that you feel pretty helpless until you get a skill at about level 50, which takes a while unless you spam trainers. that takes a lot of gold........

* the merchants in the main game don't carry much gold, this means you can't sell a lot of the higher priced items in the game without taking a huge loss.

* you can switch to 3rd person, but it is basically pointless.

* your inventory does get cluttered

Ok, with all that going against it how could I possibly give this game a 9. well:

* it is very open ended. some might say too open ended but I don't think so. I like doing whatever I want to whenever I want to. If I get sick of doing the actual game, I can go do some guild quests. If I get sick of those, I'll just explore for awhile. you never run out of things to do.

* You want to make potions to sell for money, you can do that. you want to fix up armor you found in a cave before you sell it, you can do that. You want to break into a guys house and take his stuff, go for it. You want to shoplift from a store, you can do that......just don't try and sell it back to the owner or he'll call the cops.

* After 200 hours, it is still fun. With final fantasy games, after I put in 120+ hours into a game and pass it, I NEVER play it again. I just don't have the energy. Not true with this game. I can't tell you how many characters I've created. You can play it so many ways. You can be a fighter and tank through everything. You can be an archer and snipe things with arrows. you can be a mage and fry things with magic and make yourself disappear so they can't attack you back. Or, you can combine all these character traits into one guy. I haven't had this much fun creating and trying out new characters since the Baldur's Gate games.

* The mods. this game has a great mod community. If you can think of it, there's a mod (or several) for it. If you never thought of it, there's a several mods for that as well. they're easy to install too. New weapons, check. New armor, check. New character skins, check. New quests, check. total game conversions, check. Also, if you get the construction set with the GOTY edition (the version you should get), you can try your hand at creating your own mods. I've heard of some guys taking up to 2 years perfecting a mod, talk about dedication.

* you can kill just about any NPC you want to without screwing up the main quest and without major consequences. Kill a guy and take over his house. The game practically encourages you to. I can't think of any other RPG that does this. Sure, there are RPGs where you can kill NPCs but not without major consequences.

to sum up

Graphics:
8/10
good for the year this game originally came out in. I'm trying to think how games looked back then. I don't really remember so I'll give it an 8. They really haven't aged that well when you look at next-gen graphics unless you install mods.

Sound:
7/10
You got your battle music and your non-battle music. Nothing really special. Battle sounds are nothing really special. If somebody's talking to you and you turn, it will get quieter in one speaker. they did a good job with that.

Gameplay
10/10
The battle system isn't all that great but it's fun to fry stuff with magic and shoot stuff with arrows from a distance, factoring gravity into the equation. What other game is this non-linear and lets you kill basically anybody you want and steal almost anything? What other game lets you explore the countryside and pick flowers and be an assassin for a secret underground organization at the same time? Not too many come to mind. What other games let you put 100 hours in and not touch the main quest at all?

Fun Factor
10/10
This is one of the funnest games I've ever played, period. It's in my top 5 all time. It has possibly de-throned Baldur's Gate II as my favorite RPG. I never thought that would happen. All this despite the flaws. that's saying a lot about this game. You can play this game any way you want, that's the fun of it. You want to be a tank that clubs people with a 50lb. hammer, be that. Wanna be a sniper, be that. want to be a seductive sorceress who runs around in her underwear, go for it. it won't make evil men gawk at you instead of fighting but if you want to play that way, by all means. want to be evil, be evil. Kill a shop keeper and steal his stuff. Murder carries less of a penalty than stealing anyway (gotta love the justice system in Morrowind) Want to be good, be good. You can play this game any way you want to. that's the fun of it. Join guilds, be a part of the imperial legion (the police force), join the mages guild if only for the transport discount. It's not a "go here, do this now" RPG. whatever you want, you can do..........that's the fun of Morrowind, it let's you do what you feel like doing on your terms.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/04/07