"Real role players, welcome to your playground. Everyone else, I invite you to lose yourselves in Vvanderfell."

I really decided to pick this game up more out of the desire to spend some money than to actually get a new game. I went to preorder Neverwinter Nights and also decided to preorder this one because I knew I would need a game to keep me busy until NWN released. And now while playing this amazing title, I believe NWN has quite a challenge to make me stop playing Morrowind.

On to the review

Graphics: 9.5

So close to perfection! Seeing this game in motion is just jaw-dropping. Cut-scene like graphics, high quality enough to pass for pre rendered cinemas are the order of day here. The water effects (with proper hardware support) are the best I have ever seen in a game and everything regarding the scenery is just about perfect. Look at the sky and marvel at its beauty. Sit on top of a hill and watch the sun rise or set over the horizon. Do it on the docks of a town. It's gorgeous scenery. It's breath taking. The only things that keep this game from achieving a perfect graphical score are that as beautiful as the environments are, the character models are just downright ugly. The animations look a bit stiff, though you will get used to them, and the game needs some optimizing to run a bit smoother. But besides those quirks, everything looks like out of a dream, extremely helped by the different look of the different areas. Nothing is boring, and within a few play sessions you will be able to tell the difference between Imperial, Dunmer, Daedric, and Dwemer architecture at a glance. It’s that good!

Of particular note is that you can dress up your character beneath his/her armor. So if you want to wear black and red, just locate clothes with those colors and slap them on. Or maybe you want your female character to wear that long skirt with the intricate runic embossing. Or slap a robe over everything! It works on layers, with layer 1 being the naked character skin (not really naked but underwear clad), layer 2 being clothing, layer 3 being armor, and layer 4 being the robe.

Sound: 7.5

If only the soundtrack were longer. The music to Morrowind is just wonderful. I'm a big fan of music, and this game comes with a soundtrack that is pure joy to my ears. Like I said previously, I wish it had more tracks but the ones that are there are perfect. And you can even place your own music files as mp3's into the game's music folder and it will play them for you like a cd drive on shuffle so you can keep adding to it when you get tired of the tracks it included or want more variety.

The sound effects are pretty effective as well. While it could have used a few more voice acted lines, the ones in there are delivered properly. Maybe some added grunts and a better sounding clang of steel on steel would raise this category higher, but as it is, I do like what I hear.

User Friendliness: 7.0

Now this was a tough one to rate. I was tempted to give it a higher rating, because the ingame tooltips do a great job of explaining most everything about it, but truth of the matter is that the game can be a little daunting. It’s not a bad thing though, just that it is hard to get your bearings at the beginning, it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed, and it’s also very easy to close some windows by mistake and then have no idea how to open them again.

Actual Gameplay: 10.0:

Now this is one area in which this game really really shines. Create your character from a wide assortment of races, classes (even create your own), and work his/her skills as you please. In a nod off to old-school Ultima titles, you can also have the game decide your class by how you answer some moral questions. Once you’re set with your character, the whole island of Vvanderfell is your playground, literally. Combat deadly monsters and assassins as you explore! See that mountain, climb over it and find out what’s on the other side! See a sword laying on a table, pick it up. Create your own spells, enchant your very own items, hunt for ingredients from the local flora and fauna to become a master alchemist (or just good enough to be ready for the hard road). Be a scoundrel, be a paramount of virtue. Convince someone to hand you that item instead of killing that person (it does have unavoidable battles, but less than one my think). Heck, indulge in the fun art of diving for pearls! You are only limited by whatever comes to your mind at the moment for the most part. Heck, even solve the main storyline if you ever feel inclined to. There’s so much to do, with so many factions going at each other and so much intrigue that you can literally feel the spider’s web of plots and subplots running beneath it all. Oh yea, you can also go into one of the game’s numerous dungeons if you favor dungeon crawling. If there is one flaw with the game in this category is that it seems that the battles become too easy later on. It’s disappointing, but not enough to lower the score for me, since battling is not a thing I do often anyway.

Replayability: 10.0

Almost a full month and so many hours I’ve lost count after I started to play it, and I still go at it for long periods of time. And the amazing thing is that I –always- find something new to do. A new quest, an uncharted area to explore that usually brings about a few caves and maybe a ruin or two. And I still have not really done the main quest as I’ve been joining guild after guild, doing their errands, going up in their ranks. You really have now idea of how immense the island of Vvanderfell is until you have played a few sessions. You really have no idea how much there is to do on guilds until you try them out. How many quests you find littered through the game, and the infinitely different types of character you can play. It really is mind-boggling. Most mind boggling of all though is that the more you play it, the more it draws you in. And the amazing editor that shipped with it guarantees longevity as the game already has a sizeable mod community.

Final Evaluation: 10.0

Even if some of the above scores were not perfect, this game has it where it counts the most. It will draw you in, pull you deeper into its clutches and it just won’t let you go. It’s a role playing game in its truest sense, one that will disappoint if you’re looking for action but that will satisfy if you’re looking for a true role playing –experience-. It is not without its flaws such as the NPC’s never sleeping and the dialogues of some NPC’s not being consistent in some areas, but these are really small quirks when the game is viewed in the whole. Considering ALL of the content in the game, some things like that can be overlooked for now. Let’s just hope their next title fixes these little problems, but as of now, Morrowind is in a class of its own.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 05/28/02, Updated 05/28/02