The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

"Easilly the best game I've ever played, and I have played alot"

I've played games on a whole bunch of systems, from the NES to Xbox. Xbox is my newest system and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was the first game I got. This game has everything that anyone could ever ask for and for a really low price of only twenty dollars. The game offers you Main Quest (the quests that take you through the story line), Faction Quests (the quests that you get from certain guild; Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, etc), Miscellaneous Quest (quest you can get from random people in need), and finally Freeform (things you go out and make up yourself). Mainly, there is so much do discover on one little island.

Graphics and Sound (9/10)
Morrowind has some of the most impressive graphics you'll ever come across for the Xbox. You can play the game in first-person view or third-person view. Each character you'll meet, including yourself, looks different. Every character is unique. Some may have facial hair, and others not. Everything that you'll find on the island of Morrowind will make you fell like it's a real world. One of the most amazing things I noticed when I first played is that you can actually watch the sunset or sunrise. The weather in this game was breath-taking. You never knew when the game was going to rain, thunder, or shine. Basically this game make you fell like you zapped your self to a whole new world.

The sound effects in this game sounded so realistic. When you went through doors you could here them slam shut. Every character in the game had its own style of voice based on the race they were. Also every type of weapon had its own unsheathing sound. Spells sounded different as well. Morrowind had really dramatic music playing when an enemy had his eyes on you, and as soon as you would kill it the music would turn back to mellow and calm. Animals could be heard from distances away as you would be walking through the wood in the dark. It made it more frightening for the player. Sound played a big role in this game. Without all of the sound effects that were put in this game it wouldn't be as amazing.

Gameplay (9/10)
What can I say, the gameplay is what you make of it. You start off with a storyline about being a prisoner and finding out that you're a reincarnation of a great warrior god. No one says that you have to do what the next step is in the game. You choose your path. Hey, you could even kill Caius Cosades(the beginning quest giver). It doesn't matter. There's no storyline you need to follow. Also every time you start a new game you can be someone or something totally different with new skills and talents.

There are several different types of races in the game. Each has their own special ability. Orcs and Nords are especially good warriors, while High Elves and Bretons are good magic users. Oh, there's also Khajit's and Wood Elves that are good at stealth. No one say's, though, that if you want to be a Wood Elf then you have to be a stealthy character. The game also gives you a “make your own class” feature. Here you can make a character's attributes be what you want. There are so many different possibilities that it's almost endless.

Replayability (10/10)
Like I said every time you start a new game you can be someone or something totally different. Also you can choose different choices throughout the game like sparing someone or not. In Morrowind there are 3 Great Houses; Telvanni, Hlaalu, and Redoran. If you join one you can't join the other. This opens up new choices in a new game. If in your first game you chose Redoran, maybe now try Hlaalu. Each house has a different way of handling situations.

Difficulty (7/10)
This is probably the only thing that would get in someone's way. The difficulty in this game can start out giving you a lot of trouble. For example if you are just starting out in the game and you wander off into certain places with enemies that could kill you with the flick of their finger. This will cause someone so much trouble. Also people might get confused with the weapons they used and the stats they picked. If at the star of the game you picked a class, you had assigned attributes. So if the assigned attribute said you were good with long swords, but you wanted to use a bow, it would be really hard to hit someone without first training marksmen. Once you go through some training and leveling up you will soon be able to kill anything that stands in your place

Overall(9/10)
This is the best RPG to get into. It's a very long game and will take a lot of time and patience to experience it to the fullest. There are over 100 quest that you can do and over 3000 NPC's you can kill. It's a tough game at first, but with patience you'll even be able to kill an Ordinator. There's nothing you can't do in this game. (Hey you can even get into drug dealing if you want. In the game there referred to as illegal substances).There is a bunch of little things that make this game unique. Like all the names in the game that still challenging people to pronounce them. Just a few of them are Addamasartus, Aharunartus, and Ahinipalit. I recommend this game to anyone who is an RPG fan. While this game isn't your typical RPG, with all the different things that could possibly happen, it still is one the best games for Xbox ever created. Even with some flaws such as the many glitches that can and cannot be used to your advantage.

Buy or Rent It
I think that if you're into RPG's and games that go on forever then you should buy it. But if you just want to play the game to see for yourself how it really is then you should rent it. It's only 20 bucks, like I said, and it is a Platinum Hit. So why not buy it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/28/06