The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

"One of the deepest, most immerse RPGs on Xbox I've seen yet!"

Morrowind is opened ended, epic playing RPG that continues and progresses through the Elder Scrolls name. The 3rd established game in the series features a hero who does not know a thing about his past, but as to only where his body will carry him into the land of Vardenfell. A land with over 20 well established cities, over 300 dungeons, several novels’ worth of readable text, and over 3,000 (Yes, you heard me right, three thousand) NPCs or None-Playable Characters in which you can interact with. Do almost anything your heart desires such as rob a bank, steal armor, create magic spells, help people, run around almost butt naked, or simply begin your main quest. However, Morrowind is not for everyone and requires a handful amount of time on your part. Whether or not should you choose to undergo the vast mission prepared for you as you boot up your Xbox is all but your decision. Read on to find out if Morrowind is the right RPG for you.

Graphics -
One of the many amazing things you question once you start the game is how could Xbox exactly pull of such huge worlds with unbelievable graphics? Once you progress on your quest, you’ll understand why. The loading zones are unbelievably huge. On average, it takes approximately 30 seconds to boot up your main quest from when you start the game. And almost around every corner is another five-second loading zone. Once you enter a building, a cave, or a tomb you’ll have yet another five second loading zones. This is unbelievable! Such a harsh price to pay for a work of art, and let’s just say we would all appreciate worse graphics than long loading zones. However they don’t tend to be of such annoyance once you start reading the manual or just turning on the old television to a different channel. The framerate itself is pretty decent as well. I haven’t noticed any major framerate drops yet alone the game runs at an average of 30 FPS, which is pretty good. The only thing left to say is that I can’t stand loading times, but if you can, add another one to the category score.

Final Category Score – 8/10.

Sound -
The sweet, sweet sounds of Vardenfell are anything but average. The water, the birds, the footsteps all sound pretty authentic; however the only thing that continues to piss me off is the damn soundtrack. Only about three-five tunes in the entire thing. You’ll get the average slow sounding sound during explorations, and the more intense sounds during battles. Everything else is as average as it can get. The soundtrack itself includes some kind of medieval theme, which is not bad but after listening to the same thing every day for the whole month, you tend to either go crazy or ignore it. I for one just ignored it, and concreted on the gameplay more, which everyone should be.

Final Category Score – 7/10.

Controls -
The controls are made perfectly for any styled RPG player. You move just like any other game – the left analog stick; and you look just like in any other game – the right analog stick. Click the right analog stick in to switch from first-person to third. Pretty nice, and some original for once. As for the weapons – you equip your melee weapons and select them by holding X and pressing on the right trigger to go forward, and left trigger to go back. For magic, it’s the same exact thing but only with the Y button. Then you actually take it out by simply pressing X or Y. You talk/interact with an NPC by pressing the A button in front of them, which is pretty average as well. The menus can be accessed through the B button (which includes the map, your current items and clothes).

Final Category Score – 10/10.

Gameplay -
As previously said, you arrive at Vardenfell by ship. You wonder why you were released from prison by the Empire. You wonder at everything else as well – like your past for instance. What you’re going to do next? But still you have no clue. You get off the ship and a man meets you at the dock. Here, you will choose your class. There are approximately 30 or so characters you can choose from. I first picked a redguard because I love fighting. As for you, you can choose a thief, a mage, an orc, and a lot of other different classes as well. You report inside and are officially set free and made a ‘citizen’ of Vardenfell. But this is no time to party. The people inside inform you that its time to meet your master (with you being an apprentice) – don’t worry; he’s a friendly kind of guy. Now, you officially go outside and are one with nature. You marvel at the town, it being small however this is just the beginning. You continue your quest to find out: why, what, where, how? These answers and many more await you as you start the game…

The fun thing in Morrowind is that you can do whatever you want. You can start fights and than quickly run away, you can steal other people’s gold and refuse to go to jail (doing so will end in you getting your ass kicked by the guards), or you can just do the main quest (unlikely in this game). The beauty about Morrowind is that it’s almost like real life. You don’t have money to pay for that armor; attack the clerk and take it off his dead body or simply steal it and haul ass into a different part of town. In most RPGs you can’t attack friendly people, however in Morrowind you can. That’s the main thing that distinguishes them. You can even have the bounty on your head, and if its high enough, the guards will attack you whenever they bump into you. They are so desperate that they will even chase you into the next town, and unless you can run really fast – you won’t escape.

You can also sell special types of armor, and according to its value you will get different amount of money for it. For example, if it’s damaged, you probably won’t much amount of money. If its mint condition and valuable, you’ll be rich. You can even have a house by taking it over from the people you live there. Morrowind is so realistic that your character can only carry so much. My character currently carries 1000lbs and if he has more than that, he won’t move, literally. So you will have to drop something and come back for it. Something even more amazing is that you can create over 150 billion spells according to Official Xbox Magazine. And I don’t know if you know, but that’s a lot of spells. I guess that’s the reason why this game was in development for a good two-three years.

The battle system in Morrowind is unlike anything we’ve seen before – its hack n’ slash. Its not the original Japanese styled battle where each hit tires you out and you have to wait a current time before hitting the enemy again. Instead you have a fatigue meter, and once it runs out, you’r hits will be doing weak damage towards the enemy. It’s the same for your health meter (where you die if you run out) and magic meter (where you simply run out of magic). Morrowind is pretty unique to any other RPG you’ve probably played before. I’m not sure if unique is the key word here, but it is definitely a hit or miss from what I’ve seen. You might love it, or you might hate it. Take the time and rent it out first. It has plenty of immersion, including the 150+ sidequests quests you can do for the different ‘clans’ in the game such as the fighting clan, mage clan, thieves’ clan, and others. The amount of enemies in this game is unbelievable as well. You’ll meet your average fighter, orc, mage, elf, even a vampire which you can turn into (and contain twice your regular abilities).

Also, one last thing I’ve noticed about the land of Vardenfell is that it’s too big. Gamers wanted an opportunely for developers to create them a big game. Be careful what you’ve wished for, it might just come true. Vardenfell is so big, if you would walk in a straight line from South to North or vice versa, it would take you at least 10-15 minutes. Because of this, there are plenty of boats, and slit striders (or giant walking bugs) you can take from one big city to another for a small fee of course. I would have loved to seen horses to travel on which would have fit the game perfectly, but there aren’t any. Anyways, it depicts the medieval era perfectly. Giant castles, wooden houses, even the NPCs. There are so many things you can do in Vardenfell, its freaky. The replay value will never run out, if the game is right for you based on this information.

Final Category Score - 9/10

The Hits or Misses (A Follow-Up) -

Hit:
+Amazingly huge worlds, and graphics
+Over 300 dungeons, 3000 NPCs, 6 novels worth of text, and 150 billion+ spells to choose from
+So much replay value, it’ll take you months to finish the entire game
+First/Third Person View

Miss:
-This game is not for everyone with its unique battle system
-The soundtrack tends to get annoying
-The worlds may be too big for some

To buy, or not to buy -
This is probably the critical part in this review. Morrowind is a platinum hit, which is 20 dollars. For 20 dollars, it has to be a must buy, right? It depends. If this review had any impact on you, you might want to have run out and buy the game. However, if you’re still thinking, wait a little longer for the GOTY Morrowind edition, which includes two expansions from the PC version – Bloodmoon and Tribunal. That is going to be on sale for a mere 10 dollars extra for a grand total of 30. In Bloodman, you go to a frozen island of Solstheim where the Empire is establishing a mining colony, which is being threatened by werewolves. Gasp! Now in Tribunal, you have to dethrone a ruthless king whereas assassins are sent after you. Bigger Gasp! For a gamer like me who also enjoys all kinds of RPGs, I’d think you’d enjoy Morrowind. I’m going to say it as a must buy for any kind of Xbox owner, but I’m going to give this game a rating of a 9 because of the soundtracks, and some things which could have been improved. But I can see Bethesda were anxious to get this game out on the market, which I don’t blame them, it still kicks ass!

Final Reviewed Score: 9/10 – Amazing!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/03