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Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls III (Xbox)
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| Description:
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is a sprawling, first-person, open-ended fantasy role playing game. It's a direct port of the PC version and truly shows off the power of the Xbox. You can do virtually anything you want: there is a main quest but also hundreds of side quests (over 350 of them) and the game is completely non-linear. You can be a hero, a villain, a pilgrim, a saint or even a vampire. You name it, and chances are you can be it. There are also no geographical constraints; you can wander where you want, when you want. The amount of control you have in Morrowind is stunning. When you create a character, you can either choose pre-made classes, have one assigned to you depending on how you answer a questionnaire or create your own class. Morrowind's magic system is great--not only do you have seven schools of magic (Conjuration, Illusion, Destruction, Restoration, Mysticism, Alternation, Enchant), but you also have an Alchemy system, from which you can create potions from ingredients you can either buy or find in the wild. In addition, you can even trap the souls of enemies you kill and bind them into items to create a magic artefact. Another boon to this game is the thieving system. You can pick locks, disarm traps, pick pockets, learn acrobatics, taunt, insult or intimidate others, or haggle for better deals in the market. The game itself is gorgeous. The graphics, sounds, frame-rate: all smooth as silk. You can spend hours just looking at all the outlandish scenery, picking the flowers (literally). The musical score is rousing and never gets tired. All the different creatures and people have their own voices and sounds. This is a game that makes anything but high-end computers cry and it works on the Xbox without a hitch. Morrowind is a PC-style RPG for a PC-style console. This game is reason enough to buy an Xbox, and will have hard-core RPG fans singing its praises for years to come. --Bryan Karsh Amazon.com
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5/5 |
Bewilderingly brilliant
(April 09, 2008) |
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To be clear - there is no point putting the Morrowind disk into your Xbox unless you are prepared to put in a considerable amount of time. It really is like going on a holiday somewhere: spend a couple of hours, and of course you haven't even scratched the surface (you've barely left the airport!) but spend day after day walking about, and you'll see more and more.
It comes with a map. A proper map. You need to use it. And then after a while you squint at it and notice lots of little squiggles and blobs. Every single one is a whole dungeon to explore. And those are just the initial ones to get you started. If you want to, that is; there are a thousand other things you could do first.
No, it's not that pretty, not by 2008 standards, but the graphics do the job perfectly well and in fact are reasonably nicely stylised - there's a very distinct "feel" to each region, it's beautifully detailed - every bush, rock and tree hand-placed by the Bethesda team.
The quest itself is almost bafflingly long and involved, but there's so much else to do that it's great fun just following your nose and seeing where it leads.
After lots of excited charging around near to the starting point, I took a strider to the first main town, investigated and picked up a rumour about a nearby dwarf mine. A quick trip up into the hills, a fight with a cross magician who tried to barbecue me, some genuine orienteering - the map is huge, so finding stuff really is an issue - and then I was fighting my way through an eerie deserted dungeon. Brilliant! Then EVEN MORE brilliant when I realised that there were deeper sections of the dungeon I couldn't get to yet... everywhere you go in Morrowind there are things to see, mysteries to solve, encounters to negotiate. You'll either get completely stoked by the sheer scope of it, or you'll feel intimidated and want to go and play something linear like HalfLife 2.
It really is an experience all to itself, yes there are rough edges, like the bartering "bug" that enables you to buy/sell the same stuff back and forth to the same hapless trader earning huge amounts of cash, but it just doesn't matter.
What's astonishing is that whatever you try, the game encompasses properly. You're standing on a beach by the wreck of a ship. You decide on a whim to go for a swim - you may be fine - you may get attacked by something in the water and wish you hadn't gone in - but what's that glimmering under the water? The entrance to an underground dungeon! Now you just need to work out how to breathe underwater. And what possessed the games designers to put a whole underground dungeon out here, just sitting there in the water on the off chance that you decide to go for a swim? It's that kind of game.
You can go and find dungeons that you have been warned are full of terrifying creatures. Yes, you can wander in. And yes, you will be slaughtered. But you'll have seen them for a second or two before they obliterate you. And maybe later... you'll be able to come back with better kit, levelled up, and see how things pan out.
Yes, Oblivion is better. But this is the daddy of Oblivion, and will go down as one of the greats. |
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1/5 |
Boring, slow and unoriginal
(March 26, 2008) |
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I cannot believe the reviews that I am reading here! Am I really the only person who did not enjoy this game? I'm a seasoned role playing game (RPG) player and would consider games such as Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR, Jade Empire and Fable to be some of the best games ever written... so please bare that in mind when you read this rather scathing review.
This is an RPG in a Dungeons and Dragons style fantasy universe. The beginning of the game is promising (if not a little formulaic), with you possessing the usual mysterious background, that is not yet revealed.
I've now been playing for 10 hours and if this were any other game, I'd be knee-deep in the plot by now. But with Morrowind, I'm still spending 90% of my time walking between major cities. That's right... walking! There doesn't appear to be any mechanism for what I'd call "running" and there are certainly no cut-scenes that remove this monotonous task. (UPDATE: apparently I have been running around after all... you don't want to know how slow "walking" actually is!)
The main plot hasn't even kicked in yet, and the subplots are like the rejects from a teenager's first attempt at DMing a game of D&D. The NPCs are totally lifeless and have no personality. For my first mission, I set some innocent prisoners/slaves free from a bandit cave... they just said "thanks" and stood in the jail for the remainder of the game. No realism whatsoever.
I've now got a list of about 50 pointless things that I am prompted to ask every NPC that I engage in conversation. This is because the conversation engine is so stupid that it doesn't know how to optimise what is important. When I do eventually manage to work out a clue to begin a side adventure (usually achieved by sequentially clicking all options), the dialogue is so boring that it can be skipped and then read more concisely in the journal... that's not a good sign for an immersive game!
Morrowind prides itself on the claim that you can do whatever you want to do. I won't dispute that, but it's no more freedom than you'd get in any other modern single player adventure game. The question is, is there actually anything worth doing? I think not.
A few other things that annoy me about this game:-
- enemies show no backlash when you hit/miss them in battle. It's almost like you never touched them.
- walking is entirely realistic to real life, which means if the next village is 5 miles away... you really will take an hour of game play to get there. But the clocks go forward at an accelerated rate!
- far too many "dumb" NPC characters... just because I can engage one of them in conversation, does not make them real
- there is no auto-save when going near a dangerous area
- day/night happens in sky graphics only. Time of day does not affect NPC availability. Either ignore time of day, or do it properly. Ditto rest/food for the player character.
- weapons and other items degrade as they are used, and cost a fortune to repair... not fun.
- the walking around piece really is so annoying, it deserves another mention |
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1/5 |
Crap
(January 25, 2008) |
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this game is rubbish you want a good game get the elder scrolls 4 obliven so more advanced |
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1/5 |
Graphics dated now
(September 27, 2007) |
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This is the age of the PS3 and the Xbox360. I recently bought this classic game for my trusty ole' Xbox ; I already own and enjoy it on the PC. Let me tell you I was shocked how poor the graphics are on this old game now. The programmers did a good job squeezing this onto the xbox, but the resolution is so very poor. So, by all means buy this game, but only on the PC now. Morrowind on a modestly specced PC will blow the Xbox version away in terms of looks, plus you can 'mod' it to your hearts content. Trust me on this, buy this only if you are collecting Xbox games; you won't be playing it once you see it! |
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5/5 |
Only started and cant get this game outta my head
(September 01, 2006) |
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Well i got this game yesterday. at first i wasnt impressed, kinda through me in to the game with little explanation. Only 20 minutes i i realised that that actually adds to teh mystery. Lost the rag with it last night right enough, my first mission with the fighters guild where you have to play exterminator and kept getting killed by rats, i have an axe for gods sake hehehehe. Although so far so good, this game rocks the world. Highly recommended |
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