Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind

RPGs. You have Japanese, American. gothic, childish. Linear, Open ended. The American RPG games, such as Fable, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, they are open ended. They take the literal term of RPGs (role-playing games). You create your character from the face they have to their sexual prefrence. Though, arguably, one of the best RPGs that do this is The Elder Scrolls 3:Morrowind. It is THE pc RPG. The fantasy world that takes over a year to master. The game with freedom and.... more freedom!!! I will look at the First version, for i have yet to have any other expansion packs in my Belarussian destructive hands... which I clean... I will grade it on MY five factors: Gameplay, graphics, story, fun factor, opinion.

Gameplay:

I will lay it down right now. This is NOT a diablo clone, as in a point and click adventure. You can go from Third-person to First-person. Fans of D&D wil be right at home with their character creation. First, the class and gender (gender DOES effect the stats). Then, with a little story unraveled of you turning out to be some slave... you get into your stats. This part can get very personal. You are given three choices: The guy to release you ask you afew questions and have that give you your class, just pick a class, or create one down to the name. If you are like me, or smart, either one will have you waste a good 30 minutes on carefully creating your character, choosing carefuly what type of.... "Creature" you want to be, sneaking around on sites for some good tips and what not. Then, when you are ready, you are sent into a LARGE LARGE world that combines NYC and Los Angeles into a nice little Medievil package! Now, lets talk about fighting! There are a lot of!
weapons, and i mean Fanboy self-esteem a lot... i think... There are afew categories: Short blade, long blade, axe, blunt weapons, spears, throwing thingies, and pathetic unarmed combat. Then each of these categories have more sub-categories, magic weapons, stuff like that. So when it comes down to the weapons, this game delivers. Then you got the magic. DO NOT GET ME STARTED WITH THE MAGIC. I will not cover it because there is A LOT of it. Too many spells, it makes me angry for no reason at all. But yeah, they cover the magic pretty well. So you run around, (with too much backtracking for my taste) around this HUGE island called Morrowind (better name then.... amazing island!). Before you go onto this strange main-quest, you make some money with the side quests. There is a nice selection of places to join. Mages, Imperial, theif, fighters, blah blah blah, super fighting magic vampires, lalalala, etc. And it is very important to cover as much as you can cause you would really want to get good, there are some mean battles in the game. I have played this game so far for like five hours, and I am still on sub-quests. This is pretty much GTA in a fantasty world. Let me tell ya something though, Armor in the beggining, is very hard to find cause they only have them cheap horrid armor, so you would try to get to as many towns as you can so you can get something out of it. Money= power, power= inventory, inventory= right click. So from what i have played and heard, you will not be done with this game for a long time. three years long. 9.3

Graphics:

Short and simple. Ugly. This is an old game of about three-four years. Everything is sloppy. There is little to no rendering. The background makes me sick. I hate running around the bleak towns. It just angers me more. 5.0

Story:

This makes other American RPG games walk away in shame. Everyone has a piece of the story. There are a lot of sub-stories that weave into the main one. It ranges from law to gang wars. Society to humanity. Whatever you like, they have it covered. I am right now on a Sherlock Holmes-esque mission trying to figure out how to get these "Dumner' species to like me. On my way, i learned about their history, what they take to Morrowind and outlanders (you are an outlander, people don't like, monsters don't like you, Elfs don't like you, but Lizards do!).Screw reading books about wizards and dragons and all that cliche shizzle and get this game if you are interested in it. Sadly, I don't like reading and not many of the characters talk, so my eyes hurt trying to find what I want to ask, read the essay they give me, and then rinse and repeat. 8.5

Fun factor:

It is a PC game. Plug-ins and expansion packs. Knee deep in them... This game will have you playing it for a long long time. Sometimes, just trying to steal, fight the imperial, take on a whole mine full of mine workers, is just great. There are some parts that keep you paranoid and careful. You have too much to handle items to find. There is just some great amount of replay value in this game. When ever you get tired of playing a game, you will always find yourself going back to Morrowind. It is just a great Experience. Only problem is, reading and back tracking. The world is huge, so you can get lost easily. Constantly turning to your map yo make sure you didn't lose yourself turns to a hassle. Forgeting to save and then dying after doing two quests (happened to me too many times) will anger you greatly. Even with all the replay and plug-ins, it just gets fustrating running in circles trying to bargin hunt for a helmet that you can't even afford! 7.5

Opinion:

I can over-look how annoying this game can get. It is just a great RPG where you can get really into your character without having to wear elf ears! I really enjoyed it since i first layed my eyes on it and I can agree you will like it too. A lot to do, a lot to see. Just a great fantasy free-roaming game. 9.3

7.9/ 10

-Oleg M. (ArcticSnake)