Full Review for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition by checkmateman

Introduction

The original Morrowind is an absoloute masterpiece, and with the addition of the Bloodmoon and Tribunal expansions, it becomes even better. For those who have never heard about Morrowind, it is a non-linear Role Playing Game. Granted, there are quests to complete and a main story to follow, but whether you deccide to do so is absolutely up to you. There are just so many attributes and skills to raise, so many things to do, and so many ways to do it.

The expansions Bloodmoon and Tribunal are excellent, each with their own main quest as well as a myriad of other minor quests. It also adds a number of valuable artifacts that can be found, as well as the possibility of becoming a werewolf in Bloodmoon. Both Bloodmoon and Tribunal are fairly large, and they are packed with hours worth of fun.

Graphics

The graphics of this game is excellent. The amount of detail and contrast of it all is very impressive. It makes for a very realistic setting - features like rain, snow, dust storms and shadows all contribute to this effect. Admittedly some features look a tad fuzzy/blurry, especially on some of the textures on the ground, but I would say it barely detracts from the game. The only thing I didn't really like about the graphics was peoples faces - it's just a personal thing, I reckon it would be nice if all the faces didn't look mean. But I guess the is meant to be set in a bleak world filled with dour people, so I guess you could look at this as a positive thing as well - the people fit the game.

Sound

The soundtrack for the game is excellent - I think it is really beautiful, a work of art. I love it how the swells and fades all the time, how it changes subtly when you are being attacked. The sound effects are also good - everything seems appropiate, all of the sounds just fit in and add to the setting of the game. I also like it how people shout at you when they attack you, the sounds made when you hit people, and your grunting. Really quite realistic. The only bad thing is that some sounds can get quite repetitive, but I'll probably put that down to the fact that I've played the game for too long. All in all, I would say the sound is perfect.

Gameplay

The gameplay - what can I say? This, above everything else is what makes this game so brilliant. The graphics, the sound, even if they were fairly bad I would still think the game is worth buying.

As I said previously, this game is a non-linear role playing game, that is to say you don't have to follow the main story. There is a main story that you can follow, but the key point is that everything you do is your own choice. It is nothing like any other adventure RPGs, where you just follow the main story, finishing levels, collecting items along the way.

What also adds to the brilliance of the game play is the variety of ways you can play it. You can be a warrior, an archer, a mage or a blend of any or all three at once! It is completely up to you what sort of character you want to play, even though there are prescribed classes you can be, you can still create a custom class. There is also a whole list of skills that you can train up, axes, spears, enchanting, conjuring, sneaking, the list just goes on. Morrowind also oasts a large variety of "factions" that you can join. From Great Houses, The Thieves Guild, The Imperial Guard, the Temple, there is such a large amount of paths you can chose for your character, being able to join from just one to a fair few of them. And from these factions you reccieve a number of quests that you can do and unlock.

Aside from these faction - related quests, you can decide to wander morrowind and pick up the multitude of quests recieved from random NPC's standing about. It is up to you whether you want to do each quest, whether you want to help someone, or help kill someone. You can just wander around and loot the many caves and places that contain valuable items.

There is only one thing that is bad about the gameplay - Morrowind can be a bit buggy sometimes. All of a sudden things might just freeze, the first time this happened I thought my xbox was stuffed. But after chatting with some other Morrowind players I found this is a fairly normal occurence. My advice to combat this issue is to save frequently, and to have a set of two save games for each character (so if the xbox freezes while I am trying to overwrite my old game the other file is still fine). A lot of these bugs have been fixed for the GOTY edition, but it still does sometime freeze - a minor issue in a otherwise ezxceptional game.

Lastability

Lastability - hmmm....well I've been playing this game for over three years now. And it still seems just as good. It took me about a year and a half (maybe even two) to finally getting around to finishing the main quest. Since there are so many things to do it is easy to get sidetracked. This game can eat hours of your time so easily, I can't imagine ever completely finishing it.

And since you can play the game with so many different angles, you can have quite a few characters going at once. This also adds to the lastability even more - say you finished the game as a warrior, you might want to try playing as a mage, or try a different race like being an elf or an orc.

Overall

Overall, Morrowind Game of the Year edition is better then the old version (not to say the old version was bad). Addind Bloodmoon and Tribunal give two new main quests to complete, if you have already finished the Morrowind main quest, and if you are into the idea of non-linear RPGs, this game is for you.

Final Score: 92%