When most console gamers think of an RPG, they think of titles like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger. RPGs such as those consist of long and in depth storylines and a cast of memorable characters on a journey to defeat an evil in the land. For most PC gamers, RPGs are a little different. Rather then focusing on long plot lines and character development, most PC RPGs have taken a slightly more realistic approach to things. Things tend to be much more open ended and are more reminiscent to pen and paper RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons. This of course is not to say that console developed RPGs don't feature any type of open ended gameplay or that PC RPGs lack in a great story or memorable characters. There's just a general different feel to RPGs developed for each. This of course may be due to the fact that most console developed RPGs originate out of Japan and most PC ones are developed here in the US.
Anyway, it seems that a little developer by the name of Bethesda is attempting to bring the PC RPG experience to console gamers with their Elder Scrolls series. The game of course is none other then the 3rd chapter in the series called Morrowind. Now, this is not the first time a PC RPG series has been ported to a console. The first I can recall were the old Might and Magic and Ultima titles on the 8 and 16 bit consoles. Back then though, RPGs didn't have even close to the following they have now.
In Morrowind, you have been released from prison by the Emperor and sent to the port town of Seyda Neen. From here you are informed to meet up with someone from the town of Balmora and work for them. From this point on, the story is pretty much yours to shape.
Although there is a main quest here, the main draw of Morrowind is its openness to shape things the way you like. Want to be a blood thirsty murdered? You can. Want to be a Champion of Justice? You can do that if you like as well. Players are allowed to join several different guilds around the world of Morrowind. Joining guilds opens up a countless number of sub quest and other bonuses that I'll mention in a bit. You of course don't have to do these quest if you don't like.
The world of Morrowind is very much like the real world. In it, certain people will like you more then others. If a person likes your character, then its more likely that they will give you the info you want when you speak with them. If a person that likes you happens to be a merchant, then you'll get lower buying prices and higher prices for goods you sell them. On the flip side, if your disliked then the chances are that things wont go over easy with you with that character. So, what can you do if a character doesn't like you want to improve relations with them? Well, you can either choose to admire, taunt, intimidate or bribe them. Choose carefully though since choosing the wrong option will actually decrease the amount the person likes you.
Unlike most console RPGs, the world in Morrowind is extremely realistic. The landscape is absolutely huge. It simply takes forever to walk from one end of the world to the other. However, some towns have paid transport to other towns. This may be far quicker, but by doing so you can't explore the areas between your destination. You never know, you may stumble upon a hidden cavern that contains a lot of valuables.
Like the landscape, the towns of Morrowind are simply amazing. Some are simple and small fishing villages while other are large cities with countless homes, guilds and businesses. Some of these can take hours to fully explore.
Ok, so what about characters? If your expecting a big memorable cast of faces like in the Final Fantasy titles, then your going to be pretty disappointed. The people in Morrowind are fairly 2 dimensional. You'll never come across anyone with quite the personality of Minsc from Baldurs Gate or Rikku of Final Fantasy. While I do wish Bethesda could have done a little more with the characters here, its not really that bad and doesn't really bother me any while playing.
For your main character, you get to design them. You can select your name, face, sex, race and character class. If you don't like the pre made classes then you create one of your own with your own specialties and stats. It all up to you.
Stats can be increased either by purchasing them from certain characters, or by using that skill. For example, the more you use your lock picking ability, the more your security skill will rise. The same can be said about various weapon and magic types.
Also, there's no real party gathering or anything like that here. For the most part you going at it solo. You will occasionally come across and be asked to fight along side another character. Situations like this are pretty few and far though. This is really sort of a good thing though considering the AI on the NPCs (None Playable Characters) is pretty much near brain dead.
The AI is pretty much the only real major flaw that I found in Morrowind. Enemies, guards, townsfolk. Their all dumb as nails. You watch in amazement as they run into walls and are too stupid to turn around. The highlight of the games AI in my journey though the game has to have been in the Ghostgate area. I was inside the structure and the guards apparently weren't too happy that I was dressed in their armor. So they began yelling and chasing me. I really had no choice but to run anywhere I could to get away because I wasn't quite strong enough to take them on. Well, I just so happen to run into a room with 1 door that only opened outward. With me on one side and the guard running blindly into the door on the other side, I was trapped and was forced to load from my last save point. Remember to take full advantage of the save anytime feature in Morrowind. Save often.
Ok, now for the fighting. Fighting is all done in real time combat. Aside from magical abilities, you have 2 different types of strikes you can do. The strength of each strike is mainly dependent on the type of weapon you have. For example, if you were using an ax, a swing move with it would be far more damaging then a thrust. Also, be very careful before rushing into a fight, if your not familiar with the type of enemy your about to encounter, save your game before rushing in. Also, make sure you have a weapon equipped that your character is skilled in. If your not very skilled with using a short sword and your taking on a strong enemy, then you'll find yourself missing the enemy far more then your hitting them. This will also fatigue your character pretty quickly as well.
Like in real life, you'll need to rest. Resting will restore your life, magic and fatigue. The amount you recover is dependent on how long you choose to rest. Also, when your characters ready to advance a level, you have to rest. Once you rest after a level gain, your allowed to assign up to 3 skill points in your stats. Want to make your character able to carry more and hit harder? Put more points to your strength. Want speed? Set more points to speed.
Finally you'll need to keep all your equipment in shape. Every weapon and piece of armor has condition points. As they wear out, weapons and armor begin to lose their effectiveness. To fix it, you'll either have to find a blacksmith in a town or attempt to fix it yourself with special items.
Graphics 8.5:
Rating the graphics in Morrowind is pretty tough. On one hand, this game was developed around a PC. A PC obviously has for more RAM then the XBox. To port this game over they had to squeeze the massive amounts of RAM required for the PC version into the XBox's 64 megs. Anyway, I'll break it down to the good and the bad.
First the good. Like I mentioned, this game is very vast. I've never seen areas and towns this large in any console game before. Each area is packed with extreme detail. You'll see all sorts of trees, mountains and lakes. The water looks simply breathtaking. It almost looks real at times. Other cool things include day to night settings, various types of weather conditions like rain, fog and sand storms. Your characters appearance will change depending on the type of weapon and armor their equipped with. There's so much to like about the graphics in Morrowind.
Along with the many great graphical features in the game, there's a lot of not so great things about the graphics. There's some weird graphical glitches like polygon seams and texture shifting. There's some slight jagged edges in some of the textures that sort of give it the appearance of a first generation PS1 game at times. The animation can be a little jerky at times and the collision could use some major work. There's also a little pop up as well. Nothing really that bad though, and given the vast size of everything and how many polygons are being pushed its pretty acceptable.
With all the graphical flaws you may ask why I gave the graphics an 8.5? Simple, this game was designed from the start as a PC game and to take advantage of PC hardware. With the RAM limitations, we should be lucky that the game came out looking as good as it did. And I know there's those Square freaks out there talking about how Final Fantasy X on the PS2 had none of these graphical problems. Well, Final Fantasy X was designed to run on PS2 hardware and not a PC. The area size and amount of textures in Final Fantasy X wasn't nearly as much as what's packed into Morrowind.
Sound 9:
I really liked the sound in Morrowind. The music reminded me a lot of the movie like score in Baldurs Gate. Sound effects and voices could have used a little more variety but overall they still sounded great.
Control 8:
The control was a little less then perfect but still overall pretty good. Controls are fairly responsive and not really that difficult to master. The problems mostly come in with the games rather poor collision detection. I really think Bethesda could have done a little more to improve it some. Still, it control pretty well. Hopefully they'll improve this aspect if they ever make a sequel.
Overall I really loved playing Morrowind. Its succeeded in drawing me into a gaming world like no game has ever done before. I would highly recommend Morrowind to anyone looking for a great RPG or is looking to be introduced into a PC RPGs. A word of warning though, expect to spend a good deal of time on this one. There's countless places to explore and side quest to accept. There's easily over 100 hours of gaming here if you choose. A well designed piece of software and one of the best I've played in a long time.
