The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Pros • Interact with every object in the world • Very large, consistent and believable fantasy world--well, it's a fantasy continent if you want to get technical (and judging by the detail in this game, Bethsoft probably does) • Complete adventuring freedom • Excellent character generation • Very replayable--though you'll probably never actually finish it even once • Doesn't get stuck in the tall fair elves, short curmudgeonly dwarves, orcs, etc. fantasy rut, but has creative races of playable characters and monsters • Excellent use of Dolby Digital sound • Well-designed controller interface	Cons • Lacks cut scenes and has little voice acting • Morrowind, like life unfortunately, seems to reward crooks and miscreants more than the honest and honourable • A little difficult to begin • Game system encourages pointless, and not very fun, but very effective cheating • Combat is dull and it is impossible to tell if you are winning any given fight or not • The amount of time that you can spend playing this game is more than a little frightening, and it would be nice to actually be able to finish the game
Bottom Line There has never been a role-playing game like Morrowind for a home console. Thank Microsoft for the Xbox and Bethesda Softworks for The Elder Scrolls. Morrowind sits on the extreme of role-playing games; it is the kind of game where you can spend an entire day (of real time) picking mushrooms and berries, experimenting with your virtual mortar and pestle making potions and improving your Alchemy skill, and never even notice, or question where the time went, only regret that you are too tired to keep at it. Anyone who thinks role-playing games are long, boring, games of text reading, fit only for obsessive-compuslive nerds with dice in their brains will find in Morrowind all the proof they'll ever need, and more to defend their position; while anyone who has ever enjoyed the freedom, creativity, discovery, and imagination possible in a well-constructed role-playing adventure will absolutely lose themselves in Bethesda's masterful work.

William Wallace would love Morrowind, for FREEDOM! is the key tenant in Bethesda's role-playing constitution. Right from the get-go, generating your character even, the amount of choices a player has is impressive: 10 races, 21 character classes, more skills than you can ever possibly master; you even have to choose your birth sign--and though I don't recall anyone ever trying to pick me up in a Morrowind tavern by asking my sign, I'm sure it's in there somewhere. And the choices just keep growing. If you have chosen to be a magic user but later decide that chicks dig a big poleaxe, you can pick up some heavy armor and a halberd and go the way of the warrior without forgetting your magic skills. If later, you learn that there is something you really want locked in a certain well-locked chest, you can spend a few days practicing picking locks and next thing you know, you're an adroit thief; for in Morrowind you don't gain random experience points, you just get better at the things you actually practice. Sure, you'll learn faster to do things that are up your alley (your class skills--i.e. magic for magic-based character classes); but, just as in real life, if you've got the interest, the money or the time, you can learn anything you want.

And, nobody ever forces you to do anything in Morrowind. You are simply dropped, a stranger in a strange land, and left to your own devices. There is a main plot to explore, but there are so many side quests, guilds to join, mushrooms to pick, skills to learn, monsters to slay, areas to explore, history books to read, items to find and things to try that the main story seems secondary, and you'll never be at a loss for something to do. Then, you have the liberty of playing however you want: if you fantasize of being the altruistic, law-abiding, well-loved hero, go ahead, and eventually, the people of the world will recognize you as such; want to be a dirty, back-stabbing, murderous, thieving little cuss, go ahead, just be prepared to get occasionally caught and experience the one bit of enforcement in the game: jail time.

I've spent entire days picking mushrooms and making potions, entire days exploring the gaming continent from the sky with a levitate spell, days walking around admiring and persuading non-player characters in hopes of getting them to like me better and of improving my skills and raising my experience level. Of course you can spend days exploring dungeons, towns and wilderness areas. You can swim or learn to cast an underwater breathing spell to explore the water-covered parts of the world. You can read fifty-page books detailing the history of the world. And what a world it is; consistent, terrain gradually changing, beautiful, diverse, full of dangerous creatures and magical rewards, interesting to explore, and every item from spoons and plates to magic armor able to be picked up, bought, sold, stolen, broken, piled from end to end of the continent, smallest to largest... You can do so many things in Morrowind that it can get a little overwhelming, especially since you are never rewarded with cut scenes to propel you through the main story. There are literally hundreds of hours of gameplay available in Morrowind, too many probably, and most people will never actually finish this monster of a game, especially given the constant temptation to restart and try a different race, a different character class, a different gender, a different morality, etc. In a way, it's a game kind of like the Bible. Maybe lots of people start it, many of them many times, but few ever actually finish it cover to cover, especially since Morrowind's lack of a really compelling, cut scene driven story lends itself to pick-up for a while, put-down for a while gaming, and then trying to pick it back up is daunting since you'll have trouble remembering where everything is and what you were doing in the big list of quests you were working on before you quit. Then again, as mentioned, you'll never have any trouble finding something to do.

And, the game system has some flaws. It's open to, and in fact, encourages what feels like cheating. Why have I spent entire days running around towns admiring people? Why? Because it increases that skill, which eventually increases my character's level, which allows me to improve other characteristics. You can even do it standing in front of the same character forever tapping the same button; boring--could be done just as effectively by one of those novelty dipping birds you set on the edge of your drinking glass, as by an experienced Xbox gamer--but effective. Or, you can stand behind an unaware NPC and just sneak forever, increasing that skill. Just run and jump forever increasing levels that way; stand in front of a weak monster that can never kill you increasing your armor skill; or you can spend all day picking and eating mushrooms. Really, all of this is pretty dull, but it's much more effective at raising your character's abilities than actually playing the game often is.

The combat system is also on the dull side (face an enemy from your first-person perspective, and swing your weapon or cast your spells until something, it or you, dies), especially since you have no way of knowing whether you are close to defeating your foe or not. You can save and retry a hundred times and never know if you are within five hit points of killing that monster or whether it still has a thousand remaining when you die. Being able to save anywhere though, is another nice freedom.

Good old freedom; it is indeed a gaming virtue, and Morrowind provides an amazingly lush fantasy playground to exercise that liberty in, and a sort of moral sandbox for testing different ways of living in it. Really, the game is fantastic, and a dream come true for those who appreciate role-playing games. Those who don't appreciate role-playing games though had better steer clear. Morrowind won't, in all of its hundreds of hours of play-time change their minds.

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