On To the Dark side of the game...
The Music is Bland, Nothing that stays in your head. Even from The Beginning to the End it just basically takes around 7 MP3s, Clicks Play and Loop. So you're listening to it Over and Over... When you actually start the game it can become Frustrating, You start out With Nothing almost... Once you figure out what you want to do, get some weapons and Armor it all becomes fun. Don't be discouraged by the game when you start- They made the Beginning hard. Just be careful and Hang with it, after three hours in you can't STOP playing the game if you wanted too! But back to the bad, The Quests are Sort of Bland, Go there, Kill that, Come back, get Betrayed, Kill him, Come back... Good thing you don't have to do anything you don't want too...
Cool: Killing the guy who didn't pay you.
Bad: Trying to kill the Archmage that didn't pay you.
On to the storyline: Not Bad! At First you need to deliver a message to a guy, you join his team and do long Quests; The Side Quests make the game better, though.
At First, you seem to be a slave on a ship, a Dark Elf wakes you up, apparently he is also a slave- he tells you that they have reached Morrowind, and they should let us go. As you leave the boat, a Guard asked you what race you are, and if your male or female. Pop goes the Race Generation Screen! A lot of the classes disappoint me, they seem to be all focused towards a class, and are generally bad if they aren't used with the right Class (An Imperial Focused towards swordsmen ship at 100 Intelligence will only have 100MP! So a mage won't have 'Too' much more, unless you gain weaknesses to add to your magic. (One birth sign will give you a lot of magic, but disadvantages.) Um. Back to the story- You then go into a building, where a man asks you you're "Class" And Skills and such. From then on you are asked to deliver a coded message to a man in Balmora. Wow, what a GREAT story starting. Don't worry- it gets better. Not much, but it does improve. I can't go into more detail without spoiling the story though. Personally, I like the Story more then FFX's, but most people would disagree.
Graphics 10/10 Excellent
The graphics are unlike anything I've ever seen.My first impression was, "Whoa!" The Water effects are smooth and delicate, and finely detailed to boot. When you look closer at the water, you will see underwater, but when you're farther away you see reflections. The Characters are detailed very well, perhaps my only complaint is that once, a person was whistling, and the mouth of this character moved like he was saying a sentence. But that's not much of a problem. The Designs of weapons are simply wonderful. I love the fact that when you give a weapon a magical power, it glows with the color of the spell school(s) that it possesses. The Spells are very nice, not that great but nothing that will make you throw up. Fire Explodes, Ice Shines, Lightning Kills! The only real problem with it is I just mentioned pretty much all the designs, except status affecting magic, and a few other things. Though the lack in magic design is expected, I should cover this in the gameplay section. Back to the good side, all the environments are very detailed; the Telvanni wizards grow towers and towns out of trees and such, the Redoran people make houses out of giant crab shells and other things, and the Hlaalu make houses the normal way, or as close as I can think of. There are other designs, but to cover all of Morrowind's Detail in this Review would take me longer then it would to write the rest of it, and then some. When you put on clothes, they all look different. Like wise, armor looks nice and stuff. Pretty much everything you would want. Overall, Morrowind's Graphic Department excel even if you hate the gameplay; something that is very rare. It manages to add great gameplay and great graphics without it being complete "eye candy".
The music may have been one thing that makes me HATE this game sometimes! The Music is basically just a whole bunch of MP3s set on replay! Battle music is there, but there is no boss music, but most of the time you don't really notice the music at all. The advantage of this is that it won't distract you at all. But it is annoying listening to the title screen music while you're walking around in the world. Another game like this was Ultima: The False Prophet for Super Nintendo, but that didn't have great music, graphics or sound. Though the songs that are there aren't bad, they are very repetitive.
Though, the sounds themselves are normal, nothing good or bad, the voices sound extremely real and they are all different from every race and gender. Most of the game is not voice, its pretty much all text. But each character has a little Introduction sentence, most commonly (and annoying) involving the word 'Outlander'. I have heard that term more times then I have slayed enemies, nyah. The Sword slashes are realistic, but they don't change at all, like one little wav file playing over and over. Of Course, there are more then swords, the maces and bows and everything are the same, but I did fancy how the bow strings sounded, very nice Bethesda, but the music seriously needs improvement! Perhaps they will fix this in the next Elder Scrolls game.
Gee, I don't know where to start on the gameplay! This game has gameplay flowing from the disc itself. This could teach many other games a thing or two in the gameplay department!
The Overview I can say about this is: Realistic. Don't like that guy your serving? Kill him, pissed off at the final boss? Carve him a new mouth early. (That is, if you can get to him and kill him; both a hard task). Don't like that wee little villager? Get the point? You can even rob anyone! Considering your skill in that, you could rob your 'leader' blind. But this would lead to confusion: What if I killed that guy and he was important to the story? Thankfully, Bethesda Put in a warning, if you just killed a person and ruined your game, they will pop up a warning saying the Threads of Prophecy have been severed and you should not save. Onto the Shop parts, yes, you CAN rob a shop, but they won't have unlimited items like in an average Role playing game! Nope, 99 Potions are going to be a lot harder then picking on weak enemies until your rich. Some of the items restock, and some don't. Again, making this game very unique. One little thing I liked was that the people you buy and sell from aren't millionaires, they have a budget too, buddy! The Richest character in the game only has 10,000 Gold, and you can easily get items worth a lot more! They get money back every 23-24 hours, so there is a little trick of buying items from them to get the budget up and then selling your choice item, wait 24 hours and sell the item you bought from them, Voila! (Example: The Shop Keeper has 5000 Gold, and I want to sell something for 7000. I would buy items from him until he has enough gold, sell the item I have and then the next day sell his stuff back)
And the spells! Yes, spells; they aren't the strong point of the game, but they are fun. You can buy a pre-made spell or *MAKE YOUR OWN* Yes, you heard correctly! Don't get too excited, you really just change factors a lot, the size of the blast radius (in a Target spell) or the range of the effect (in a touch or self spell). The Duration of the Spell (For Effect spells, and damage spells) and of course, the level of effect. Of Course, effect spells like Invisibility are obviously going to need Duration, but damage spells benefit of it too! A Spell that does 50 damage, with a duration of two, will do 100 damage over the span of two seconds, likewise, a Damage spell with 1 damage power and 100 Duration will do 100 damage over a span of 100 seconds (1 Damage = 1 Second) or from above (50 Damage = 1 Second). The Spells aren't so great though, mages suffer from the fact that you don't slowly regain magic! The only way to get magic is resting, which cannot be done in battles and such, and potion guzzling! But remember, without a strong magic skill, your spells success rate will drop!
Fighters don't have much of a call, Hack and Slash Diablo Style, use potions and items, scrolls and the occasional spell. Of course, they can Enchant a weapon with the ability to use magic, but you can't put much into it, The Biggest MP/Capacity is 400 (without spoilers, though it won't be much higher if I tell a spoiler anyway). So a Spell that can kill a boss in one hit is a no-no. Well Actually.. I think my Character could make a Spell Strong Enough to kill the final boss in one hit. If I had enough MP and Time. Enchanters have a Choice of Use, Constant Effect and On Touch. Use is like casting a spell but drawing the mp and power from your weapon (which will have to recharge!). Enchanted items have NO charge time, and can benefit wizards if put into rings. Constant effect, probably a Veteran favorite, will have the spell in effect for the duration of the item equipped, so a Constant Effect Invisibility item will make you invisible as long as it is worn or equipped! And last but not least, On Strike is a weapon only effect, and will take effect as soon as the weapon strikes an enemy. So you can have a sword that sets people on fire. Mostly fighters are all hack and slash, and leveling up.
Thieves... I don't know much about them, they can't use spells well or use weapons as well as a fighter, but they can steal and go around unnoticed very well, and assassinate people better then anyone else. That's Pretty Much all of a thief, they jump high, run fast and fight quick and sparingly. But perhaps this is the best for some people.
At Last, the World around you; it's a big world, which will take you DAYS to get across on foot. "Why walk when you can ride" Doesn't help much either, while there is a few transports, (3 or 4) They aren't much, just instant teleportation from point A to point B via a Loading screen- Speaking of loading, my file currently takes 90 Seconds to load game, the files load faster depending on the size of the file, and the more you play, the bigger the file. As the world turns, you notice the surroundings are nice and annoying, it's pretty much all field, not one forest in the WHOLE game! Maybe Morrowind hates trees, but they really don't have many; A Tree here and there, giant mushroom, evil demon trying to rip your head off, all there. Many Dungeons without Purposes, which is realistic, there has to be 50 or more Caves and such that have nothing to do with the main quest. You could become level 200+ without even starting the Main Quest! But a word of advice, if you lose a item or a person that is required for the main quest or any other quest, you will never be able to complete it, there is a back path here and there, if the quest requires a door that's locked to be opened, you can always try to pick it! For anyone new to the game, I highly advise you listen right here: At the start of the game you are given a package, if you lose it, no main quest. Mostly, there are A LOT of glitches! You best check a walkthrough or something if you're stuck: It may not be your fault. Sometimes Characters "disappear" or accidentally get stuck in a wall. And a Few times the Music got messed up. Oh, if you find a mage falling from the sky, Rob him. Overall the Gameplay is the frosting on the cake, no wait, the whole cake.
Morrowind is a huge game; it will take you a long time to fully complete, for the Average gamer, a couple years or so. The Graphics are Beautiful, the Gameplay Complex and compelling, the Story a Nice add on, and the music will make your ears cry and bleed. It is a game that should go down in History as Pure and Absolute Greatness.
