Okay, Okay, I'll admit it; I was reconsidering the wisdom of my Xbox purchase. I watched GTA3 (and played it), and shook my head, saying "why not us?" Well hallelujah, we've been saved!
If you've ever played a pen-and-paper RPG, you'll have an inkling about the possibilities in this game. Your character can be whomever, whatever, however you'd like him/her to be. There are four human races alone, as well as a feline race, a reptilian race, orc, and three elven races. There are dozens of character classes, including BattleMage, Assassin, Monk, Rogue, Scout, Barbarian, and Witchhunter, and a bunch more; but the best part is that you can create your OWN custom character class with its own assorted disciplines! There are also a ton of possibilities for the appearance of each gender of each race.
Once your character has been designed and you get out of the Customs Office, you are immersed in a HUGE, complex world of alliances, rivalries, and politics. You can join a number of different organizations and affiliations, make friends or enemies everywhere.
The fighting in this game is cool, easy when you're fighting single little creatures like cave rats, but challenging when you're fighting talented folks in armor while trying to cast spells and read scrolls while hacking, slashing, and blocking. And multiple humanoid enemies in armor will realistically kick your butt, unless you've been around a long time and improved your fighting abilities.
This is perhaps the best thing about this game; your advancement is not based on "XP", some accumulation of wealth and creatures killed. It is realistic; the more you practice something, the better you get at it. If you spend all of your time hacking at creatures in the wilderness, your Strength and Agility attributes and your weapon skill (ShortBlade, Axe, Long Blade, etc.) will benefit, but your Intelligence, & Personality attributes and Mercantile, Speechcraft, Security skills etc. will stay where they are. Also, your advancement in levels is customized to your character class: each class has its own mix of emphasis amongst the skills, declaring some Major, some Minor, and some Miscellaneous.
The graphics in this game are phenomenal (mostly--the faces are somewhat blocky). Trees, hills, items, and rooms look great; weather effects are fantastic. The effect most folks will appreciate, however, is the water. The water in this game looks so darn real that it's almost UNDERwhelming. You look at it and say "well, I've seen that before." The catch is, the place you've seen it before is REAL LIFE! It's amazing, and that BEFORE rain starts to fall. Oh, the sounds are cool, too -I hope you're not afraid of thunder!
This is defnitely the MOST complex and MOST open-ended game I've ever heard, seen, read about, or played. I don't mean to sound like a job interview, but it's only weakness is that it's SO open-ended. Players will find themselves accepting quest after quest before they finish their first few, and trying to flip through the character's journal to remember who wanted what! Another way this game is like life.
Go get this game, you'll never see the light of day again. lol
Mike
P.S. If you've got the time, spend all of your travelling alternating between swimming/jumping until you get fatigued, then sneaking. Like all of them, the more you use these skills, the better you get at them!
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The Elder Scrolls 3 continues the Elder Scrolls tradition of providing a true fantasy virtual world for you to create an alternate life in. Set in the exotic island of Vvarvendell, the developers have truly defined an entire culture, with such nuances as clothing, housing styles, food, and architecture being unique to each game region. You can do anything you want, from running a mercantile business to being a mass murderer. Be a powerful mage living high in your own tower, or be a shadowy thief jumping across rooftops at night. Create your own spells from scratch, concoct mysterious potions, enchant your own weapons. It's totally up to you. In addition to all this, Morrowind ships with the easiest-to-use game editor to date, allowing you to create your own game content such as quests, characters, items, spells, and sharing them over the net with your friends. You can't go wrong with Morrowind!
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The character creation system is one of the first things you will encounter in Morrowind, and it gives a glimpse at how open-ended and complex a game this is. Be sure to take time creating a character, because this character will be with you for hundreds of hours.
In my first attempt, I used one of the pre-packaged character classes. While this gave me a good base character, the problem was that I had a very specific idea of how I wanted to play this game, and the character that I'd created didn't perfectly fit this style of play. As a result, even in the beginning, the game was extremely difficult, and frustrating. Advancing levels was slow, combat was overly challenging, and I spent a good deal of time staring at loading screens rather than playing the game.
After reading a little about the character abilities and descriptions, I realized that I was missing certain features that I would need, to play the game the way I had intended (as a Rogue-Mage). By starting over again, I was able to use the knowledge I'd gained to create a new, better-suited character. The game changed dramatically.
With this new character, levelling up was easier, I could do all the things that I wanted to do, and see the character improving at them. This changed the dynamics of the game completely. I could now explore this huge world with less fear of constant death, I could advance in the guilds I'd chosen to join, because my abilities were better suited.
While Morrowind has some in-game problems (framerate jitters, an abundance of "fetch" quests), by far the biggest problem is the lack of documentation, and a lack of direction for novice players. If you know what you're getting into is a huge, open-ended role playing game, in which you can do virtually anything, from slaughter entire villages, to spend all day making healing potions, or bribing the local townsfolk, then Morrowind will *definitely* satisfy.
But be sure this is what you want, or you'll quickly find yourself in over your head.
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Well, what can be said about successor of Daggerfall, except that you should be prepared to spend another couple of hundred hours with the game no, I'm not kidding. Morrowind is significantly smaller than Daggerfall, but huge in it's own way. An island with couple of dozen villages and cities, hundreds of "personas" to talk with, unseen diversity of items, quests and side-quests (tamper one foxy noble lady with a local robber and they'll offer you to get married with most beautifull...well, she was not my race, so... :-) all this makes a cocktail which is now best Computer Role Playing Game ever. Only, but only remark goes to possiblity of getting trapped in some parts of the map like poles on bridges and so...so save regulary.
P.S. Also, be noted that the game is not easy but when you got the hand at it....
P.P.S. Morrowind is getting some 96% in my review, which makes TES3 highest scoring game which I reviewed.
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..and it's pretty early to tell, but it looks right now like a real winner. So far, I have built my character, wandered through two towns, received some instructions from some friends, joined a guild, helped a lady clear some cave rats out of her storeroom and presently I'm trying to catch some egg poachers.
The minds behind this game have undeniably done a great job of creating this game world. It is absolutely all-inclusive. The Xbox controller is used very well. Movement and camera feel like Halo when you are in first person. I prefer first person because I'm so used to the Halo control scheme. You can make the camera look at yourself if you want to admire a new piece of armor you've bought.
The graphics look real good, but not great. The human animation seems choppy and not motion captured. Creature animation looks fine though.
The combat system looks to be on the weak side with one attack button and no way to replenish health without leaving the fight and accessing the menu system. Would have been better if the Y button could trigger healing potions as well as spells.
Overall, the game looks to have a lot of promise with enormous amounts of nonlinear play and a ton of travel. A hard copy map of the island comes with the game and just looking at all the cities and points of interest is daunting.
People more used to the japanese Final Fantasy RPGs where you have groups doing turn based combat may find this a very different flavor of RPG.
This sort of RPG is much deeper, more challenging and maybe...more satisfying.
