Amazon.co.uk Review
If you want fantasy books or films to sweep you away into convincing worlds of wonder, you've probably been regularly disappointed by computer games.
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, thanks to years of effort by designers Bethesda, offers no such flimflam-–they promise a living, believable fantasy world, and that's what you get. Beautiful first-person-view graphics and excellent story-plotting combine with a depth of game design and a freedom of player options undreamed of in previous computer role-playing games.
Skill development, for example, is based on actual experience, not simply on killing baddies--as it is in too many other RPGs. In Morrowind, if you want to become a skilled lock-picker, you just have to get out there and pick some locks. Fighting will only increase your combat skills, and then only with those weapons you actually use. (If the game has any fault at all, it is that the fighting is too point-and-click simplistic and provides no feedback on how much damage you've inflicted with each blow.)
The huge range of skills available in the game allows the player to really craft their own speciality; you're not restricted to unrealistic and hackneyed "character classes". The possibilities of the highly flexible magic system alone are worthy of hours of happy experimentation.
But what are you going to do with your potentially multi-faceted character once you've completed your shopping list of must-have abilities? The answer is: "pretty much whatever you like". The Morrowind game world is huge, highly interactive, richly populated and is riddled with feuding guilds, religions and races. There is a rich and complex central game plot, but you might prefer putting off completing it just to dive into the roiling and reactive world of Morrowind local politics.
Finally, the inclusion of the Elder Scrolls Construction Kit guarantees that even if you manage to wring every last drop of play out of the original game, you will be able to design your own adventures or download those created by other Morrowind enthusiasts. This raises Morrowind from the simple "game" designation and makes it a potential cult hobby. If Bethesda ever releases a multi-player patch, a lot of us can kiss all of our free time goodbye. --Damon Wilson
Product Description
Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls III is an epic, open-ended single-player game where you create and play any kind of character you can imagine. Be the hero embarking on an epic quest or a thief rising to leadership of his guild. Be a sorcerer developing the ultimate spell of destruction or a healer searching for the cure to a plague. Your actions define your character, and your gameplay changes and evolves in response to your actions. Confront the assassins' guild, and they take out a contract on you; impress them, and they try to recruit you instead. No two sagas are the same in the world of
Morrowind.
Players can choose to follow the intriguing main story line or set off to explore the province of Morrowind and the many interesting people and exotic locations it contains. Vast cities and remote villages dot the landscape, each with its own unique look and feel. Hundreds of quests and adventures await as you interact with characters and learn more. Regardless of whether you play a murderous assassin or a noble knight, the game holds endless possibilities and allows you to revisit the main story line at any time.
With Morrowind, the Elder Scrolls character system is coupled with an increase in the world's richness of detail. Utilising advanced 3-D technology, Morrowind features hyper-realistic textures and polygon counts, real-time shadows, vast landscapes, skeletal-based animation and a complete weather system. Gameplay is further extended with the inclusion of The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, which allows players to modify and add to Morrowind in any way they see fit. Change character or creature attributes and skills, introduce new weapons or dungeons into the game, or create entire new worlds to explore.
