The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Morrowind: The last word in PC RPGs becomes the first word for Xbox role-players.

For many game designers, the Ultimate Nonlinear RPG? is the Holy Grail. Many developers have set out on this quest of quests, and made it their life?s work; and many have failed. A select few, however, have come back home with a tale to tell of moderate success, of a journey well-started that was eventually thwarted by some annoying aspect of game design (be it gross repetition, buggy quests, or lack of anything interesting to do) that ultimately overshadowed and consumed all that was good in the game?s world. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is the closest a game has come to the Grail since BioWare?s Baldur?s Gate series. So arm yourself, role-player, say goodbye to your friends, and take a long, daunting trip into the Forgotten Realm of Lost Free Time.

Fantasy Island
Morrowind begins as most hardcore PC-style nonlinear RPGs do. You?re brought to a fantasy island, asked to generate a character from scratch, and then dumped out into the world all by your lonesome to find your place in a hardcore PC-style nonlinear RPG fantasy world populated by the usual assortment of dark elf battlemages, northland barbarians, and erstwhile journeyman lizard knights selling 86 different styles of tableware you wouldn?t ever want to buy. Your goal is vague, and there are thousands (literally) of potential roads to travel. One of Morrowind?s key strengths?indeed, the key strength of any hardcore PC-style nonlinear RPG?lies in the freedom your character is given to do what he or she wishes. Any path, and any play-style, is open to you: be a straight-up valiant knight; be a petty thief and part-time pearl diver with great jumping skills; be a diplomat for the Great House Telvanni while you secretly manipulate society as the necromantic ringleader of a cult clandestine assassins.

Morrowind: A Nice Place To Live
While there?s definitely a plot to follow, don?t expect to get swept up in any drama, and don?t expect to get attached to any memorable characters?there aren?t any, and most of them are doomed to repeat the same pages of text about prophecies and local mage guild services as their neighbor. But Morrowind isn?t about the story: It?s about everything else. This is an enormous and daunting place, and it?s easy to get lost. Incidental dungeons and towns that exist purely for side-questing purposes dot the landscape as frequently as patches of wild flowers. On your way to deliver a book to a friend two miles down the road, it?s not uncommon to get sidetracked by a naked barbarian with amnesia, a haunted lost ancestral tomb or two, and a swampy town of ingrates that wants you to stop some jellyfish from breeding. You certainly won?t be lacking things to do; if anything, you?ll have so much on your plate to handle you?ll need an assistant secretary to help sort things out.

But a huge amount of sidequests does not a great RPG make?Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall boasted thousands of towns and dungeons and quests, but they were all nearly identical, and therefore, painfully boring after Town/Dungeon/Quest #2. Morrowind thwarts the nonlinear bane by offering tons of variety. Every one of the bazillion missions and dungeons has been carefully planned and thought out (there?s no random dungeon generation here) so that each quest is as unique as possible. Each town and region looks totally different, from Vivec?s vaguely Mayan/Venetian pyramid-and-canal structure to Ald'ruhn?s civic center (housed in the giant shell of a long-extinct species of crab), to the twisted, nightmarishly abstract shrines of the Daedra. While the game is built on the traditional Dwarf/Elf/Orc foundations of fantasy, there?s enough new stuff thrown around to make Morrowind feel like a decidedly "different" place.

The Morrowind Experience
The leveling and experience system is simpler than some hard-core RPGers may be used to but ultimately makes a lot of sense; your play style directly and very naturally affects which skills will improve, which ones will lay dormant, and which stats will receive bonuses come level-up time (cast a lot of spells, say, and your Willpower and Intelligence will benefit most; do a lot of sneaking and blocking, and attributes like Agility will increase faster). A cool spell-making and weapon enchantment system lets you make lots of different custom magical stuff?and even give them funny, dirty names?but there?s ultimately not as much variety as you?d hope. In Morrowind, a fire spell is a essentially fire spell; the only thing that really distinguishes an "Apply Minor Soothing Heat to Skin" spell from an "Apocalyptic Immolation of Population (Regional)" spell is different numbers in the "Damage" and "Range" columns.

The PC Port Codec
While Morrowind was initially created with the PC?and, therefore, a keyboard?in mind, it?s impressive that the game works at all with an Xbox controller, much less with any degree of rhyme or reason. Moving around works fine, similar to in an FPS like Halo, with one analog stick strafing and moving forward and back, and the other looking around and turning. Things get quite awkward, however, once you have to arm yourself for battle. Switching between magic and swords can get confusing and chaotic, making even the noblest knight look like a bumbling alien clown who just discovered the power of motion. Cycling through your alphabetical list of magic (the list can get very, very, very long) in the heat of battle is nigh-impossible, too?the menu works a lot better, but it breaks up the rhythm of the real-time battles; and even after a dozen hours, you?ll still be shocked by how many times you opened the map when what you really wanted to look at was your potion list.

The Xbox does a very admirable job of handling the graphics engine. While things don?t move along at a constant 60 fps, they?re still generally very smooth. The seemingly endless landscape is lush and varied, often haunting and surreal in its scope, though fog and draw-in is pretty evident (especially when approaching some larger towns at night), and there are minor loading tremors and texture glitches (especially in the otherwise-gorgeous water). Chances are, unless you?re on the cutting edge of PC hardware, the Xbox version will run far, far better than it would on your PC. The sound effects range from quite good (the clanging and sheathing of your sword, the wide variety of random phrases uttered by the villagers) to silly and annoying (the repetitive sounds squawked out by certain enemies). And while it seems like there?s really only one song played on an endless loop?let?s call it the "Love Theme from Morrowind"?at least it?s memorable and quite easy on the ears.

Journal Updated
No, Morrowind is not a game for everyone?the phrase "hardcore PC-style nonlinear RPG" isn?t one to be thrown around lightly, and this is one of the best ones there is. This kind of game is a rare beast on a console system?strange that it?s the first RPG of any kind on the Xbox?and exists in a category separate from Japanese-style affairs like the Breath of Fire series, or linear story/character/CGI-driven spectacles like Final Fantasy X. Play Morrowind for what a taste of Final Fantasy XI will be like, minus the thousands of other players typing "WTB sw0rdz w/10+ MTFR." It?s huge, daunting, rewarding, and addictive, and plays like a good, open book. Be sure to set aside a couple hundred hours of your life.

Comments [0]

post a comment

Post a Comment