Playing With Morrowind

Bruce Von Stiers

Bethesda Softworks recently released a game of epic proportions. This game had a lot of players waiting in anticipation for the final gold copies to be pressed and sent out to stores. As for me, I didn’t know much about the game’s predecessors or what the game was to be like. All I know is that it was supposed to be a great adventure game. The title of the game is The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

The manual for the game gives you an idea what to expect from it and the things you can do in it. The Introduction tells you that “any place in Morrowind can quickly turn deadly.” There are adventures upon adventures that your character can experience as you go through the game.

You start the game with a character that arrives in a new town by way of a sailing ship. You go through a small series of events that has you name your character; choose which race he or she is from and the various skills that they can have.

The thing that players have been raving about is that in Morrowind you can do just about anything you want. Your character can do any number of things and there isn’t a safety net that restricts them from getting into deep trouble. There is no absolute way to complete a quest. One way may be better than another, but the developers wanted you to be able to make your own choices, whether they were bad or not. But if you do something that has an adverse affect on the quest, the game makes sure that there are penalties that are exacted.

The physical layout of the game is huge. The island that game takes place on is a big, sprawling land with mountains, grasslands and several seaports and fortress towns. The areas have names like Red Mountain, West Gash, Grazelands and Zifirbel Bay. Each area of the game will provide further adventures and quests. The locations are well drawn and even things like the setting and rising of the sun has been incorporated into the physical attributes of the game.

The sound quality in the game is great. You have wonderful sound effects and beautiful music. It makes you think of medieval times or maybe a mystical land that this game is portraying.

As the game gives you untold amounts of freedom, the game isn’t as linear as most RPG’s. This might put off some players who expect to be led through games from start to finish. In this game, you might do something and then have to figure out what the next sequence of events should be. As I mentioned earlier, doing a certain thing could have dire consequences on your character or the quest that they are on. Trying to determine what the next step will be can be perplexing, but given enough time in the game you will be able to start figuring out things fairly easily.

Although the specs allow for a 500MHz PC to play the game, the graphics and gameplay will bog down severely on a lower speed computer. To really get the most out of the game, a player should be using at least an 800MHz machine with 256MB of RAM. If you have one of those 2GHz monsters with a GeoForce4 video card, then the game will play really nice and smooth. But then you won’t ever get your gamer buddies out of your house ‘cause they’ll always be wanting to play the game on your machine.

Another thing about the game that I liked was the fighting scenes. You can do combat with just about anybody, including non playing characters. As you advance your skill levels, the easier the combat will become. But some of these characters are really hard to get rid of. Being able to understand what attacks your character is capable of and the proper use of the game controls will go a long way toward having success in dispatching another character. Some people have complained that the combat sequences don’t have a lot of mobility, but I thought that they were all right.

As you progress in the game, there are all kinds of different guilds that your character can join. Get into a thief’s guild and spend a lot of time learning to pick locks on trunks or pick pockets Fight somebody to collect their dues or kill someone to be able to make your mark in a particular guild. Some of the guilds include mages, fighters and assassins.

A lot of the interaction comes in the way of dialog boxes. As you talk with another character, keywords will be highlighted. Clicking on these keywords will bring forth additional information. This information will be stored in your journal, which can be referred to at any time in the game.

I could go on and on about the virtues of Morrowind, but time is short and I’d like to get back to playing the game. Let me just say that I think that The Elders Scrolls III: Morrowind is the best role playing game that I’ve had the chance to evaluate. The graphics are superb, the music is great and the gameplay far exceeded my expectations.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is in stores right now. You can pick up a copy at your favorite game retailer. Or surf on over to the Bethesda Softworks web site and check out other aspects of the game. Their web site is www.bethsoft.com.