Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I have enjoyed Bloodmoon so far. I admit there are times when it crashes and it is slower than the other two games, particularly when it is snowing. Nonetheless, it is a beautiful game that is enjoyable and fun to play. Again, a very creative game. I think it is better than Tribunal.

Rating:
Summary: Fans of Morrowind must play this.
Review: This expansion pack is better than Tribunal. It adds new areas on to the already huge environment. It requires Morrowind to play, but you should already own that. The graphics are bout the same, although really good. The music and sound effects are also high quality.

Morrowind allowed you to do things however you wanted. You could do literally thousands of side quests, or just go exploring. Tribunal (the first expansion pack)continuted that, and Bloodmoon does it even better. The story is easier to get into, and it is better written.

Combat in Bloodmoon is the same as it was before, although better magic and weapons become available. The enimies you face are harder, and more varied. Thankfully, Bloodmoon loads your save from Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, or the Tribunal expansion pack, so you can continue with your already leveled-up character. This is a single player RPG, but there is sometimes user content you can import into the game.

Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind was one of my favorite RPGs. Bloodmoon is a great expansion pack, and you should buy it if you own Morrowind and Tribunal. If you don't own any games in this series, or if you only own Morrowind, I would wait for the Game of the Year edition, coming this fall. It contains the original (Morrowind), both explansion packs (Tirbunal and Bloodmoon), plus bonus areas.

Rating:
Summary: Morrowind: Elder Scrolls III
Review: After playing this game for nearly a year now, it is clear to me that this is the best game that has come out for the PC in the past five years. Bethesda has once again set a new benchmark for First-Person RPGs. All of that being said, here is a wish list and perhaps a critcism or two. If Morrowind was multiplayer it might actually be the game of the decade.

The only real detractors of this game is that it does demand a pretty powerful computer (ram, and video card in particular) to run it smoothly. I am using a 64 MB video card, and 512 MB of Ram. A second problem is that there are some leveling issues with the game, straight out of the box. The game evenually becomes too easy. I found myself changing the stats on certain items to tone them down a bit, making the game a bit more challenging. For those that are able to, the Construction Kit, allows for even more modifications and difficulty adjustments.

Overall, I still gave this game a 5-rating because it is absolutely incredible graphically. It has one of the best sound tracks I've heard in an RPG. Finally, the Construction Kit is very easy to use and equally useful as well.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this expansion
Review: apparently, the 1st guy to review this isn't much of a morrowind fan. and it is NOT as buggy as he makes it seem. he is judging the game before ANY kind of patch is created. he wants games to be PERFECT the first time, no patches. This game has alot of new content. 2 ways to do one sidequest, a great mainquest, a werewolf sidequest, plus, bethesda has improved dreams, now theyre CUTSCENES. i admit, there are some problems, but werewolfism has yet to be eclipsed by mere bugs. i advise you to buy this, because a wave of usermade mods will probably improve your already awesome experiance.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but with some shocking bugs
Review: Morrowind is basically a world. If you can think of something you'd like to do in Morrowind, chances are there's a way to do it. Jump from a rain barrel to a rooftop to escape pursuing guards. Poke around in the bushes outside of town and discover a hidden crypt filled with ghouls. Paddle out into the ocean, fire an arrow at a giant jellyfish, and high-tail it back into town so the militia will protect you. There is a lot of fun to be had in this entirely 3-D world. That said, of course, there are some rather serious bugs that still haven't been corrected.

1) The most egregious I've encountered is the disappearing item bug. Basically things in your inventory simply vanish. Sometimes it's so minor you never notice. Other times, it's a gem worth 15,000 gold. Then, you notice. At first I just assumed my naive 20th level guy was just a constant victim of pickpockets. Then the suit of chainmail he was _wearing_ simply vanished while he was walking down the middle of an empty road. I reversed course back into town and tried to buy another one from the local guard. Since I had joined the Imperial Legion, no one would talk to me since I was now "out of uniform." Finally I found a non-Legion shop that carried Legion chainmail, bought a suit, and put it on. The game crashed. Reloaded, tried again. Game crashed again. Finally I just gave up on either being in the Legion, or ever having a Legionnaire NPC ever talk to me again (still out of uniform).

2) Ranged combat is bizarre. For anyone used to 1st person shooters, using a bow and arrow and crosshairs to peg a target shouldn't be too challenging, but it still requires some coordination and timing, particularly when that target is trying to sneak up and kill you. However, it's not enough to simply line up something with your bow and shoot it. You have to ALSO "hit" it with your stats. So if your character is bad with a bow, you can fire longbow arrows directly through people's heads on screen and not hit them. Doesn't matter how big and lumbering the target is, if your stats say you miss, you miss, even if you see that arrow go right through its chest.

3) If you start the game and just barter with the first shopkeeper you find for about an hour, you'll soon be able to turn a huge profit just selling him back the items you buy from him. So whenever you need money, you can just swap the same expensive item back and forth a few times to clean out the house. Then you can use the money to just train yourself up levels.

4) Unpredictable NPCs. A lot of the time, fairly innocent things will turn NPCs aggressive. On the plus side, the guards will usually let you go with a minor fee/bribe, but it can get annoying fast, particularly when all the NPCs are "linked" so that if you [irritate] one, someone on the other side of town somehow magically senses it and runs over with their axe. A classic example is opening a chest 3 floors above any NPC, then heading downstairs into a swirling pack of angry people. Then when you kill them all, you're the bad guy, heh.

All in all, it's a visually stunning game that can prove to be very frustrating in play. I find I can only take it for an hour or two at a time.

Rating:
Summary: Decent game, tho somewhat buggy
Review: Good game, interesting storylines, although (at least so far) rather less interesting than Tribunal. More, though, which is a plus. Big world, though populated with rather boring animals -- this expansion is clearly not intended for players who finished the main Morrowind quest (since that gives you 100% disease resistance, a significant detriment in becoming a Werewolf ... :)although there is a main quest method of becoming one as well; the monsters simply aren't as hard as in tribunal, and aren't as interesting, at least so far.

Kudos to Tech Support for being helpful in recommending fixes for problems. Expansion caused several bugs, none of which were directly related to the expansion itself, but to additional hardware utilization. Don't install this unless you have newest drivers for everything :)

Rating:
Summary: Stellar game, totally fun, only one downside
Review: As many others have commented, this game looks great, plays great, and is just packed with main and tangent adventures, almost too many to keep track of. I found it challenging, provocative and really fun until I hit about 20th level. Then the game began to get too easy, and I was only halfway through the main adventure because I kept choosing to be lured by side quests and Faction duties. I've just won the game at around level 35, which made me far too powerful. I killed the big bad guy in about 6 or 7 hits! But I didn't deliberately go around "character building," I was just following the various story lines and rising up through the ranks of the Fighter's Guild, Mage's Guild and House Redoran. The game needs MUCH more powerful villains in the last third of gameplay. I understand the Tribunal expansion tries to compensate for that, so I've ordered it and look forward to playing. But I may have to start that game fresh, or use an old Saved game from when I was much lower level, if it's going to be challenging at all.

This complaint notwithstanding, Morrowing has literally been one of the very best RPG's I've ever played, at least as good as Baldur's Gate, which I also thought was spectacular. These long, challenging, complex games are one of the best values for money you can get: compare the cost of a 2-hour movie ticket to the cost of these fun and thoughtful games, and these pack so much more value for the $$$.

Rating:
Summary: A great role-playing game!
Review: This is a great game for those that are wondering: I've seen all these great fantasy games, like Everquest, Ultimata Online,and other things, but what should I get? I try one and it is disappointing! I was one of those people until I saw Morrowind. I categorized The Elder Scrolls 3 into 4 things.

1) Graphics. I really haven't seen better graphics on a computer game in all my life. If you have a good graphics card, the weather, thunderstorms, swamps, and water will simply blow you away. The sky looks like real life! Clouds move, also. Your character squints when looking at the sun. There is shading and polygon figures. I repeat, I've never seen such graphics in my life.

2) Realism. This is one of the most enjoyful parts of the game. There is a good storyline, no extremely powerful artifacts, spells, armor, or weapons. There is an insane amount of items you can find. People walk away from you when you're naked. People treat like kings when you wear majestic clothes. Weapons wear out after long use. Gaurds carry torches at night, some bad NPC's sneak around, and people are more suspicious. Clean out realistic.

3) Combat. There are tons and tons of creatures that roam the world of Vvardenfell. You can attack in three different swings, chop, slash, or thrust. Daggers are good at thrust, swords at slash, and axes at chop. There are dozens of weapon styles, and you can learn them all. Magic is also an interesting concept. There are hundreds of spells. In addition, you can create your own spells by mixing them. You can enchant items to make them, strong, you can use critical hits when sneaking, and another array of devasting ways to destroy monsters. This is an exciting combat game.

4) Freedom. There are no guidlines to this game. There is a storyline, but you do not have to follow it. You can be a roaming hero, a sneaky thief, a great spellcaster, or all three! Following the storyline is very fun, but you don't have to. I find this game most fun when I just roam the hillside, looking around for adventure. There are thousands of off-road adventures, caves, dungeons, and seperate storlyines that you don't have to get involved in, but would enjoy trying.

I strongly advise that you get this game if you are looking for a real quality role-playing game. Do not have doubts in Elder Scrolls. It will simply blow you away.

Rating:
Summary: Looks like a real open ended quest
Review: I am impressed by the game. It is less linear than other games.
I have had it for about a week, and find it quite addictive. The learning curve is not too steep, except for the combat episodes, but even then, it is relatively easy to learn.
The manual however is too sketchy. There is (of course) a book, where I guess the rest of the information is found. I find it very annoying that the software companies keep making a bare bones manual, that almost forces you to have to buy the strategy guide. There used to be a time when the strategy guide was something you got when stumped. Oh well, I guess I'm old.
All in all, one of the best RPG I have played.

Rating:
Summary: Large world to explore
Review: This game is one of the best and most flexible RPG games I've seen. It is extremely customizable, letting you play the game you want to play. I'm not just talking about a world-builder option, but the game itself is extremely open. Starting with selecting your character, you don't ever have to look at the stats to get exactly the avatar that suits your playing style... with lots of races, classes, subclasses, guilds, and even astrological sign. Once out in the world, every time you do something you would normally do, you get more experienced in that, making your character fine-tuned to do what you like to do. I spent a day swimming off the coast, gathering pearls, exploring a wrecked ship and undersea caves. At the end of the day, my athletics skill was up, I could run farther, swim better, (and fight those nasty pirannah-like fishies better). To broaden your horizons, low level skills are pretty easy to buy advancement in from trainers, but to get those high proficiencies in your favorite skills you gotta use them again and again. I love seeing the message flash by on the bottom of the screen "Your longsword skill has increased", right in the middle of winning a tough battle. Around every corner is someplace to explore from raiding egg mines to political intrigue in the high nobles courts. Be a theif, secret agent, apprentice mage, and accolyte of the local Imperial Cult, all at the same time.