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The game’s control scheme is mapped to the Xbox controller almost perfectly. Dual analog sticks control movement and viewing, triggers control jumping and attacking, and the other buttons bring up menus or switch between melee and magic.
While Morrowind may be one of the better games released this summer, it is not without its flaws. I have experienced some major graphical slowdowns (and even freezes) in Vivec city and the Ghostgate regions. I have also experienced various game crashes and lockups throughout my time playing the game. While they do not happen to me that often, several people I’ve talked to (namely VGF editor Jared) experience them so much that it starts to ruin the game. Morrowind on the PC was known to have stability issues and apparently they were not fixed with the Xbox port. Also, there is no reason that patches are not available. Seriously, this game has so many cheap tricks and flaws in it that a patch is needed. It is possible to keep one golden saint soul with enchanting (needed for constant effects on armor and clothes) and just switch it out before buying/casting the enchantment. Sure, it makes it easy to gain that suit of armor and clothes that grants 90% chameleon and 50% sanctuary, but it does cheapen the gameplay. This game direly needs to be patched to at least fix the stability issues. I don’t care if it’s on a Demo disk or on the Internet...it needs to happen soon. The other thing that really annoyed me was the lack of rich merchants. The most money any merchant will have is $5000. $5000 is fine and dandy with some lesser items, but I’ve found items worth more than $1,000,000. You basically have to exploit a trick in the game. One merchant in Caldera (the scamp Creeper) restocks his 5000 every 24 game hours. You basically have to trade in an expensive item and buy back a bunch of cheaper items to get it below 5000, wait 24 hours, sell the lesser items back and repeat as necessary. Lame. They should have just put in one rich merchant. Highs:
Lows:
Final Verdict: The one joy of Morrowind that I want to touch on before I give the scores is that the game is completely non-linear. Sure, this leaves many people lost as can be in the first few hours of the game. It may actually confuse, bewilder and disgust "hardcore console RPGers" because there is no set path and nobody drop-kicking you into motion. It is entirely possible to ignore the main quest and just do side quests for 100 hours of gameplay. I have done just that with my game. I was on level 28 with a stronghold when I seriously started the main quest. Just the fact that there are so many factions to join and so much to do (including becoming a vampire), this game has immense replay value. People can go back and discover what would happen if you decide to join a certain faction or try to back yourself into the ending (avoiding the main quest). This freedom is quite addictive. Be warned, once you play a game like this, you will never look at the "traditional linear" RPG’s the same again. ---------- Jared Black - Make no mistake about it, the release of Morrowind represents a turning point in the evolution of console RPGs. Thanks to the Xbox's hard drive console gamers are only now finally able to experience true PC-style RPGs, and the result is fantastic. With The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall already sitting on my PC desk, Morrowind was easily one of my more anticipated games in quite some time. Bethesda hasn't disappointed, as Morrowind is without a doubt the closest thing to a true "role playing" game the console world has ever seen. YOU define your role in society, YOU make the moral decisions, and YOU live with the consequences. It's this ability to define your own role that really makes Morrowind so addictive. Yes there is a main storyline, but as Nick mentioned you can completely ignore it for 100s of hours of gameplay if you wish. Unfortunately, the technical issues simply cannot be overlooked. Most of my nights with Morrowind haven't ended with triumph, but rather a frozen screen and a controller tossed in frustration. Bethesda's work around has helped some, but the game still freezes on me every hour or two. For me personally it's really ruined the experience, and as a result my overall score for Morrowind would be at least a point lower than Nick's. And this is coming from someone who almost (right at the end a bug wouldn't let me) completed Ultima IX... Overall Score: 9.4 Additional Images:
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