The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition (UK)

For fans of escapism and sword and sorcery and if you don't mind decade old graphics, you'll love this game. You have been released from the dungeon prisons of the empire under mysterious circumstances and sent to the island of Morrowind by boat. You disembark and pick you race and class. No matter your tastes, there is a class to suit you. If you enjoy magic there is the mage and battlemage. If you enjoy senseless axe-swinging there is the barbarian. If you enjoy sneaking around in the shadows, killing from afar with a bow and mixing potions there is the assassin, and infinite more combinations.After picking your race and class you are dumped in to an enormous world with vague instructions to report to one of the empire's agents. This is the main storyline, but aside from this there are, what seems like endless, side-quests for you to embark on. There are guilds to join and they have tasks for you also. The mages guild, the warriors guild, the secretive thieves guild and the even more secretive (and highly illegal) murderers guild, who assassinate people for profit.When exploring the world there are hundreds of caves and ruined forts to be explored, usually containing treasure, money, bad guys to kill and sometimes even angry ghosts which can only be harmed by magic or a silver sword. Regular weapons will not harm them. You can play the white knight, Jesus incarnate and fight for good, for justice and the people. You can traverse the fence, staying somewhere inbetween good and bad, bribing information out of people or simply steal a living. Rob the innocent, or the rich, or both. Rob them blind and sell the goods to the thieves guild who will be happy to buy them. Are you a homicidal maniac? There's something for you too. Just kill everyone and hide the bodies! When the guards show up, kill them too!There is literally thousands of hours of play time in this game.It is not without flaws though. Obviously being so old the graphics are terrible by todays standards. Most people shouldn't be bothered by this but if you are then there is a project to actually overhaul the game with the graphics of its successor, Oblivion, which by the way is also a great game and well worth playing. As of this review though (13 sep 2011) that project is still not finished and it's no surprise given it's enormousness. The other flaw is the combat system. It was clumsy even on the day the game was released and it still is today, but the game is so great that eventually you just get used to it.There's really only 1 score for this game and it's 5/5.

TES III: Morrowind, is now 9 years old. Other games the same age are either graphically laughable, far too easy, or about as entertaining as the House of Lords at 2 in the morning. Morrowind isn't. While obviously older, the graphics are still good and the system is great even by today's exerting standards. While there are some bugs, it won't ruin the game. Why buy this over TES IV: Oblivion? Well, at first, it may seem difficult to justify this. Oblivion has fewer (noticeable)bugs, better animations and largely better graphics (the faces all get far too similar after a while), as well as some features that should really have been included in Morrowind. But Oblivion lacks a certain daring flair that was present in Morrowind, and the plot is essentially a weaker version of the complex and political plot found in Morrowind. And also, an Orcish god is nowhere near as frightening as Dagoth Ur.Furthermore, Morrowind is a more easy-to-mod game than anything else out there, as well as packing a massively powerful game-editor (TES Construction Set) with the game. Thousands of excellent mods- including graphical enhancers- are available freely form dedicated websites. In 2030, it will be Morrowind, not Oblivion, that people will remember most fondly. And we'll all still be playing in Vvardenfel, with Jeremy Soule's crisp and beautiful (if a little short) soundtrack in the background.

There can be few people who have not played and enjoyed this masterpiece: at least amongst those who love free-roaming RPGs. My recent purchase was simply because my orignal discs were lost.Why is it one of the great games of all time? Well, it contains all the hooks that draw you in: steady character development, endless dungeons, freedom to go where you will (and die horribly, quite often), and a good, strong story line. Graphically it is now very dated, but with the endless mods the community has produced, this has been radically improved. Fans have even created a new land to explore! I spent months explored the land (and sea...), and intend to go back to it with all the good mods loaded. Once I have finished Skyrim, that is...And best of all, for those lucky few who have not played it, it is now VERY cheap! Waste no more time: buy it!!!!