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Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind GOTY

Once upon a time, I gave a very glowing review of the original Morrowind for PC. Last year, I could not get enough of this game and played it nonstop for months. I loved Morrowind so much that I not only had a copy of the PC version (Deluxe edition, of course), but I also have a copy of the beta that Bethesda was so kind to send, a copy of the Xbox version, and now, a copy of the Xbox GOTY version. I do have copies of the expansions, Tribunal and Bloodmoon, for the PC, but unfortunately my PC decided to up and die and refuse all attempts at resurrection, so I never got to play them. This changed upon the much anticipated arrival of Morrowind: GOTY for Xbox.

Granted, Morrowind isn’t exactly a new game, but seeing as we don’t actually have a Morrowind review here at Digital Entertainment News, and I love talking about this game, we’ll start it from scratch. If you’ve already played the original game, or if you’ve already read older reviews, you can just skip ahead a bit. For the rest of you, you might want to go ahead and get your wallets ready.

For the most part, Morrowind is a completely open-ended RPG. You create your character from scratch, decide his abilities, powers, skills, and whatnot. After that, it’s all up to you. The game starts with your character being delivered to the Vvardenfell continent. Apparently you were a prisoner, but for some unknown reason (at least for now), you’ve been given a parole, in order to do some work for some Imperial agents. It’s a little hard to explain the nuances, without going into specifics, so I’ll give you my own personal experiences.

When I first played and “finished” Morrowind, it was on the PC and I played as a Redguard warrior. If you’re new to the game, a warrior will be the easiest way to get through the game. I did discover, however, that playing as a strict warrior class means you miss out on a lot of the cool things that the game has to offer. So after getting the Xbox version, I decided to create a thief class. Now, while I’m reviewing the GOTY edition, I did start this character over a year ago using the regular edition of Morrowind. Bethesda was nice enough to make it so those of us who had invested a long time in our characters can convert saves over to the GOTY edition. So while I am playing the GOTY edition now, I can still keep my character from the earlier edition without losing anything.

Anyway, my new character is a Dark Elf, also known as a Dunmer. They are the native race to Vvardenfell, so I wanted to see if it had any effect on the residents. Well, not really. Since I wasn’t a native Dunmer, I’m still treated as an Imperial citizen. I created my own class, which I called Blind Hand. Basically, this meant that my character specializes in thieving skills such as security (lockpicking, etc) and sneak (which includes pickpocketing). But I also wanted to bring this up a notch, so I also specialized in the magic skill of illusion. This makes me adept in such things as invisibility and chameleon spells, aiding me in my less than lawful behavior. You see, in Morrowind, you can take anything that’s not nailed down. A lot of which can be very valuable. However, just because something is there, doesn’t mean someone won’t kick your butt for trying to take it.

After registering my character with the Imperials who greet you, I started my quest. From here, I could either walk to the town of Balmora to check in with Caius Cosades, who would tell me why I was here, or I could use Morrowind’s version of rapid-transit, the silt-strider (which is basically a giant flea with very long legs). Seeing as how my character was a little low in terms of health and strength, I figured it’d be a lot safer to take the strider. Before I left, I engaged in a couple of easy side quests, and made note of any locked doors or chests.

Upon arriving in Balmora, I met with Caius Cosades who gave me a rundown of why I was summoned. I’m to be initiated into a secret investigative group called the Blades, which Caius is the local leader of, and then gather info about some legendary figure in Dunmer history. But before I am to take any quests, Caius suggests I meet with some other operatives, join a guild or two, bulk up my skills, and just basically advance a few levels first. I was perfectly okay with this, and went off in search of mischief.

The first thing I did was to meet with other Blades members and have them teach me a few skills in order to beef up my sneak and security points. Next, since I am a thief, it was time to find the local thieves’ guild. I meet with Sugar-Lips Habasi, a Khajit (cat person), and I’m accepted. My first mission is to just lift a diamond from a local alchemist and bring it back. Simple enough, as this alchemist kept a diamond in a locked chest in an unguarded room. Now, since I had already played through the main quest before, I was in no hurry to do it again. For now, I decided to concentrate on working my way up through the ranks of the thieves’ guild.

One thing about Morrowind is the tendency to get sidetracked by other quests and such. I’d be out on a mission and stumble upon some crypt or cave that I hadn’t previously seen, and decide to go investigate for plunder. Or perhaps I’ll end up in a new town and wander around in search of things to line my pockets with. By this time, I was a pretty good thief. I had risen in the ranks of the thieves’ guild, and my breaking and entering skills were pretty good. I took some risky moves, that ended up paying off very well. A few examples include lifting a very nice enchanted sword right out from under the nose of a guard. I also managed to steal an entire suit of glass armor right out of a busy shop. One of my prouder accomplishments is I was able to completely clean not one but two potion shops out of their entire inventory in one fell swoop.

Eventually, I caught the eye of Gentleman Jim Stacy, who heads the Thieves’ Guild in all of Vvardenfell. He gives me a few quests, and then invites me to become the Bal Molagmer, who is a legendary thief, not unlike Robin Hood. Noble deeds are not usually my cup of tea, but who’s to argue? I eventually complete all of Jim Stacy’s quests, and he names me the new head of the thieves’ guild. Sweet. I repay the honor by robbing him blind.

During all of this, I amassed quite a fortune, and selling it all off wasn’t easy. I finally managed to, though, and used my new wealth to start enchanting some objects. My first idea was to create an amulet with some weak fireballs. I call it my “bug zapper”. It fires off many low level fireballs very quickly, and is useful for taking out those stupid cliff racers that like appearing out of nowhere and attacking you. I hate those things. I had also managed to come across a few enchanted items that I decided were invaluable. Jinkswords and a Vampiric Ring. A jinksword is simply a short sword that casts paralyze on enemies. Once they’re immobile, it’s time to switch to my Vampiric Ring. This ring does an amazing amount of drain health on an enemy, so while they can’t move, they face a quick death from the ring, plus it has the added benefit of pretty much restoring all of my health.

Now I decided to join one of the House factions of Morrowind. I chose House Hlaalu, because it seemed to be more along the lines of my particular goals. House Hlaalu is filled with thieves, rogues and scalawags. Once again, I rose in the ranks until I was a leading member of House Hlaalu. The best reward for this was my own manor house, where I could start storing all the miscellaneous crap I had gathered over the course of the game.

Over the course of doing Hlaalu quests, I realized that I had a disgustingly huge amount of money, and nothing to spend it on. Time to visit the enchanter again! This time I decided to make some items that not only had convenient effects, but would also have the effects be constantly on. While I was at it, I decided on some freakishly twinkish items as well. I made a ring which I called “Eye of the Cat”, which had a constant night-eye effect. Now I could see in the dark. I created a robe with a constant restore fatigue effect, which I called “Robe of the Mountain Dew” (get it?). I then created a shirt, which I called the “Aquaman Shirt” which allowed me to either constantly walk on water or breathe under water, depending on where I was when I donned it. Next was my ring with a constant mild levitate spell on it. It’s not terribly fast, but boy, does it come in handy! I then created an amulet, which I call “Charbroil”. It’s effect is it simultaneously casts weakness to fire for 100% and then 75-100 points of fire damage for 5 seconds. This will kill just about anything instantly. Finally, I made “The One Ring”, which is basically just a really nerdy name for a ring of constant invisibility. I love this ring to death, I just wish Bethesda had tweaked invisibility a bit more. When you take any action that isn’t walking or jumping, you instantly lose your invisibility and have to remove and reequip the ring in order to get the effect back. Some actions, like attacking, I can understand losing invisibility over, but merely entering a cave shouldn’t effect my invisibility. I think it’d be a tad better if invisibility only wore off if you took an action where something could see you take the action. Oh well. Thus equipped, I was on my way.

This represented months and months and hundreds of hours of actual play time. I had done many sidequests, and even did a few more quests for Caius Cosades. But then the day came. I received the actual GOTY edition of Morrowind. It was finally time to play the expansions, Tribunal and Bloodmoon.

It started with me being attacked by an assassin while I slept. Silly assassin, don’t you know I will hurt you? Being reasonably perturbed, I went in search of just who had sicced this assassin on me. The trail led to the walled city of Mournhold, domain of the demi-goddess Almalexia. Almalexia is one of the three demi-gods who reside on Vvardenfell, the others being Vivec, who resides in the city of Vivec, and Sotha Sil who lives in his strange little clockwork city in an unknown location.

The Tribunal expansion ended up being a little disappointing, because while very cool, it’s not very long or very big. Mournhold only has a few locations, most of which are either a big sewer or a winding cave. The people there are neat, though. You can hire people to fight alongside you for money, you can buy rats and scribs to carry small items for you, you can buy new weapons and armor. And merchants tend to be a little wealthier in Mournhold, so it was easier to sell off my stuff. Especially later when I got a magic item that would transport me instantly to Mournhold’s temple. Another cool thing about Tribunal (and also Bloodmoon) was that Bethesda really put a lot of effort into making the characters say specific things. In the original Morrowind, all of the character say generic things, and you hear them over and over. In the expansions, most everybody says something unique, and I applaud Bethesda for this. I don’t want to give Tribunal’s storyline away here, but needless to say, I ended up with yet more twinkishly powerful weapons, and fought probably the hardest battle ever as a side quest. Let’s just say if you see the name Gaenor, either be prepared for a VERY long battle, or just don’t talk to him.

Upon completion of the main Tribunal quest, it was time to head out to the land of Nords and wolves, Solstheim. This expansion is heavily influenced by Norse mythology, up to an including an ice giant. Solstheim has a much bigger area than Tribunal does, but the goodies are a little more sparse. That’s not to say I didn’t find things to make me an even badder stealing and killing machine. Basically, while investigating some happenings at Fort Frostmoth, the captain of the Frostmoth guards disappears during an attack. I was directed to go seek out the Skaal clan of Nords living in the northern part of the island. Once again, I don’t want to blow the whole quest for you, but needless to say, I ended up befriending the tribe and saving the day yet again.

Bloodmoon brings many more goodies to the table, including entirely unique critters. I especially hate (in a good way) the Spriggans who have this nasty tendency to get back up when you kill them. Actually, all of the new monsters are VERY difficult, and when I found myself surrounded by a ton of monsters, I ended up going through all my magic just to stay alive. Also new is the addition that made me the giddiest… Werewolves.

You see, I’m a werewolf junkie. There just aren’t enough games with werewolves in them. In Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall, you could become a vampire, a werewolf or a wereboar. These were extremely nifty, so I was a little disappointed when Morrowind came out and all you could become was a vampire. I never really cared for the wereboars, so their omission didn’t faze me one bit. The lack of werewolves in Morrowind sorely disappointed me. Okay, so it wasn’t THAT big of a deal. There was more than enough game there to take my mind off of it. But the werewolves are back, and it’s a really cool addition. You WILL be infected with the werewolf curse, and it’s up to you to decide to keep it, or to cure it. If you keep it, you turn into a werewolf and open yourself up to attack by anyone who sees you. It can be permanently cured, which is a good idea, because nobody will talk to you if you carry the curse.

Right now, I’ve pretty much done everything Tribunal and Bloodmoon have to offer, so it’s back to the mainland for me. There’s still dozens of crypts and dungeons to explore. I’ve about gotten to the point where there aren’t many quests left to do, so it may be time to go ahead and finish up the main quest and start all over again. Let’s move on to the technical stuff, shall we?

One of the things that the original release was notorious for were some horrible bugs. With the exception of a couple of crashes (manifested by a dirty disc error message), they seem to have been all fixed. A game could be ruined if you used too many blocks during a save. The magic number seemed to be anything over 200 blocks. GOTY has fixed this problem. My most recent save uses almost 240 blocks, and no problems at all. This release also brings the game up to the same standards as the most recent Morrowind patch for PC. Added are a difficulty slider, and a health bar for enemies, so you can see how much damage you’ve inflicted. The difficulty slider I can understand. I just leave it at default and move on. The enemy health meter, though, I have never liked. I only wish there was an option to turn it off.

The graphics are still the same, with only the new models for monsters and environments added. The new weapons have some pretty cool effects, though. The draw distance is still a little short, but you get used to it. It uses pixel shaders for water effects, and the first time I saw them, my jaw dropped. It’s a little old hat now, but back then we were all happy for it. The character animation is still pretty good in some places, and a little bad in others. If an ash storm or a snow storm kick up, characters will shield their faces with their arms. On the other hand, everybody walks like they’ve got a corncob crammed into their nether regions.

As I mentioned before, Tribunal and Bloodmoon include more new voice acting in both expansions than the entire main game seems to have as a whole. It seems that every non-generic character says something different, and there’s a LOT of non-generic characters in the expansions. The music, however, really disappointed me. It’s not that it’s bad, no. In fact, I love Morrowind’s soundtrack. My only beef was that it was so sparse. There really aren’t a lot of tunes. This wasn’t a problem in the PC version, as you could toss mp3s into the music directory, and the game would play them. I’ve always recommended the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack to round the music out, and also I’d bet that both the Braveheart and Lord of the Rings soundtracks would be great as well. But this is the Xbox version. You can’t add any music to the soundtrack, and there’s no place for custom soundtracks, which I understand. I just had hoped that the new expansions would include some new music as well. Alas, it just wasn’t to be.

Even if you’ve already played Morrowind to death, you really need to get the GOTY edition. Tribunal and Bloodmoon are extremely solid expansions, and are definitely worth having. In fact, I’d say the new things are invaluable to the game. It’s just a shame that this is probably all we’ll see as far as new stuff for Morrowind as far as the Xbox goes. The PC version allows for any of thousands of plugins to be added to the game, but the Xbox version doesn’t have a single one. I do wish that Bethesda had picked like maybe the top 50 best mods (that didn’t break the game by making it too easy or whatever), and just flat out include them into the game. Even just the official Bethesda mods would have been a welcome addition. Having played the PC version, I can see why making them available as downloadable content would be very difficult, but something would have been nice.

Still, this is mostly just wishful thinking and me being a little nitpicky, because I’m pretty close to finishing the game again, and there’s no telling when Elder Scrolls 4 will come out. I’ve been a big fan of Bethesda’s games since the original Elder Scrolls: Arena, and they’ve never failed to disappoint me. There’s a reason this is called the Game of the Year edition, and it deserves it. If it weren’t already GOTY, I’d easily be nominating it myself.

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Tags: Elder scrolls 3: Morrowind GOTY

Posted by Jeff Shedden on Dec 23rd, 2003 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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