M0RROWIND

                 Reviewed by Carolyn Brown

I expect that, by now, everyone who wanted to play Morrowind has
bought a copy, but there may be a few people who have been waiting
for it to appear in the bargain bin, and who might be wondering if
it's worth the cash.

I have wanted to play this game ever since I first heard about it,
and in March of this year I upgraded my PC and was, at last, able
to run it on my machine. My first reaction was 'Wow, this is
good', but sadly the first impressions didn't hold out.

I won't go into all the storyline details, as it is bog-standard
RPG fare - you are put into the story in order to rid the world of
evil etc. etc. Yawn, Yawn.  Anyway, you start the game on a prison
ship which docks at a town on the island of Vvardenfell - for ages
I was under the impression that the island was called 'Morrowind',
and what, or where, Morrowind, is, is never explained. Whatever,
you are soon given your orders, which are to contact a particular
man in the next town and take it from there. You explore, collect
goods, maybe gain a level if you're lucky, and take off. Once you
get to the next town and meet the guy who will be handing out the
main quests you can really get started. You are told you should
beef up your stats before beginning your assault on the main
quest, so you are encouraged to join guilds and factions who will
all give you quests to fulfil. Some of these quests are very
boring and simple, for example, go to such and such a place and
bring back a mushroom, and some are so dangerous that you have
little chance of completing them for a few levels. This can become
very frustrating, especially as there is very little gold to be
had, so not much chance of buying good armour.

It's all basic first-person RPG stuff, with no surprises, and
eventually, if you have loads of time and patience, you will start
to progress. There were so many things which disappointed me about
the game, though. Firstly, the graphics. I have seen the game
described as 'beautiful' on the internet, but I couldn't disagree
more. The character portraits from which you choose your alter ego
are ugly in the extreme (although some good replacement ones are
to be had on the net). The locations are fairly detailed and
extremely well drawn, especially water, which is done very well,
and there are some very realistic weather effects, but the colour
scheme is hideous. The whole scheme seems to be based on a
disgusting yellowish, greyish, green, for want of any better
description, and you get thoroughly sick of seeing every building
and town rendered in this hideous colour. Even the interiors,
although well designed, are this same ghastly colour scheme. Some
of the towns are fine, comprising realistically drawn buildings,
but there are a few in which all the buildings are based on
gigantic shells, why, I have no idea, and it made me feel queasy
to look at them, especially in the horrid colours!

The main city of Vivec, in which you finally find yourself is well
drawn, but so confusing that if you only have a limited amount of
time to play, it can be very annoying as it will take all your
time just to find your way about. The NPC's are static, and this
can get ridiculous, as you may be given a quest to accompany
someone to a particular town - you do so, and drop them off
outside the gates, where they will stand forever more, making
fatuous remarks each time you see them. This is another problem,
for me, at any rate. Everyone you pass has something to say,
usually the same thing, always irritating.  Thankfully you can
turn the speech off.  The music is good, though, if repetitive.

My favourite RPG's used to have 'proper' dungeons, with secret
doors and hard-to-find buttons and levers - I used to love trying
to discover those doors, but this game has nothing like that;
there are no secrets. The game is totally open; you can go
anywhere, and do anything, but there is very little structure to
it, so you can easily end up feeling you have got nowhere very
slowly!

I began Morrowind in March, carried on with it sporadically until
September, when I gave up. I picked up on it the other day,
thinking I should give it another chance, but really I can't be
bothered. Despite my negativity, it isn't a bad game, and I seem
to be in a minority in not liking it very much, but I can't alter
the fact that I find it boring. I just wish I could still play the
likes of 'Ultima Underworld' on my current computer - now that was
a game. They knew how to do it back in those days!

















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