Invisible Dream (c) 2000, 2001, 2002

Developer :Bethesda Softworks
Beta Supplied By :Bethesda Softworks
Review by : Ryan 'TheMystic' Lord

A guard smiles for the camera after saving my ass from this freaky beast

The Elder Scrolls : Morrowind is Bethesda Softwork's upcoming game set in the Elder Scrolls universe. Morrowind features a huge world to be explored, a world packed with literally thousands of NPCs and monsters which reside in various towns, encampments, caves, tombs and even in the wilderness. Those of you that are familiar with the previous Elder Scrolls games, such as Arena and Daggerfall, are quite familiar with the actual size and open endedness that the Elder Scrolls series of games present to you. It's really quite amazing.

Instead of going into all of the details of the previous Elder Scrolls games, I've decided to focus on Morrowind itself and save all the history for the review, if we decide to toss it in. Morrowind doesn't seem to follow any sort of plot from the previous games, it's almost as if it's a completely new story based in the Elder Scrolls world. As you've probably read from the various other previews, you begin your journey on a ship, where you first choose your name and learn that you were a prisoner that was pardoned by the emperor himself. No one has a clue why but the guards are clearly following the emperors orders and promptly set you on your path after you first go through the character creation process.

Attack of the giant phallic objects! OH NO!

Once you finish defining your character, a process that we've been asked not to talk about, you're set free into the world of Morrowind. It's yours to explore, change and even destroy. You can literally go anywhere and / or do anything at your own will. Sure, initially the weakness of your character may prevent you from doing everything that you may want to do, such as take over the world, but as time goes on you gain more and more power and as you gain your power, you start to realize how much you can really change things in the game. You can literally kill anyone, including NPCs and you can steal or explore anything assuming you have the ability to get past locks and / or traps. Actually, there's only one single NPC that you can't kill if you want to beat the game. He / she's pretty easy to find, assuming that you do try to kill him / her and the game immediately puts up a prompt recommending that you restore your game if you do happen to kill him / her (him / her used in order to keep the NPCs gender a secret). Aside from that single NPC, you can slaughter anybody for any reason and skill end up beating the game, should you decide to follow the main quest.

Quests, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of quests. You can fight for justice or steal for the darker guilds / clans. You can get involved in the game's politics or try to extend the influence of the temple on the world. I know that I've already said this, but just incase you don't get it yet, you can do practically anything in this world. This is what makes Morrowind so unique and amazing. I personally accepted well over twenty quests now, five of them being main story quests. Each quest is unique, some send you across town to purchase or steal a jewel while others send you on a quest across the country to slaughter a guild which corrupts the law system of Morrowind. Each quest has its own rewards as well, you may receive extremely powerful or advanced items or even lump sums of cash. I'm sure you get the picture, the quest system is by far one of the most extensive and fun systems in a RPG game to date.

Yes, it really gets this dark at night

I'd reveal more details if I could but we've been asked not to speak of any plot related quests. I'm sure you can imagine why, Bethesda Softworks would like to keep the plot and storyline a surprise for all of you. I know, you really don't care, but trust me, it'll be worth it to wait. Morrowind is a game that's not built around lame hype that won't come through. Believe the hype - it's real, you'll see.

Aside from quests, I've made a total of two characters thus far. The first was a thief with concentration in small swords, medium armor and light magic. I quickly found out that while he was great at stealing and completing Thief's guild quests, I would get my ass pounded time after time when I engaged in combat. Needless to say, that discouraged me a bit and it inspired me to create a new, beefier character with a better selection of skills and abilities. The thief did end up hitting level two, but that's about it. To be honest, I have a feeling most people will go through this, atleast when attempting to make a custom character of their own the first time around. Who knows though, maybe others will have better luck than I.

It's the fabled GhostGate!

With my buff Redguard custom fighter type class, I've pounded my way through many brutal situations. It's a pretty cool feeling to be able to womp on more and more people as I level myself up and build upon my skills. Like I said earlier, you can just feel the power grow in you. It's actually noticeable as time goes on. Now my character is level four, this is without any cheat codes or anything else mind you. In other words, I've been around the block. I've completely numerous quests as I stated above, I've seen numerous cities and I'm positive that I've only progressed through 10-15% of the game. Despite the twenty or so hours that I've spent playing my Redguard, I'm still roaming about the southern and western coasts of Morrowind.

As you've heard and seen, the graphics are absolutely amazing. Everything from the character models to the trees, just spending a few minutes alone in Morrowind will change the way you look at PC games forever. It's simply amazing, Morrowind blows away FPS games like Medal of Honor or any other Quake / Unreal based game graphically in my opinion. I'm telling you, you will not believe your eyes when you're running Morrowind at 1024x768x32 with anti-aliasing and full draw / shadow / reflection details turned on. Sure, it takes a pretty beefy system with a high end video card to play Morrowind in all its glory at1024x768x32 but even at lower resolutions or lower graphic settings it looks amazing. It's just something that you have to see for yourself to understand.

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