Review PC World AU tackles Morrowind

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

<A href="http://pcworld.idg.com.au/">PC World Australia</a> has put up their <a href="http://pcworld.idg.com.au/idg2.nsf/p/0007E3BA?OpenDocument&n=e&c=PC">review</a> of <A href="http://www.elderscrolls.com/main.htm">Morrowind</a>. I think this clip speaks for itself:
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<blockquote>I'm sorry, but Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls III just doesn't quite do it for me, which is a shame as I thought I'd finally found a replacement for Dungeon Siege in my affections. The graphics are gorgeous and the plot looks quite engaging, but what really sold me on Dungeon Siege was that it was simple to get to grips with and relatively easy to progress — unlike Morrowind.</blockquote>
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Dungeon Siege > Morrowind?
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What?
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Spotted this at <A href="http://rpgdot.com">RPGDot</a>.
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[VasikkA]

but what really sold me on Dungeon Siege was that it was simple to get to grips with and relatively easy to progress — unlike Morrowind

??

Shoot the reviewer.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

You definitely have to wonder about some people like the reviewer of this game. Dungeon Siege's levelling up scheme was nothing that interesting and certainly not much to brag about.

That's not to say Morrowind's was superb or anything, but feeling the need to constantly level up is just silly and not the main point of RPGs.

 

[Dan]

That review has sevral points I found amusing:

but what really sold me on Dungeon Siege was that it was simple to get to grips with and relatively easy to progress — unlike Morrowind.

Wow. You actually need to think! We sure don't want none of that!

The other thing that I really don't like about Morrowind is the acres of text you have to plough through. Instead of speaking to the other characters, you must read the dialogue onscreen; any conversation is then carried out by clicking on text prompts and reading the response — mind-numbingly boring.

*shudder* What do you mean I need to know how to read? Dialouge isn't important in RPG's anyway.

 

[Sol Invictus]

From the looks of how he raves on about Dungeon Siege, I doubt he liked Diablo 2 that much, either.

I mean after all, why bother implementing mathematics into a game, right? Who needs skills and statistics that you have to actually give some thought into putting points in, right? The game should do everything for you, including play itself. I mean, after all, it wouldn't be a game otherwise, now would it?

Now, adding dialogue into an RPG? That's just incomprehensible! Why, a true RPG needn't clutter itself with such complex mechanisms as.... dialogue! Why, a true RPG should be a game that just plays itself. Why, Flying Toasters is the best RPG of all time!

 

[Section8]

I really hope this guy is a video reviewer filling in for a games reviewer, because he seems to be very hung up on a purely passive experience.

 

[Sheriff_Fatman]

I dunno about DS, since I never played it, but the guy has a point about Morrowind. I had trouble getting to grips with it. Not because I had to think, but because I spent longer walking around in the game than I do in real life - and I walk to work everyday.

Also, the people I met were like this guy I saw at a bus stop once: they just blurted out a list of crap inside there heads and left it to me to determine relevance.

I really wanted to like Morrowind. I actively forced myself to play, even after I had lost interest, but it just didn't grab me.

 

[SexExitium]

 

[Xerophyte]

Disclaimer: That reviewer has as much of a right to his opinion as we have to ours and we cannot fault them as being good or bad, being, as they are, mere opinions and not factual errors.

Nevertheless, his opinion reeks of week old donkey carcass and seems to be aimed at analphabetic goths around age 12 instead of, for example, any likely readers looking for an evaluation on Morrowind.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Disclaimer: That reviewer has as much of a right to his opinion as we have to ours and we cannot fault them as being good or bad, being, as they are, mere opinions and not factual errors.

Nevertheless, his opinion reeks of week old donkey carcass and seems to be aimed at analphabetic goths around age 12 instead of, for example, any likely readers looking for an evaluation on Morrowind.

No, opinions can be profoundly stupid, such as that one. Saying Dungeon Siege is better than Morrowind because you advance faster is absolute rubbish.

 

[Sol Invictus]

With thoughts like that, the reviewer doesn't deserve to be heard. He poses a false dichotomy, and the magazine published without any regard for factual analysis.

 

[Constipated Craprunner]

It is as if the guy plays games for the sole purpose of self gratification- if he feels that he is not making his character more powerful every few min., he feels it damages his ego.
Weirdo.

 

[Rat Keeng]

I tried DS briefly, and immidiately discarded it. I never really felt the game ever started, it felt more like you were just thrown into a world where you could start killing monsters and finding treasure, pointlessly. Really bad first impression on that one, killed me off in one hit. I couldn't get into Morrowind either though. I didn't mind reading the dialogue, i learned that in school, but the World was too big, too many locations, too much walking around, too many people, and in a way, not enough "consequences" from your actions. It felt too passive somehow.

Yet i don't think this "review" describes the game very well, it just says it isn't the fast-paced, "user-friendly", stat-building game the reviewer hoped it to be. And they should perhaps have found a reviewer who had the time required to actually "crack" the game.


BTW, isn't Ursula a woman's name?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yes, the writer if the review is a female.

I didn't mind the walking and exploring, because I made athletics one of my main skills so I could run from town to town quickly. I also used the teleporters, boats and stiltwalkers to move around a lot.

I liked the exploring as well, which athletics helps a lot. I just don't think there is such a thing as a world that's too big so long as there are means of rapid transit and you're not forced to walk from one location to the next. A bigger world means more stuff to do.

I agree about the consequences for actions though. Paying off the guards for murdering someone was fairly cheap in the game. If you had the cash, you were free to kill off everyone in the town, except the guards.

 

[Sheriff_Fatman]

Bigger isn't necessarily good if it just means "more empty space," which it did in Morrowind a lot of the time. I may have said this before, but the game gave me an eerie feeling of being in a MMORPG that noone else plays. There was the same amount of running around and the same feeling that the world was static/on a loop, but there weren't loads of other people jumping/shouting/dying all over the place.

 

[Deathy]

I found Morrowind to be quite cramped, not open and empty. There was usually a dungeon or other minor place of interest within a minutes walk of your character at any time.

 

[Constipated Craprunner]

I found Morrowind to be quite cramped, not open and empty. There was usually a dungeon or other minor place of interest within a minutes walk of your character at any time.

True.
In my view, they should have had some sort of plain, instead of the endless series of weird semi-hills and blight.
Where exactly are these swaps, anyway?

 

[chrisbeddoes]

QUOTE"If these problems weren't enough to put me off Morrowind, I also wasn't keen on the way you see — or rather don't see — your character. In other RPGs you can see your virtual self in action onscreen, but in Morrowind you are effectively behind his or her eyes. In other words, you see what your character sees, not your character itself. This isn't the only game to take this approach, but I find it off-putting. "



Well the writer of this "review" probably did not read the manual as well.


You can play from a 3 rd person perspective and that is how i played most of the time.

Pity that a link to discuss this review on their forums does not exist .


As for DS the publisher of this crapware is M$ .

Isnt that enough ?

 

[SexExitium]

 

[Constipated Craprunner]

AoK?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

You can play from a 3 rd person perspective and that is how i played most of the time.

Pity that a link to discuss this review on their forums does not exist .

I tried playing in third person, it just didn't work well enough for me. It made it overly hard to read the signs, pull the switches, and so on. Also, the attacks weren't "broad" enough most of the time for it to work well in combat in third person.

I just wish they'd actually made third person more viable to the point where I just didn't have to keep flipping between them. You can do everything in first person, but third person makes things in the game annoying.