I know the game is pretty old now, since it got released in 2002 but it's still amazing enough to deserve it's own review!
Ill be reviewing it with all expansions so I don't know, but there might be slight changes.
Ill also only be reviewing the PC version since I never played the XboX version, major difference would be the mods. which is either impossible or extremely hard to get on the xBox.
Morrowind is an extremely open-ended and huge RPG for the PC, and XBOX but Ill be talking about the PC release. You could literally spend hundreds of hours from custimizing your character's class to the last detail and exploring the gigantic island of Vvanderfell to finishing off one of the hundreds of side-quests that the game ships with. And you could probably add in thousands of more hours since there are tons of mods around the internet to enhance the gameplay, improve the graphics, adding more lore, adding more dungeons, houses, towns, islands, land, characters and even quests!
The gameplay is really where the game shines most, being nearly unlimited due to mods, but even without mods, theres plenty to do. You can basically do whatever you please unlike most RPGs, like for example see an expensive sword on a table, and you can pick it up no matter what, except that guards or the owner might attack you if they caught you in the act. If you like dungeon crawling, theres heaps of dungeons to raid, and in all of them you'd find monsters and loot, and theres even a mod which increases the replayability of these dungeons by adding 6 basement floors to every dungeon in the whole game! You can become a master alchemist and make potions out of the numerous herbs found around the island, and then sell them to your favorite shopkeeper. You can kill bandits and outlaws for a living, and with all these hideouts scattered around the map, it shouldn't be hard. I could keep going on but the paragraph would get too long xD
The Graphics back then in 2002 were amazing, and I still think they are. The water is one of the most realistic I've seen, the textures looks sharp and clean, and fit the atmosphere, and if you don't like them, you could always download a world tileset, which changes how the whole world of Morrowind looks like. The sky is just beautiful, and especially at night, when all the stars start shining brightly and you can even clearly see nearby galaxies. My only complaint would be the simply ugly character models which are terrible to look at, but even they can be changed over for some good-looking high definition ones.
When I first tried Morrowind, I was amazed at the custimizability of your character! You can choose from over 12 classes, or increase it to over a hundred easily with mods, or answer a couple of moral questions to determine your class, or best of all, create your own custom class, where you can choose all the character's skills, and even give him his own story behind him. Then come the equipment. There literally hundreds, maybe over a thousand equips lying around the island, waiting to be picked up. You can even wear three layers of clothing, with your normal clothing first, armor second and any robe over all that.
What I also really loved about Morrowind is that with the right mods, you can roleplay your character like never before. You have your very own journal where you can write down everything you wish in your words, or as how the character would put it. You have all these choices that determine his personality, like what he prefers, what would he do, it all increases the enjoyability, but that's only if you like roleplaying. It added tons of extra hours for me, as I just ran around exploring blindlessly with the character and writing all my findings in the journal, which can stretch into thousands of pages if you wish.
Overall, the game is a near-perfect RPG, which stole hundreds of hours from my life, and I recommend everyone to play it, although if your looking for action, it's not the right game for you. The game has a couple of flaws like the lacking battle-system and repetitive NPC replies, but almost all can be fixed with mods! If your looking for a truly awesome role playing experience then I recommend to you, Morrowind, and till now I don't think anything has beat it, not even Oblivion, but maybe that's because I like Morrowind more...
[08/10] Presentation - Nice simple interface, very custimizable and contains all you need.
[09/10] Graphics - Im rating this based on when it was released. Theyre amazing at max settings, the sky is beautiful and the landscape is breathtaking, even more with mods.
[06/10] Sound - Gets repetitive and boring sometimes, but fits the atmosphere and not too bad.
[10/10] Gameplay - So much to do, the options are never ending!
[10/10] Lasting Appeal - With so much to do, I always come back after a couple of months to play it some more, and get addicted
[43/50] Total - In other words MUST PLAY
Hope to see more Morrowind players
