User Rating: 9.2 | The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Game of the Year Edition XBOX
Simply put, this game is long. Don't even start it unless you've got a week or so to throw away (or in my case, about 4 months now!). Also, get the strategy guide, it is ABSOLUTELY essential to this game, even if you're not a big guide user. So lets begin, the fighting in this game sucks, I'm very sorry to say. On the bright side, the fighting isn't it's main draw. The controls are alright, but make sure you're using first person view, cuz thrid sucks. The graphics are great in certain places, however, the land of Vvardenfell is so gigantic, that it repeats not only a lot of surface textures, but a bunch of maps are repeated as well, with slight changes. The sound is very good, very realistic. If you play with surround sound, it really helps you to get into the game. One of the somewhat many drawbacks to this game is the slow down. This game saves everything but the animals you kill to your memory. So if you sell a certain object to a character in the very beginning of the game, that object will still be plaguing your XBOX's memory 300 hours later. So it all gets bunched up and slows the XBOX down. Then you've got the fact that Vvardenfell is soooo frickin huge, that in the beginning it would take you a couple days just to cross it. Not only that, but with this new game, they added the island of Solstheim (about half the size of Vvardenfell) to the mix. However, if you're me (which you're not, but you might be like me) you will really appreciate these huge maps. Quest-wise, this game can take you a week or a year, it depends how in depth you want to go. And this game isn't the slightest bit linear, unless you want it to be. There is really a huge freedom with this game that you are usually only used to with MMO's. As far as towns go, there are something like 30+ of them, caves: hundreds, tombs: just as many, and swamps and plains: more than you can shake a stick at. And weapons and armor....aplenty. As well as items, there are 10s of thousands, I think, of all of them combined. And many characters to choose from, there are hundreds of possibilities for those (As well as girls). Plain and true, this game is huge, but you don't have to explore if you don't want to, it leaves it all up to you. Now, I was a big fan of The Elder Scrolls III, and when I saw the GOTY Edition for $30, I nearly wet myself. This game has been improved in several ways, but nothing too extremely essential (except for speeding up the price change in sales and purchases and the barter menu, I really appreciated that one). And as far as Solstheim goes, I've got about 40 hours in so far, and I've never been summmoned for any of the quests to go there, so its relevence remains to be seen. Conclusion: This game is great and is totally worth $30. I definitely would have payed 50. Get this game if you're a big RPGer, adventure gamer, or just have a lot of time on your hands and want to play something killer. I hope you've enjoyed my review, stay tuned... 
