Morrowind
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 6:43 am
...is where I've been for the past two weeks. Man it's good.
I had never played RPG's or other geek-type computer games before. Some friends convinced me that Morrowind would be a good place to start, and yeah, it is.
The incredibly rich backstory is what really does it. You're just going around in this world and finding out tons of information on it. The various religions, politics, histories, and general opinions of the different races, guilds, political structures, noble houses, etc., and how all that comes together and interacts in the present day are staggering. And really well written. And there's something like 300 books that you can actually read, although they're short and usually more like excerpts than full books. But still. Wow.
And the nonlinearity thing: there a quite a few stories to unravel, including a big Main Plot, but you don't have to do any of that if you don't want. They do kind of gently guide you towards the Main Plot though, which is cool because it's a pretty great one. Still, there are about a billion ways to get there.
Also, the game can be just plain intense on occasion. I had several heartpounding moments, especially since I did a lot of running around and stumbling into dark places. "Holy shit it's a vampires' den! Oh fuck what is THAT!?" as I walk through a fancy room littered with corpses where a polite slave told me her name is Cattle and that she lives only to serve to lords.
Love it. If you haven't played it, play it. Or even just watch someone else play it. I had an audience of one for most of the many hours, who loves it almost as much as I do.
And uhh... watch out it's pretty addictive. I've more or less beaten it all now, and it's supposed to take months. That's because I did pretty much nothing else, forgetting to eat and sleep, for two weeks.
I had never played RPG's or other geek-type computer games before. Some friends convinced me that Morrowind would be a good place to start, and yeah, it is.
The incredibly rich backstory is what really does it. You're just going around in this world and finding out tons of information on it. The various religions, politics, histories, and general opinions of the different races, guilds, political structures, noble houses, etc., and how all that comes together and interacts in the present day are staggering. And really well written. And there's something like 300 books that you can actually read, although they're short and usually more like excerpts than full books. But still. Wow.
And the nonlinearity thing: there a quite a few stories to unravel, including a big Main Plot, but you don't have to do any of that if you don't want. They do kind of gently guide you towards the Main Plot though, which is cool because it's a pretty great one. Still, there are about a billion ways to get there.
Also, the game can be just plain intense on occasion. I had several heartpounding moments, especially since I did a lot of running around and stumbling into dark places. "Holy shit it's a vampires' den! Oh fuck what is THAT!?" as I walk through a fancy room littered with corpses where a polite slave told me her name is Cattle and that she lives only to serve to lords.
Love it. If you haven't played it, play it. Or even just watch someone else play it. I had an audience of one for most of the many hours, who loves it almost as much as I do.
And uhh... watch out it's pretty addictive. I've more or less beaten it all now, and it's supposed to take months. That's because I did pretty much nothing else, forgetting to eat and sleep, for two weeks.