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Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Review
Chris Leyton
13/12/2002
We take a belated look at the Xbox port of the excellent PC RPG.
Morrowind is a port of the excellent RPG that was released on the PC earlier in the year; the Xbox port was released soon after the PC version in the US, however European gamers have had to endure a six-month wait because of the vast language translation that had to take place.
For full details on the game, please check our extensive look at the PC version, which was reviewed back in May.
The Xbox version does a creditable job of translating the keyboard heavy commands and menu system from the PC to an Xbox controller and TV. Navigating throughout the various menus is carried out by scrolling through with the shoulder buttons; this results in a more cumbersome affair, however it doesnât have any profound effect on the experience.
The rest of the controls have been mapped faithfully to the Xbox controller; the face buttons are used to bring up menus, switch between combat and magic stances and finally a context-sensitive button, whilst the shoulder buttons are used for combat and jumping. The set-up works very well; considering the similarities between the PC and Xbox; this is one of the few areas that could have crippled the conversion.
Visually the translation isnât as hot as we would have hoped for; the textures are displayed at a low resolution and nowhere near to the delights that weâre used to seeing on our GeForce 4 equipped PCâs. It would have been so nice to see the developers fully utilise the strength of the Xbox, the environments would have been unbelievable with proper bump-mapping and per-pixel shading; but this would have meant waiting longer for the game (OK European gamers have already had to do that)!
In its favour the games fantastic lighting and use of vertex shaders to simulate real water, produce startling results that almost made us forget about the texture quality and lack of Xbox specific effects.
Elsewhere the overall look just isnât as impressive as when we first laid eyes upon Morrowind back in May; character animation is rather ropey and that fogging has to improve. That said Morrowind is still an overwhelming experience, especially if this is the first time youâve visited it; the sheer scope of this game is unrivalled and creates an intriguing game world that youâll find hard to resist.
Technically Bethesda Studios have done a good job of converting the game; pauses during the game still happen but far less then we remember on our PCâs, whilst the loading of new areas and internal locations is kept nice and quick.
Anonymous
Date Added:Sat 30th Sep 2006 21:46