The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind GOTY Edition

The only reason this is not my favorite game of all time is that it is not open-source, but the OpenMW project is changing that. The game is a huge nonlinear, open-ended, sandbox rpg. It even has mod tools. If you like exploration and freedom, purchase it. Romans 10:13 "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Despite audiovisuals and all the crashes, the game has got a very interesting plot and a big doze o lore about the world of Tamriel. In my opinion it it worth buying.

This is definitely my favorite Elder Scrolls game. Skyrim comes close, but this game is truly perfect. I would instantly recommend this.

This didn't always look like a warmed over turd. I bought a brand new 1.2 ghz 512 mb ram with a Geforce 4 ti 4200 to play this game with, and it looked spectacular. I had never seen water effects so lifelike. Once upon a time this was the cutting edge. Who cares about the janky animations. I stood outside my Eletronics Boutique for an hour to claim my reserved copy. I took it home and was instantly transported to heaven. I have logged more time with this game than any other (with the exception of WoW) and bethesda has been unable to top the unprecedented amount of freedom that they offered here. Oblivion offered some quality of life improvements like the combat and instant travel but I think the rest of it was absolute crap. In my mind a completely unworthy successor. Skyrim is a distant second. It was good but nowhere near as good as Morrowind.

I first played Morrowind on the original Xbox. Loved it. The world was more immersive than any I'd experienced in gaming at that point, and offered far more freedom than the JRPGs that I'd played before or since (sorry, Final Fantasy fans). Having been a console gamer (until 2007), Morrowind was the first western RPG I'd played. Fast forward to KotOR, KotOR 2, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Divinity II: Developer's Cut, Skyrim... I'm hard-pressed to bother with RPGs that don't focus on action, an open-world, and CHOICE. Even RPGs with linear stories, like the Torchlight series, must allow me CHOICE in how I upgrade my character and exploration of an open environment if they want my hard-earned money. Morrowind's open-world and customization not only set the stage for Oblivion, Skyrim, and the Fallout games, it was also the beginning of my no longer settling for linear RPGs with locked-in character leveling.