This is probably my 4th or 5th copy of Morrowind (PC, GOTY on PC, GOTY on Xbox, and now this). Favorite elder scrolls game. This one has some shakiness when it comes to windowed mode/minimizing/etc., but otherwise it works great and is easy to patch/mod.
I played a lot of this on the iPad when it first came out, because I was a fan of Rodeo Games' previous sci-fi tactical titles. Eventually too much of the game became DLC locked so I dropped it, but this is probably fair as a complete pack for $5 on sale. It's a light, tactical RPG where you crawl through (mostly) linear dungeons leveling up a party. There is an overworld section where you choose from available dungeons/quests on a map and then the tactical game where you adventure. I'd say you could easily get 15-20 hours of entertainment out of this if you like the style of game, so probably not a bad deal for the price if you like the franchise.
I just finished this game: 46 hours for a near-complete play through (completed all three main quests and probably 85% of all quests--those remaining could have been finished but were too low level to bother) on Normal difficulty. The game has sharp, witty writing, a large and semi-open world, and turn-based, tactical combat. The game isn't perfect, but it's certainly very good. I think I enjoyed this one SLIGHTLY less than Escape from the Pit, but that's only because there ended up being a large map section that I did not explore and didn't even find any quests asking me to explore. I recommend playing on Normal difficulty for your first game. I played the first game on Hard, and while the tactical challenge is fun at that level, it makes the numerous combats stretch on far too long and the game wears out its welcome.
Very fun if you're into a certain type of old-school roleplaying sensibility. I beat it in about 14 hours, and I was happy with the length. There were, however, a few problems: a game-breaking bug occured in hour 12 where a certain key did not spawn. I spent two hours looking for it before giving up and looking online; it turns out it was right where I was looking, but it just didn't occur in my game. I had to resort to hacks to finish the game. Combat is exciting and quick, but results in a lot of kiting and map-jumping for mages. Overall, very fun despite the bugs and I'm looking forward to playing the other two.
I loved the first 25 hours of Dragon Age. I beat Baldur's Gate: EE earlier this year and this game felt truly like the culmination of what they'd been trying to do there. As the game wore on, though, a lot of the systems felt flat. I played the first 25% on nightmare difficulty, then next 50% on hard, and the last 25% on normal--it just kept GOING and I was getting more and more anxious to be done. A couple of plot-related events having to do with your party's composition toward the very end of the game soured about the last 5-10 hours of the game for me, which was disappointing. I would say that pacing is the primary problem with the game. My playthrough took 60 hours, during which time I got to about level 19--more than 3 hours per level up, averaged across the whole game. I got a tier 7 weapon for my main character very early and didn't find an upgrade from the next 30+ hours, which was disappointing. The last 12 hours of the game or so featured a mix between epic, story-culminating battles and weird fetch quests and city guard work, which felt out of place that late in the story. Over all, I recommend this game for real fans of the genre, but I recommend AGAINST playing it on anything other than casual or normal mode. It's not that it's too hard, but the game simply has WAY too much combat without enough variety to support a game that long. I think I liked it more than Baldur's Gate, but paradoxically I would prefer to play Baldur's Gate again before I played this one over.
Much better than I expected. I played on hard mode and won in 42 hours, 32 minutes. Good value, especially on sale. I finished probably 2/3 - 3/4 of the quests. The combat opens up considerably later in the game, although even then a smart use of alchemy makes even the toughest fights too easy. The hellhound fight at the beginning is probably the hardest in the game, especially if you think (like I did) that the death of an NPC in game will change the story outcome--don't worry, they come back if the get knocked out. The game's writing is irregular, but touches excellence several times, especially as you get closer to the end. The story suffers from the same problem that Baldur's Gate does--it expects you to complete certain quests in a certain order, and if you don't things don't always make sense. For example: there's a "twist" in chapter 3 that changes what you thought you learned at the beginning of that chapter. Somehow, I missed the twist. When the characters expound upon it later on, my Geralt spoke right along with them--even though, as far as my character was concerned, the twist had never happened. He should have been surprised/confused! Overall, definitely worth a playthrough, although I don't think I'll need to play again. I paid $0.03 per hour for this game, which puts it in one of the top value games in my opinion.
This game came out when I was 11. I bought it a year or two after release, but the huge open world and massive amount of content was too much for me to beat back then, and I forgot about the game. When I saw it pop up on GOG, I decided to give it another shot--especially given how I've read about how great it was. I was disappointed. It's not a BAD game, per se, although it does suffer some from D&D's lack of tactical options at low levels for most characters. Instead, the problem is the writing. I've heard from many people how strong the writing is in this game, but I thought it was, for the most part, laughable. Dialogue was cheesy. If your met an old lady trying to cross the street with groceries, your options would only be, "Let me carry you AND your groceries across the street, and buy you a whole new bag of groceries to go on top of this one!" and "I'm going to push you in front of a bus. Buhnernuerner!" Spastic evil and ludicrous good, and chock full of humor aimed squarely at 14 year olds. To make it worse, many of the story lines are triggered by location rather than quest progress. I was confused at many points of the story because of dialogue options and quest trees that referenced people and places I had not visited or met yet, only to learn after beating the game that I would have met those characters if I'd gone in another order--but I still had all the dialogue options as if I had. Honestly, this is a game that's probably worth a play through. I got about 40 hours out of it for $10 on sale, and I don't feel like I was ripped off. It's okay--but it certainly is not great, though.
I've spent several hundred hours in Morrowind--more than any other single player game. I made dungeons with the editor, played it in the back of slow college classes, and even got my girlfriend hooked on it. I've trained skills until I had infinite flight or invisibility, and I've slowly walked hundreds of in-game miles to explore the old fashioned way. I've bought morrowind three times: once when it was new, once as the GOTY edition on disc, and once again for Xbox. I'll be buying this one when my computer finally croaks and I need to get a new version for a computer without a disc drive. The only downsides in this game involve the systems underlying the game: once you understand how leveling works, it's hard NOT to be a powerleveling min/maxer. If that doesn't bug you, or you're able to resist doing it until you've beaten the game, GET THIS NOW.
