The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

The greatest strength of Morrowind is that you can go anywhere and do anything. You have much more freedom than any other Console game. You have the power to deviate from or completely ignore the plot, complete quests in nearly any order, even destroy key plot characters and ruin the story. The world (island) seems vast with dozens of cities and thousands of citizens. The weaknesses are a somewhat buggy and imbalanced game play.

One of the most frustrating thing in almost any game is to see a place that, as a normal human, you could easily walk too but in the game you are prohibited. Maybe there is an impassible one foot high fence or a cliff you cannot fall from. In morrowind there are no such restrictions. If you can see, and can find the means, you can get there. Some mountains are too steep to ascend, until you can levitate. Some seas are too deep to reach the bottom, until you breath water. Some towns are floating above the clouds and you must fly to them. There are no cheesy limitations on modes of travel. It may be best to take the boat out to the island fortress, but you can swim, walk or fly if you have the means.

That same degree of freedom carries over to the rest of the game. You could almost beat the whole game without fighting. You can level by being a good diplomat, trader, or craftsman just as easily as being a more traditional wizard, warrior or thief. And you can steal anything you can see, no more walking into a store with all the goods lying around and magically protected by the plot. Of course, if you get caught you get thrown in jail, which costs time and money unless you can escape. Really though, jail is bad because you lose skills, so never get caught. You can design your own spell variations, and your own magic items. Sometimes, your items and spells are better, sometimes not, but the choice is yours.

When you first start the game, and you walk as fast as a real (slow) person, the island is vast. You start in a little town with a few starter quests to get you familiar with the controls. As you advance, you get a little faster and you use the various mass transit options, things are still huge but a little more manageable. It is wonderful to be able to run into the sea and drown or be eaten by a fish, fall off a cliff or tall building to your doom, or otherwise perish in all the silly ways that most games protect you from. But as you advance, some of the flaws in the game stand out.

As you explore the world, your saved game grows and grows, and at some point it gets unwieldy and the game becomes unstable. If you just play the main quests through this will probably never happen, but trying to discover all the content and hidden treasures in the game is apparently too much. Once you get to certain point in exploration, you must save pretty often. The other big bug is that, once you fly a lot, most maps have holes in the walls you can slip through to avoid the map. This is a nice time saver, but it can be a spoiler for some things.

It is a little too easy to become absurdly powerful. Alchemy is a good example of this. With some basic skill in alchemy you can create intelligence potions, which boosts your skill in alchemy, which lets you make better intelligence potions, until all your potions are so powerful they are unusable. You can easily get to the point where you can cross the island in a few seconds, where a beginning character would literally take days. Really, I love the fact that the game is imbalanced and freeform, but it should be a little harder to tilt the game in your favor.