A version of this release is also available for the PC, and is recommended over the Xbox version mostly because this game remains better suited on the PC. All the text is easier to read, the game runs more smoothly on today's average system than it does on the Xbox, a whole slew of downloadable user-created content is available, and the loading times are shorter. (However, if you have the combination of a good home theater and a bad PC, then this Xbox version is certainly the way to go.)
Furthermore, one important aspect of the updated PC version of Morrowind unfortunately didn't make it into the Xbox version of Morrowind Game of the Year Edition: an organized journal. In the original release of the game, one consequence of being able to travel anywhere in a huge, open-ended world and to take on countless quests from countless non-player characters was that all those quests would be annotated in chronological order in a journal that, before long, would be the size of a novel. Trying to track down the name of the character or the destination of a quest, much less remember which quests you still had pending and which quests you'd already finished, could be a real headache. This problem was addressed in a patch for the PC version of Morrowind, which allowed you to browse your journal by quest and filter out completed quests. Apparently, though, some technical issues prevented this feature from being easily imported into this Xbox rerelease. Regardless of what could have been, though, the difficulty of keeping track of your quests is still a big problem in the Xbox version of Morrowind Game of the Year Edition.
Another rather serious issue is that the loading times in Morrowind Game of the Year Edition are almost painfully long--not so much when transitioning from one area to the next, but definitely so when loading a saved game, such as after you're killed. It seems as though the addition of all the new content means there's a lot more that the game needs to keep track of, and this directly falls to the loading-time bottom line. For what it's worth, Morrowind is among the worst games imaginable for gamers seeking instant gratification, whereas more-patient gamers are the ones who tend to find its unique style of gameplay to be richly rewarding; this latter group of players shouldn't mind the loading times too much, since this isn't a fast-paced game anyway. Also, it bears mentioning that some users are experiencing crashes and dirty disc errors with Morrowind Game of the Year Edition, though we didn't encounter any such problems ourselves. Bethesda has acknowledged the issue and posted details on how to circumvent it on the game's official message boards.
There's a ton of new content in Morrowind Game of the Year Edition, but it's ideal only for very patient gamers.
The game's visuals have aged noticeably, but they still look good. The sketchy frame rate and occasionally ugly character models and animations are offset by lush, realistic-looking terrain and beautiful weather effects. The new areas of the game do boast some attractive, new scenery to explore, and fans of the original game will appreciate the contrast. Morrowind's audio remains mostly unchanged; the game's orchestral soundtrack is memorable largely because of how often it repeats, though it's certainly well done. Some speech is used for the nonplayer characters, but Morrowind relies very heavily on text-based dialogue, which can be a hard pill to swallow coming off of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and its impressive use of full speech.
Knights of the Old Republic may be the premier Xbox role-playing game, but Morrowind still compares favorably to that game in many ways. It's not nearly as well paced or as focused, and its characters aren't nearly as interesting, but it's far more open-ended and encourages you to go wherever you want and try whatever you want. In fact, if you haven't played Morrowind yet but you did cut your teeth on Knights of the Old Republic, you should give Morrowind Game of the Year Edition a try. Though the individual aspects of the gameplay aren't always very satisfying in and of themselves, the sum total of all that there is to see and do in Morrowind is nothing short of remarkable.
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