While Morrowind is incredibly immense, the various bugs that plague the gameplay and lag sap the enjoyment a while later
The story of the game centers around your character (which you customize through a fairly deep system of menus) and how he/she/it/whatever is a chosen one in some ancient prophecy. Yes, the story seems to be ripped right out of every generic medieval adventure tale and pieced together into a single game! My disdain for the generic nature of the story aside, its well-written and can draw you in at certain points; that is, if you're willing to scroll through pages of text to try and find the point of every message, book, and conversation your character comes across.
Thankfully, if you ever lose track of anything you were supposed to be doing, the game lets your character keep a journal that's easily accessed and, most of the time, keeps important information stowed away. The only drawback to the journal is that every message is recorded in order of when you get a new entry, leaving no options to organize your character's notes and giving the player the burden of having to flip through pages and pages of unrelated information until they finally come across the entry they were looking for. Also, some of the minor quests can become impossible to complete because sometimes the journal won't even hint to the location of the person you talked to in case you need to get back to them.
But enough about the sketchy storytelling; how's the gameplay? Well, the best word I could use would be "erratic" (and not in a good way). Although some parts of the game (such as combat and speaking to others) are alright, a few technical issues hinder every single aspect of the game, right down to its ability to run.
The frame rate is so wildly unpredictable and easy to slow down that even having your character alone on the screen can sometimes cause it to chug along (and possibly even freeze). This problem's made much worse when you're fighting more than one enemy at a time, which causes the game to freeze anywhere from one second-permanently. The other thing that causes the horrible lag is having any weather effects that aren't clear and sunny skies. When it starts to rain or sandstorm in the area you're in, the game starts to chug along and possibly even go back to the title screen because it couldn't load whatever needed to be loaded.
Another horribly visible weakness is the amount of bugs. The collision detection is so odd that you'll be able to climb up a mountain, but you won't be able to get over a tiny hill for some magical reason. Also, plenty of the corners of the interiors aren't properly mapped, making it easy to slip into a black abyss or get stuck inside a corner for all eternity.
Yet another problem with Morrowind is how utterly moronic the AI is. In fact, the enemies are so stupid that they're actually able to keep you from advancing in the game by blocking doors with their bodies and walking in place. When this happens (and it'll happen a lot), you'll have to exit the area and hope that they were smart enough to get out of the door's way so you can advance. Another incident is when enemies kill themselves by accidentally falling off of high ledges or stepping into large pools of molten lava. In fact, sometimes you can bait them into walking off a ledge by simply standing on the other side and letting them take the life-ending plunge they deserve for being so stupid.
The last problem (well, I guess you could call it a nitpick) is how easily distracted you can get from your original quest. I literally spent over 20 hours doing miscellaneous activities before I even got the first task done. This 20 hours of wandering around and looking for stuff made my character so advanced that the next group of quests were laughably easy (although the miscellaneous activities are really where the difficulty comes around to rip your limbs off). I guess having an immensely short attention span can pay off in a game like Morrowind where the storyline can take a back seat to wandering around, but it also has drawbacks. The worst thing about getting distracted in Morrowind is having to sift through your inventory and hope that you didn't drop anything related to whatever you were supposed to be doing and look through your journal to see how to get back on track.
But I'll be fair and state what I enjoyed about this game. Its the only RPG that actually made me want to play for more than what the main story provided. In fact, there are plenty of great things to discover in the world of Morrowind.
Despite the flaws previously mentioned, Morrowind is easily the most addictive game I've ever played on any system. I'm not sure how it manages to be so addictive regardless of all the flaws and bugs it has, but they're not bad enough to make me stop playing for good.
Secondly, I liked how many skills the game lets you have and how you can pick certain ones that influence how you level up (which sometimes makes it cheap, considering how easy some skills are to advance in). The diversity of the skills allows you to choose from plenty of classes and even gives you the option to create your own if you please.
Thirdly, the amount of locations you could explore is wondrously massive. Even though the locations lack diversity, the artistic detail put into the types of areas, enemies, and characters in general is nicely done. In fact, the musical score for Morrowind is excellently produced, even though it can get annoying if you play too long.
Last of all, the level of customization beyond the basic character generation is impressive. The ability to rename and assign special abilities to weapons, armor, and various clothing items is very well thought out and even gives the item a special glow. The game even allows the player to create their own spells with their own special combinations of effects. There's even more customization options with the ability to make your own potions that can be used at your disposal at any time (even though they might have unforseen consequences).
Overall, Morrowind is a highly addictive game that should be avoided for those with short attention spans and have busy lives. However, the addictive gameplay and depth is perfect for any hardcore RPG fan. Even so, the game is plagued by so many glitches and lag issues that the experience dwindles down from a massive experience to an exercise in patience and frustration. It may be best to steer clear of this one if you lack the commitment, attention span, or temper for such a game.