Morrowind: Bloodmoon Expansion

No, I don't think this bear is a Catholic

I have always found the concept of an expansion pack for Morrowind to be bizarre - the game is so vast that to expand it any further borders on lunacy. It is like Willy Fog coming back from his 80 day world trip, being shoved into a Delorean car with Michael J Fox and then being told to do it all again 10 years in the future.

Needless to say, Bethesda listened to their fans (and their accountants) and created an expansion anyway. It brings new monsters, new weapons and armour, more characters and even more caves and caverns to explore.

New Arrival

Didn't I see you in the Matrix film?

Upon installing Bloodmoon, an extra continent appears in the top left corner of the world map and you can get there either by boat, swimming or levitating across. I am lazy, and so took the nautical route as any civilised person would. Once you arrive at Solstheim (the name of the continent), you see that the Imperials have whacked a big fort right on the coast and this is your first port of call. An enterprising businessman from Vvardenfell has decided to take advantage of the resources on offer on this frozen continent and setup a mining colony - and you get to be a part of it all.

Frozen continent? Ah, yes - Solstheim is a bitter and horrible place. Most of it is covered in snow, fierce blizzards rage at night and the monsters are the nastiest of the lot so far. None of the people who have travelled to this place are happy, because the place is so cold and horrible and the Imperial guards stationed at the fort are the grumpiest of the lot.

What’s Yours is Mined

Seriously, he is more scared than you are

It is the mining colony that is at the heart of just about everything that goes on, and it is quite a departure from what you have done on Morrowind before. As you undertake various tasks which take you all around the continent, the colony itself gets bigger and bigger as more people arrive and build residential dwellings. The actual mine itself gets deeper and deeper as the game goes on as well, and you also get deeply involved in the political side of things - you soon have to choose whether to ally with the corrupt businessman or take the side of the more honest and genuine person who is actually in charge of building and maintaining the colony itself.

Back at the fort, things are happening as well - the head of the guards often requires your help, as do some of the clerics. I don't really want to say too much without giving away what happens, but you do get heavily involved in what is going on and many of your decisions and actions have a bearing on what happens later on.

Elsewhere on this Island of Ice are native tribal people who are very wary of you and resent the presence of the colony that is slowly growing each day. They have their own 'Gods' and hold the other animals in high regard. As you would expect you also get heavily involved with these people, and you soon learn where the title 'Bloodmoon' comes from - these natives adhere to their Bloodmoon Prophecies and constantly worry for their future.

Power Failure

And then the barman said "why the long face?"

Technically, this game is a bit of a pig. Whilst most of Morrowind was full of mountains and hills, Bloodmoon is very flat and open. This often means that whilst you are wandering around on the surface the game will chug along at a horrible framerate - and this on my Barton AthlonXP 2500, 512DDR RAM and a GeForce 4 Ti4200. This isn't helped by the sheer number of enemies that you will encounter - having up to six or eight enemies chasing after you is not uncommon. I haven't ever actually been impressed by the graphics in Morrowind, and the same goes for Bloodmoon. Whilst it certainly looks different from what you have seen before it still isn't anything amazing - character models are still quite blocky, textures are blurry and some of the animation is questionable. Seeing the same faces being re-used all the time is very odd as well.

Sound wise, nothing has changed though the other characters seem to have more lines to say when you are standing near them. Some of them are actually quite amusing as well... I didn't notice any new music, although the soundtrack has always been pretty good anyway. The new enemies have their own grunts and squeals, though this isn't necessarily a good thing - one of the new monsters is a boar and it's constant pig-like squealing gets extremely irritating very quickly. You will often hear it when wandering around, even though you can't actually see one.

Conflicting Interest

I remember when this was all fields.

For the most part, this expansion can be very engaging. Bethesda have introduced some great new ideas with the colony aspect, and the political squabbles that go on are very well thought out with some events even leading you back to places like Ald'ruhn on the mainland. However, there seems to be far too much too'ing and fro'ing at times. Having to walk from one end of the island to the other in order to fulfil a quest or task gets very tiresome, especially as the nature of the landscape makes it repetitive. This isn't helped by the staggering number of hostile creatures that you will encounter. Combat has never been very much fun in this game, and the sheer number of monsters you will encounter soon becomes very dull and boring.

Crushed Like a Bug in a Rug

Looks like someone else got upset with the game crashing all the time

Bugs have been a long time resident in Morrowind, and Bloodmoon continues this tradition. I have had problems with the infamous Crash to Desktop ever since I first got it, and this was even before I upgraded my CPU, motherboard and RAM. Despite me applying all the available patches, and not even using any mods (all I have are the Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions) Bloodmoon has made the situation even worse. Before it was almost bearable, but now it is ridiculous - it must CTD about once an hour on me.

Morrowind then - sometimes annoying, often frustrating but mostly great. I would have awarded it an 8, but the fact that the CTD problem STILL hasn't been fixed really grates. The awful frame-rate and annoying combat doesn't help it either. Some people may think I am being unfair, but these things got in the way of my entertainment - and so it loses one point from the final score.