Why you should play Morriwind if you have only played Oblivion.

If you have only played Oblivion in the ES series I would strongly advise you to try Morrowind, the GOTY edition can be found cheaply and many fans feel it is as good/better than oblivion and here is why.

Firstly the environments are much more varied: Swamps, Deserts with towns made out of giant shells, mountain ranges, caves, a snow island (in GOTY) and robot fortresses to name a few, the game is very alien compared to Oblivion which has forest, Oblivion realm, caves and Mountains.

The main quest is different with you being the main focus instead of a helper to the heir. You character is viewed differently by various NPCs as the quest goes on and you fulfill the prophecy.

One point that can be good/bad depending on how you view it is that there is no voice acting for conversations (there is some in game though) so there is much much more dialogue and exposition than you would get with Oblivion.

The leveling system is better as enemies don't scale to your power. In Oblvion you are always on a level playing field and by the end of the game common bandits have the best weapons/armor just to match you which is very unlikely. In Oblvion most bandits would be equipped with glass armor while there is only 1/2 sets in the whole game in MW and are very hard to get hold of. In Morrowind the start of the game is a real challenge with even small enemies posing a challenge but after a few hours you can cut your way through much more enemies and that gives you a much better feeling of getting stronger.

For side-quests I would argue Morrowind is better due to the fact it doesn't hold your hand, Oblivion has some great quests (going into the painting) but most are follow the quest marker and kill enemy, Morrowind has no quest marker which means you have to follow directions to reach your target and searching for hidden objects actually takes a lot of effort, this makes quest much less boring as you are more involved.

Weapons, magic and armor in MW are much better, there are far more kind of each in both type and material. You can use crossbows, spears, throwing knives/stars to name a few. There are also more weapon skills. The same applied for armor as you get light, medium and heavy. This all allows for a much greater degree of customization than in Oblivion. There are more spells that make the mage class more fun such as flight and blinding.

The guilds in MW are better by a wide margin than Oblivion, firstly there are far more of them and you need to be good in their class to advance, no longer can a swordsman become the grand mage. You can join the imperial legion, various churches and cults, an assassins guild who are the Dark Brotherhood's mortal enemy, vampire clans, elven houses and trading companies to name a few.

Some negatives to MW are that the combat is pretty bad, your chance to hit with a weapon is limited by your weapon skill so at the start you will freqently miss with any weapon, even an arrow will miss at point blank.

The game is also harder to get into as you are dumped into the world, given some cash and a place to go and then you are on your own from there on and this can be quite confusing.

Oblivion is a great game but I just thought I'd say its worth going back and picking up this classic for those of you who haven't.