Morrowind - Retrospective @ Edge

Edge Online has a Morrowind retrospective, titled Time Extend.  The article is an edited version of one previously published in their magazine, in it looks familiar:

Before we continue with that, let’s first consider Morrowind’s enticing outset. Despite the aforementioned cliché, the genre blend is alluring enough: a world composed of believably solid 3D space, explored in firstperson (or thirdperson, if you want an inferior time) and home to a continental sprawl of real-estate to explore: towns, caves, settlements, mines, forts, several thousand individual NPCs and several hundred thousand hand-placed objects. Despite its character-class system leaning towards archetype, the attraction is that you get to be it, not just wield it. Thieves stalk, sneak and steal like Sam Fisher minus the minigames. Assassins skulk and snipe. Warriors blunder and bludgeon. Not, of course, that you’re ever constrained to a fated choice; such decisions only affect your start-out stats. Beginning as a nameless, faceless, homeless presence stowed in the hull of a ship, you’re docked at the town of Seyda Neen, ushered into the customs and excise building to rattle through the paperwork. Choose a race, appearance, name, star sign, class (or craft your own), and you’re handed some official orders as a trail of breadcrumbs to get you going. And then – BAM! – the world is your oyster. Go wherever. Do whatever. You’re left to your own devices, just as you’ve always wanted. The trouble with Morrowind, however, is that it’s an oyster you’ve got to prise open with your bare hands.