More like overkill: Morrowind Overhaul

Way back in the distant past of June 2010, you may remember that my first ever article on this website was a rundown of a Something Awful walkthrough to making Morrowind into a game that is too stunning for its own right. From the screenshots I took of it, I failed to capture the dual senses of “why” and “where can I download this and will you take all of my money.” Actually, I think I captured the first sense fairly well, but the second sense suffered a bit. Coincidentally, the first two comments were one person wishing for a archive with everything, and the second saying that it would never, ever happen. Oh look, it happened.

All of the various enhancement mods have been contained into one easy-to-install but gigantic package (about 1.13GB zipped, 3.34GB unzipped). I say easy-to-install because you run the install program and vvwoop, it’s done, combined with the fact that you don’t need to plumb the dark and occasionally unsavory bits of Internet hell trying to find the right texture for your virtual garments.

All I can really say about this mod is that I like it. I usually can’t stand using texture packs for world terrain and things that change anything too drastically, lest I fall into apoplectic fits that generally leave at least one precious object in pieces on a floor somewhere. Morrowind Overhaul manages to fit in a texture pack that doesn’t anger the purist in me. Also, it gives you a fair amount of control over what it installs. You’re still pretty much stuck with the host of texture replacements and mesh enhancers, but you can choose if you want more trees or less trees in certain areas, more or less grass in similar areas, people running about in the nude or merely in their skivvies, or if you want your tea hot, cold or somewhere in the middle.

This all pales in comparison to my God, that depth of field effect is beautiful. Ahem. The depth of field in this mod is serious fantastically awesome. I’m extremely easily amused because oh man you can focus in on someone and it blurs everything else and when you look away it blurs what’s closer to you; this is the best thing ever.

Morrowind Overhaul is worth a download, I think. It doesn’t radically change everything visually, so it’s still pretty true to the original’s look and feel. There’s also absolutely no gameplay changes, so you can either not worry about that or install your own gameplay modifications if you so choose. The only real barrier for entry is the large download size and the slight (MGE-created) tweaking that you have to do post-install to make the game look perfect. It’s rather well documented, so installing it was easy enough. MGE was my hang-up, and it generally has been every time I’ve used it, sheerly because of the amount of stuff packed inside it. It only serves to stave off the so-called “aging” of older game graphics, so there’s really not much to lose.

Here’s the site.