Download The Elder Scrolls II for free News

I just wish they had released either the source code and/or some mod tools for this too.. I mean, this game is BEGGING for a high resolution mod! Or for some genius to make the software renderer into a hardware renderer.. Yeah, likely :P

Still great news!

There needs to be more werewolf games

Reads more like a 9.

Couldn't it have been Elderscrolls III at least that's still playable

Daggerfall WAS the 90s for me.

Best review ever. If it's a 10/10 and free, I'll have a look :)

This game had some great features, and I loved it to bits at the time, but it has aged badly. You wait till you meet a bat in a dungeon, the sound it makes will shatter the leneses of your rose tinted glasses.

One thing it should have taught ES 3 and 4 though, is that climbing into roofs is fun.


(something I learned today, the word "rooves", plural of roof, apparently no longer exists. When the hell did THAT happen?)

Daggerfall was ace but the bugs made it unplayable for me.

"(something I learned today, the word "rooves", plural of roof, apparently no longer exists. When the hell did THAT happen?) "

September 19th, 1999, 2:08pm.

Christ, I had forgotten just how stupendously huge this game was. Just ojne region of the map is almmost as large as Oblivion. Of course, size isn't everything, but it just shows how "old school" rpgs were back then.

Also, getting stuck in collision is common, but there is some key stroke combination for bumping your character upwards about 10 inches. I can't remember what it is, but just so you know it exists (and can track it down).

Note that it comes with the patch but it isn't patched. You have to run that from the supplied folder. Oh, and you can't do the "Huge" install unless you edit DOSbox to have a larger image size ("-freesize 1000" is enough).

Some useful files and fixes here:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Files

I had to giggle when I saw the screenshots for this game yesterday... they looked like ones taken from a Nintendo DS or a iPhone game! Just shows how much technology has progressed really since 1996.

Darren - it looked old even when it came out. But it has depth.

The criticisms made them tart it up for Morrowind, but it was simplified a lot. They tarted it even more for Oblivion but it was even more shallow. Daggerfall with Fallout 3 graphics would be fantastic but sales would be poor as it's quite intimidating.

I think I will pass...

@kangarootoo

I remember there was a key combination for teleporting your character to the last known standing position, for all those instances when you sink into The Void. A quick Google search nets this:

ALT-F11: If you fall into the void, pressing this will take you back to the previous object you were standing on. This can help you get out of the void when you fall into it. NOTE: You do not need cheat mode activated to use this command. It is always available.

Needs patch v2.12 or later.

I loved the game and I played it fairly recently (some five years ago, I'd say). Every The Elder Scrolls game has something that makes it better than any other. For Arena it was the atmosphere (still unmatched, as far as I'm concerned) and for Daggerfall it was the scale and the sheer amount of things you could do (scaled down in Morrowind and probably Oblivion, which I sadly haven't played yet). Playing as Mage can become a tad boring at later levels, though, as the spell absorption/spell reflection/custom fireball at close range combination takes care of most of the enemies and doesn't even spend your mana (it reflects back to you and you absorb it :)). A majestic game, really.

Anyway, those of you to play it for the first time might find this quite useful.

EDIT: This one is nice as well.

EDIT2: No, wait, you don't need spell reflection, it's splash damage from the fireball that reflects back to you and turns into mana. Spell reflection is a defensive spell for reflecting spells back to the caster.

More Twitter-esque reviews from Ellie!

I remember I couldn't play this game for more than a couple of days at a time - I got bored and annoyed. Then I had to take a week long break and then could resume play. Had to cheat my way through the final dungeon - infinite flying, I think.

Any Ultima will be miles better than this, but it's still a great game!

Wow, look at the tech specs for Arena

Minimum system requirements:
386/25 MHZ, DOS 5.0, 4MB RAM, 25MB HD Space, VGA graphics card

I remember playing a demo of that on my 486 back in the day. It ran like shit.

Possibly, I played it on a 75 MHz Pentium and it ran just fine. Although, at first I thought it was sluggish as well, but then I realized it was only my character's actions that were sluggish because of his low stats. As they improved, everything became much smoother.

I'd rather celebrate the 15th anniversary or whatever by hearing the announcement of Elder Scrolls V.

Wonder if the bug that has you falling through the floor in dungeons all the time is still there! Great game though and the reason I bought a gaming pc in the first place. Well, I say gaming. Just had a voodoo gfx card in it :P

"Wonder if the bug that has you falling through the floor in dungeons all the time is still there! Great game though and the reason I bought a gaming pc in the first place. Well, I say gaming. Just had a voodoo gfx card in it :P "

Voodoo gfx card was overkill for Arena - it was a software engine afterall! Weaker than Doom as I recall.

Was the first game where you could swing the sword with your mouse 'realistically' as far as I can remember too.

"Was the first game where you could swing the sword with your mouse 'realistically' as far as I can remember too."

Die by the Sword was King in that respect. Another nugget of gaming greatness (though not as old as Daggerfall I guess). DbtS would let you chop off an enemies sword arm (which it was still holding the enemy's sword), then pick it up and hit other enemies with this 8 foot appendage of arm still holding sword.

Brilliant review!

"Full of bugs. Looks like it was made in 1996. You can be a werewolf though. Also it has tits. 10/10."

Ellie, best EG review ever. Makes me want to buy it even though it's free! Might have a look only ever played Oblivion.

Have to agree with the_dudefather one this one "There needs to be more werewolf games"

I watched the end of American Werewolf In London the other night and saw a game right there! Someone do one go on...

/ howls at the moon

Nice review ellie

Wait, hasn't this been a free download for some time now?
I distinctly remember downloading an Elderscrolls game maybe a year or two ago from Bethesda's site.

@Spekingur
That will be Arena I am guessing.

Yes, it might have been Arena.

Not the best game ever or anything, but at least it's got better gameplay than Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3. Unfortunalety all Bethesda games - no matter how new or old they are - have the same basic faults; generic game worlds, quantity over quality and a character development system that is fundamentally broken in one way or the other.

Bethesda...Bethesda never changes.

Never said no to a free oldie...

There is definitely no denying that werewolves make it 187% more awesome