Sunday, March 12, 2006

The Elder Scrolls: Arena Available for Free


I've been browsing the official site for The Elder Scrolls, going over the history of Tamriel and the past games, and I discovered that Bethesda Softworks has released the original game, The Elder Scrolls: Arena, as a free download. Originally released in 1994 for the PC, the game can still run on most older systems, and Bethesda has a link to a DOS emulator for newer Windows 2000 and XP based systems.

Since my system is good old Windows 98 SE, I didn't need an emulator and got things working, however it is extremely old styled and I don't think I'll be able to get into it. I created a female Wood Elven Assassin named Tim, and began my escape of the Imperial dungeon, however I encountered one very large problem: I couldn't figure out how to attack with my Short Sword. This means a simple little Goblin was able to slay me, and I lost interest. The controls are also real sluggish and lack the responsiveness of 1993's Doom.

What did impress me though was the lore already shown of the world of Tamriel at that time, and how much of it; the races, provinces, and history, are intact and virtually unchanged between The Elder Scrolls: Arena and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

If you're interested in giving this classic a try, you can download it from the official Elder Scrolls site here.

2 comments:

Juxtapose said...

Hi night dragon,

Hmm, I think I may also have had an issue with sounds.

The music works fine, but come to think of it I can't recall hearing much in the way of sound effects in the game.

What system are you running? I have an Intel Pentium 4 1.6Ghz with an ECS P4S5A Mainboard, 512 MB of DDRam, a nVidia GeForce4 MX 440, a Creative Labs SoundBlaster 5.1 (with SoundBlaster 16 emulation) and Windows 98 Second Edition.

Juxtapose said...

Well, I'm running a Windows 98 Second Edition system, so I don't need a DOS emulator as I have DOS.

But who knows, maybe it has a problem with my SoundBlaster 16 Emulation.

Anyway, I tinkered with it a little more, but couldn't get into it.

For now, I'll just stick with The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Game of the Year Edition on my Xbox.

Thanks!