"Just another action RPG"

Introduction

After 5 years of waiting new part of Gothic series came out. Being a huge fan of the series I expected much. I was mistaken. Why? Read on...

When it was originally published, this game was highly un-polished product. It had plenty of bugs and it's hardware optimization was a disaster. Luckily, developers managed to remove almost all bugs with latest 1.12 patch, so now it's almost bug-free game.

Game-play

Many people complain about bugs and optimization, but I honestly think they are wrong. That is not Gothic 's problem. It's problem is that it's actually a very simple fantasy hack & slash game. I am big fan of first 2 parts of the series, so this was huge disappointment for me. I expected interesting side quests, world that felt alive, maybe even some puzzles...I have got nothing of that. You are given a huge world, full of monsters to kill and treasure to find. And that is it. Entire game is based on traveling through out the world, and killing monsters.

Ironically combat sucks. Some people don't like combat from previous Gothic games, but I found it great. You had to use tactics, you had to think... In this game combat is all about pressing left mouse button, and hoping that you will hit something. That works great when fighting humanoid enemies (orcs, bandits...) but not when fighting wild animals. It has never been so hard to kill a wolf. Wolfs are very fast, so you can't hit them before they hit you. And of course, 3 bites from a single wolf are enough to kill you. This applies to all wild animals. There are a lot more bad things about combat, but I hope this is enough. To put it simple, combat is very, very frustrating.

Atmosphere is another bad thing about this game. G1 and G2 had dark, medieval atmosphere and that is what people liked about them. Atmosphere in this game better suits games like Fable, than Gothic. If it is called Gothic, it should be gothic. Cartoon-like flowers are scattered around the world, orcs look childish...

Story

Story is OK. Nothing spectacular, but all fans of Gothic series got used to that. Fans will be delighted with some moments of the story (like finally meeting king Rhobar) but overall it is rather average.

Graphics/Sound

Music is very good, but unfortunately, it doesn't fit into medieval setting, just like design. Graphic is good. It's worse than Oblivion's, but it has something...It is simply cute. On my old, out-dated machine game was almost un-playable. On my new machine, which is slightly above average it works great.

Sound is bad, voice acting sounds horrible...

Conclusion

All gamers who like huge, open-ended, Oblivion-like RPG-s should give it a shoot. Hardcore RPG gamers should move along. They will be disappointed if they try it out, especially if they played G1 or G2 before.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/06/07