"More like Morrowind than Oblivion"

Brief Review: It definitely has depth and a good feeling of immersion and role playing. Those who like non-linear games where you get to create your own story will like this. The negatives deal with two main faults- poor performance even on good computers and a combat system that is seriously lacking in the fun department.

Story: 8/10-
You are thrust into the midst of a continent in strife. Orcs have taken over most of the land. The cool part is that you can choose to serve your orc masters and kill the pesky rebels bent on taking back their kingdom. Or you can be a boring good guy and help the rebels! Or, if you want to stretch the boundaries of the game's story system, you can help one side to gain their trust, only to stab them in the back later!

The continent is divided into three lands (plains, ice, and desert) that each have their own background, sets of towns, and stories going on. There are several important storyline quests (that I will refer to as main storyline quests because they tend to involve traveling all over the land to assemble a collection of some God's rare artifacts) that you have to do some exploring to stumble upon and activate. The bulk of the quests are local to certain towns, and completing them will improve your reputation with that town or faction.

Quests tend to have more than one way to finish them, which is one reason I compare this game to Morrowind. This allows for a more immersive role playing experience; but like Morrowind, this game's combat system is its weakness.

The plot itself is a continuation of the first two games, but they reference them in passing. You can certainly enjoy this game with no prior storyline knowledge of the first two, and if you have played the others, it will throw you a few bones here and there. But it's mostly about how awesome your character is from the start of the game- because he killed the bosses of the previous games afterall!

Gameplay: 4/10-
The combat, which is designed to take place in 3rd person, feels like an arcade slash-n-smash like the newer Gauntlet games. Unfortunately, the AI wasn't designed to handle situations where you have to fight a dozen or more enemies at the same time, which the majority of combat in this game is. Enemies are programed to back peddle when you are doing your advancing slashes... but this carries over even when you are slashing away from them with your back turned. Many enemies will be so intimidated by your advancing slashes that all 12 of them will stand paralyzed while you hack them all to pieces one-by-one.

Sure, there are the occasional monsters that will benefit more from you RIGHT clicking them to death as opposed to left clicking. Most battles are insanely easy because your opponent won't be able to DO anything when you are repeatedly hacking them. The difference between Boss orcs and Scout orcs is simply the number of hacks it takes before they are dead. Certain kinds of wildlife, however, will be quick enough that you can't repeatedly bash them, and they will attack in groups. So basically you just run from these guys because they WILL own you in the same way you own human enemies- namely, by hitting you 10 times in a row without giving you a chance to do anything.

There are other options, though. You can fight with archery or magic. You can also use exploding arrows and poisoned blades and magic scrolls. So there are options to suit your role-playing needs. Character building is rewarding because you level reasonably fast and get 10 learning points every level to spend in virtually any area from magic to archery to alchemy to thieving to improving your stats. Local quests, which are fast to complete, give you a ton of experience. Therefore, you never end up grinding on monsters.

Performance: 4/10-
My computer can play Oblvion on rather high settings, but this game manhandles my rig. It has been said that this is because of poor optimization where everything loads simultaneously. Just make sure to turn off every single background program and learn to deal with the choppiness. The game has also crashed on me a couple of times.

There is one gripe that does affect gameplay. Quicksaving pauses the game for a good 10 seconds while quickloading takes more like 20, and you will need to quicksave and re-load often because of "cheap deaths."

Sound: 7/10-
The music is beautiful fitting, although constantly hearing the battle music gets old. I was surprised how well the voice acting in this game was. It is mature and rarely cheesy. It is obvious that the same voice actors play multiple characters, but the voice work is so generic sounding (I don't mean that in a bad way) that you probably won't notice until 30 or so hours into the game. There are also no phony, over-the-top olde worlde Medieval accents, thank God.

Battle sound effects do their job, although your character's death scream borders on a screamer. EEEOOUUGHGHGHGHGH!!!!

Summary: Back to the initial comparison of Morrowind and Oblivion. I use these examples because so many people are familiar with the Elder Scrolls series and are looking for games similar to those experiences. If you liked Morrowind, you will probably enjoy this game. Gothic 3 is non-linear, encourages and rewards exploration, and like Morrowind, the combat is an unpolished afterthought.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/03/08

Game Release: Gothic 3 (US, 11/14/06)