Gothic II

"Best Action-RPG Gaming can get (times 2)"

I bought the first gothic, thinking that it would be a good game and it was. after i beat it several times i had to go out and buy the sequel. i must say, Gothic 2 has been full of awesome plot and adventure.

Graphics 8/10

The graphics are pretty good; they're not bad, but they're not incredibly swell either. Characters look human, unlike in most other games, and vegetation and landforms look naturally produced, rather than random box-esque things found in common video games.

There are pretty good graphic effects that you can activate; you can make the sun glare the camera, add gleams in the water when the sun focuses on it, add sky effects to have lightning flash, whole bunch of other stuff.

The game does well at the graphics at ''night''. in a few games the night has just been aweful and hard to see. Gothic 2 makes it seem darkly realistic, but you can still play at almost the same efficiency as if it were daytime.

Sound 8/10

Again, the sound is ok, it's not bad, but it's not exuberantly awesome. You can hear animals make random noises, and the loudness depends on your proximity to them. monsters and animals have their own unique noises, which lets you distinguish what's attacking you when you just randomly take damage and see something move behind you.

Characters have voiced conversations, rather than read-only captions. there is an ability to turn the captions on so you can read what they say as well, but you don't need to use that; they're perfectly audible.

Controls 7/10

The creators bettered the controls form the prequel, in the fact that your ''Action'' is now just a single button, rather than action and up. Talking and interacting with the world has become so much easier.

People have complained that the controls when in battle are bad, and that it often leads them to an unfair death. i admit, the default controls are hard to use, but i made my own custom and they work great; i have yet to die and find an excuse to blame it on the controls.

The inventory is another issue that people have brought up; it doesn't pause the game when you use it. which makes sense, because that's more ''real-time''. if you get attacked by a stone golem, you're not going to be able to tell it ''wait'' while you switch from a bow to a hammer. same goes with using potions. with the inventory the way it is you can just instantly win battle by pausing and healing each time you get hit. this makes it harder and makes you have to plan out your attacks better.

Gameplay 10/10

Gameplay is awesome; battle is quite easy to get a hold of; action to lock on and use the arrow keys in random combinations to attack and block. it's simple enough to battle, the only hard part is trying to plan your attack so you don't get killed.

NPC's have a good memory; if you beat someone up, they'll remember it and say something in response to you next time you talk. certain people refuse to speak with you if you fail a quest or attack their friend, or steal from their store.

the RPG element in the game comes in the stats. when you level up, you obtain 10 skill points, which you can manually invest in stats, weapon efficiency, or skills. this makes the game more strategic-required because you have to plan-out how you will invest your skills so that your character isn't going to be a wuss at like level 30.

Conclusion

It's a great game, the story is wonderful. I strongly advise the game to be bought, you'll spend alot of time on it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/07/04