Gothic 3

[_BuRjaCi_]

Extreme-Players.de 9.3 out of 10
Eurogamer.de 9 out of 10
HonestGamers 9 out of 10
PC Games Online 88%
Computer and Videogames 8.5 out of 10)
GameCaptain.de 83%
Gameswelt 81%
4Players.de 68%

My personal subjective review would be 80%, I'll get on argumenting that mark later on. Fell free to substract 25% if not pached, 8% if you don't like role-playing games and another 25% if you have a slow PC.


(for reference I'd give Half-Life 2 90% and Civ4 83%)

[_BuRjaCi_]

The Good:
-a large living (seemingly natural) world which you can explore freely. Now I know they all promise this, but for your gaming-sake take this seriously.

-reputation with factions and in cities

-open-ended simple but deep character building
(it gives you more options and isn't as bottled in as G2, but its slightly more complex; I personally always build a mining-thieving-paladin)

-three times as many interesting quests as in G2 (most quests have multiple way's to solve them)

-the story (one word: nice, you'll immediately notice the much better handling of orc culture- they kinda go from simple brutes of G2 to a well portrayed Klingon-like society)

-the characters
(don't worry the voices are up to the feeling this time meaning better English acting cast than G2)

-beautiful graphics (if your PC's strong enough, frankly I coundn't care less about graphics)

-realism (one big + is the way you can be able to forge but can only make a sword after getting the blueprints for it, or a potion after you get the recipe for it- you only need one skill: healing potions and you can make them with 6 recipes each having different sets of ingredients. You can collect cooking recipies in the game as well! That was some delicious meat-bug stew! :lol.

-difficulty

-a little +, in most games they complicate and make lot’s of different medpacs/healing potions where one is more potent than the other, and the low ones are useless to a higher level character. Here they give you one potion that gives a 50% heal (there are plenty of things that give you health in the game; its not simplicity its elegance), making it a nice combo with the fact you have to invest LP(learning points) into HP (once you notice that!)

[_BuRjaCi_]

The Bad:

-The character building may be too open.
Jack of all trades but master of none. That get's you killed with the more difficult opponents.

-some unbalance in choices

-I said that there are much more interesting quests right. But what I didn't say is that there are so many quests that the average quality falls below G2.

-you don't get free hitpoints when levelling up! So people, don't forget to pray to Innos after getting LP!
I ignored them the first time I played. My level 18 hero had as many hitpoints as when he was level 1, and I was wondering why I die so much!

-more quests opening on old sites (you sometimes don't have anything to do in a town after 14 or so quests!)

-quite demanding on hardware (It runs on my laptop which has just 512MB RAM quite well, but it saves and loads realy slow)

-made by the Germans (which are, as we all know, evil )

-difficulty

[_BuRjaCi_]

The Uglies:

-orcs too easy to beat

-bugs on some systems even after patch
(I mean the little hard to get meatbugs wich make delicius stew as well; they should be easier to kill! Make them bigger or something! )

-way too long loading and saving times

-cahothic battles (luck has as much an impact as skill)

-not as good as G2 and in the end not as good as Oblivion (it may become if the pathces get the loading time and bugs under control).

-personal higene concerns

-difficulty

[El_Cid]

Since this series was recomended to me by some folks here, i have been looking out for it. I havent been able to find the 'gold' bundle version(i think of the first two games+patches+extra?), but have seen the second Gothic for quite cheap(£8 on amazon).

I also read the review that gave Gothic3 a 4/10 - it was in the games(tm) magazine. Apparantly they had been given a hellish bug-ridden copy to review:"This game feels like a pre-beta rather than a review copy",
Which the publishers of the game said after would be different to the release version in the shops due to the bugs.

The consensus of the review was that it could have been an 8/10 score, but all the bugs and beta quality meant they had to give it a 4.

I'll get Gothic2, then by the time i get around to Gothic3 it should be in a better condition, its amazing how often we see these kind of mess-ups in PC games - personaly i dont get it at all(but understand how it comes about).

If its not ready dont release it, the publishers need to fit this mentality into their market plan or PC gaming will continue to suffer.

[Standup]

I got the Gold version from Strategic Plus assuming you're in the UK - i haven't seen it anywhere else in the UK. If you speak german then the original version seems to be fairly common.

Strategic Plus

edit: The Gold version is the original plus night of the raven expansion pack. Much tougher than the original and adds the standard new weapons, monsters, quests etc. More of the same but that's a good thing in this instance.

[El_Cid]

thanks for the info Standup.

sadly that company seems to have closed down(as of 15 sept this year!) lol well never mind - i'll keep my eyes out for the gold version.

That just the first Gothic+expansion stuff right?(not gothic2 as well).

[Standup]

closed down ? That's a blow - they've been my source of hard to find strategy games for some time. Guess they couldn't compete with the internet.


The only gold i've seen is Gothic 2+Night of the Raven which is titled "Gothic II Gold Edition". Not sure about patches included although from memory there weren't any patches for Gothic 2 in English (and it wasn't full of bugs either).

The unexpanded is on Amazon as is Gothic 1 which is good from a storyline point of view but a bit clunky in terms of graphics and interface.

Just looked on ebay and there's alot of copies there.

gothic gold

[Nostromo]

Wich review did you read and most importantly how old is it?

A review I saw on TV last week. And, no, it wasn't Jennifer Aniston doing the reviewing. It was on a computer show with people who know their stuff. He demonstrated some of the bugs and it looked quite awful, almost as if there hadn't been any QA before release. I don't remember if he reviewed the patched version or not.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by nostromo


A review I saw on TV last week. And, no, it wasn't Jennifer Aniston doing the reviewing. It was on a computer show with people who know their stuff. He demonstrated some of the bugs and it looked quite awful, almost as if there hadn't been any QA before release. I don't remember if he reviewed the patched version or not.

I never meant to imply it was a unprofessional review.
And the bugs in the unpached version are so bad, to make the game practicaly unplayble.

The first patch makes the game work, ok on my computer.

But I would still recomend waiting for the next patch before buying! Just don't forget about the game or you'll miss out on a lot.

PS: Bugs in PC games stink but what about consol games where you can't patch the darn thing.

[DrSpike]

Hmm, think it would take a really good patch to renew any interest in this for me. There are just too many games I want to play at the moment.

[Nostromo]

PS: Bugs in PC games stink but what about consol games where you can't patch the darn thing.

You can patch console games, haven't you heard? And there are less bugs to begin with.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by nostromo


You can patch console games, haven't you heard? And there are less bugs to begin with.

Off course you can, but its not as easy as on the PC. And ever since they started developing games for consols and PC's simultaniusley they have become much more bug-infested.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Hmm, think it would take a really good patch to renew any interest in this for me. There are just too many games I want to play at the moment.

My adivce is to wait a few months, play the games that you are interested in and then go buy G3 once its stabilised or even once the expansion pack gets published.

I often get swept up in RPG and not see their bad sides untill after I played through the second time.
To give you refernce I thought Kotor2 was ok until I played the second time through and realised that I got only half of a game, they realy destroyed that game by rushing it, I'm afraid that JoWood has done the same to a lesser extent.

When will they learn to publish it when its done.

(scrap the last coment I just remembered Dukem Nukem Forever)

Sorry about the spelling

[El_Cid]

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_


I never meant to imply it was a unprofessional review.
And the bugs in the unpached version are so bad, to make the game practicaly unplayble.

The first patch makes the game work, ok on my computer.

But I would still recomend waiting for the next patch before buying! Just don't forget about the game or you'll miss out on a lot.

PS: Bugs in PC games stink but what about consol games where you can't patch the darn thing.

Its such a shame the industry hasn't learned anything on this issue, even after countless examples of many games that could have been all time hits...IF they had been finished(at the very least not killed by bugs) on release.

True with a pc game you always have the patches - but is it my imagination or have we been getting an increasing quantity of quite major releases ending up like Gothic3(in this example)?

Oblivion has had how many patches?(1 i think last time i looked) they seem happy to pump out add-ons you pay for....but this game could become a classic if looked after properly?

NWN2 - another mess out of the plastic wrapper....pathces for how long under a strugling Ataris leadership? who knows?

Age of Pirates(maybe not a major release!) - what a mess. It is getting patches but to be honest the damage has been done. With a more niche title like this you cant afford to put of your target player base as this seems to have done.

I'm sure there are many more. very sad.

I'll keep my eye on Gothic3 - but imho it might end up like Oblivion i.e the weakest of the series?