Gothic 3

List Price: $19.99 Discount Price: $5.90

Features:

• Huge free-roaming, hand-crafted world with no loading times once you are in the game
• All new combat system that allows unprecedented control over melee attacks
• Clear, non-linear objectives within the main story allow the player to influence the outcome of the narrative
• "New Civilizations ¿ Six new civilizations will be included, giving you even more options when planning your domination of the world

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

I want my time back. [Posted on 2007-09-29]
Gothic 3 is good visually, and has some good storylines. The close combat system is horrible -- if you do play, stick to ranged combat and/or magic. Some of the advancement is useless: I spent a lot of effort building my "smithing" ability, but I was never able to use it to any advantage. Some major abilities don't even work. My "two-sword-hero" character concept was DOA because the game requires you to be evil to advance in the primary abilities. In fact, "hero" is nearly out of the question, because the character must perform evil acts to complete even the "good-guy" story. The game has too many bugs to even begin to list them. In two places the story can be broken by the game engine deleting characters or items that you absolutely must have to complete the game. (I found two and I only played once!)
I'm a candidate for sensitivity training, and I was still insulted by the portrayal of women in this game. The only female actors that I encountered were pleasure slaves. I really thought we were past that years ago.
I feel obligated to give it two stars because I did play it through once before uninstalling it. I highly recommend skipping this one.

Unexpectedly good [Posted on 2007-11-04]
After reading several reviews, it's clear that you'll either love this game or hate it. While I don't exactly love the game, and can recognize a number of faults with it, I think that it is a great buy and have enjoyed it immensely. Worth the money!

First and foremost, install the latest patch (1.12 currently). Also, make sure your graphic card drivers are up to date. The game is very pretty, so as such you will want to reduce the graphic settings if your machine isn't state-of-the-art.

The Good:
Battles are challenging, and contrary to what some have said, simply jamming your left mouse button isn't going to lead to eternal victory. Perhaps patches have tweaked this.
You are given options with how to complete quests. You can betray the rebels or overwhelm the Orcs, or do a mix of both. No matter what you do, you are almost always in the driver's seat, and never feel like you are forced into doing something you don't want to. This truly open ended game-play is either refreshingly novel, or painful depending on what you are looking for.
The graphics are great, and really help immerse you in the virtual world. Sometimes, you'll find yourself just admiring the pretty landscapes!
You can learn vastly powerful spells or become a master swordsman, or some combination of both. Character development is as open as the game-play.
Teleport stones will help save time in travel by allowing you to instantly warp to a city, though they are sometimes very difficult to find.

The Bad:
Loading times drag the game down at times. Every time you die, you must reload, and for some reason this simply takes forever. Also, there is no auto-save feature! If you die and haven't saved, you're simply out of luck. Further, saving itself takes a good amount of time too, so be patient. If you are an impatient person, this might get on your nerves.
The voice acting isn't nearly as bad as some games I've played, but some NPCs are painful to listen to. Still, this didn't bother me much.
Battles are sometimes disproportionately hard. If you choose to be a mage, you'll be frustrated constantly because you won't be able to cast any spells. As soon as any enemy hits you, your spell gets interrupted, forcing you to stick with quick, less powerful spells. Then again, if you can cast one of your more powerful spells, it can decimate an entire group all at once. Despite that, I find that this can make magic frustrating. The same could be said for bow users. Because most enemies will simply charge at you, there isn't much time to use a bow effectively.
Some quests are just plain boring, and there isn't much scripting to create custom, dynamic events. The result is a large amount of "kill" and "retrieve" quests.
At least early in the game, there isn't much in the way of "good" versus "evil" choices. Working for the orcs isn't really "evil" per se, so the moral aspect of the game isn't as developed as I think it could be.


Overall, the game is a good buy for the price. Don't let reviews that were written pre-patch cloud the fact that it has become a solid, open ended RPG that is worth trying, especially if the idea of such open-ended gameplay appeals to you.

After installing the latest patch, this game runs great - and is great! [Posted on 2007-11-21]
Since everybody wants to compare this game to Oblivion, I'm going to do just that. I played Oblivion for many a day way before I heard about Gothic 3. There are many reviews here that appeared for Gothic 3 when no patches had been released, and granted, the game probably was buggy.

When I purchased the game recently, the first thing I did was load the latest patch. I've been playing Gothic 3 now for over a month and the only issue I am having is... sometimes when my character is speaking to another person, the speech cannot be heard.
(You can read the text anyway so its not like you are missing something)

Now that ALL THE BAD stuff about the game is out of the way, let me give you my review of why I like this game so much, and why I like it more than Oblivion...

Firstly, the interface takes a little getting used to, but once I was comfortable with it it is in essence well designed. Getting the first quest seems a little vague as all you have to go by is the conversation you had with the person who gave you the quest. This makes the game more realistic though, making you seek out clues in what they say and making your mind up for yourself what needs to be done. Once I had gone to Cape Dun and done a whole bunch of little side quests I was well into the flow of the game and loving it.

In my honest opinion, I prefer this games graphics over Oblivions. In general the scenery looks more real. I really enjoy running around the countryside and appreciating the different types of terrain the game has to offer. I really feel like I'm in another world.

My biggest love for this game is the fact that when you have decided to choose a certain path, i.e help the orcs,or help overthrow the orcs, or just do things for your own personal gain, it really feels like you are part of a bigger picture, and not just performing random quests or following some cheesy main storeyline. Every action and sentence you choose with other characters needs to be thought about carefully, as some decisions cause catastrophic repurcussions that can change the way a certain faction feels about you. When I go on a quest for a party I want to help, I really feel that I want to help these people, and not just for the sake of getting more experience points. This has to the be the first RPG game that has given me this experience.

The open-endedness of the Gothic World, really is huge. The detail is magnificent, and looks nothing like 'random generated' scenery. Every corner you turn and every path you take is another little adventure of exploration and often I get a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach not knowing what to expect around the corner..

The skills and points learning system is well designed. When you level up, you gain 'learning points'. With these learning points you use to increase your character attributes (i.e strength, ancient knowledge etc.) and in turn you use learning points to acquire a new skill, i.e Skilled Swordfighter (which requires say a strength of 150). You also pay hefty sums of gold to be trained by NPC's so don't expect easy levelling up. You really need to think about what you want to become as a character and I think this makes the game very realistic and rewarding.

The background music is just that, background music, although there is a lack of variety the songs do blend nicely and help generate the desired atmosphere. The sound effects are well done and the voice acting is pretty solid. There are so many different people and so many different voices the game has done a good job overall in this department.

I can go on forever why I like this game. I really think it has many advantages over Oblivion. I find it more real and more rewarding. The scope of the world is huge. I'm playing every night for a couple of hours and can't wait for the next adventure or detailed quest that I am sent on. This is really a great role-playing game.

Classic RPG [Posted on 2007-12-21]
As noted by my colleagues, with the patches, (I'm using 1.5) Gothic 3 is a great CRPG, in the classic 3rd party tradition. This third installment is a must for those who have enjoyed the earlier versions.

very fun to play, but definitely has bugs [Posted on 2007-12-26]
First of all, all I can say is that, overall, it is a very strong RPG and I spent countless hours playing it. So, if you are into good quality 3rd-person RPG, then Gothic 3 should be one of your choices.

HOWEVER, this game is not entirelly polished yet and it is a shame that developers began selling this game without fully fixing most of the bugs. To their defense, they did come up with a few patches which solve MAJORITY of the problems. The game (fully patched) runs rather smooth and without any problems; however, it is obvious that there are still bugs that cause the game to crash to desktop after hours and hours of play.

So, I'd give it 5 star for fun rating and 4 stars overall. Quite possibly, an additional patch will fix this game for good, but it is already too late, imho. A lot of whiny teenagers already made up their minds.

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