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AWESOMENESS

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Well let me start by saying that yes this game has some bugs, i wont lie about that. But that doesnt make this game any less enjoyable. i have played all the way threw it over 5 times and have only had problems a few times. And i must say that some of these bugs actually helped me threw out the game. So dont go by other peoples review and thought about this game, buy it and then see what you think about it yourself.

Yes it's an RPG alright

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

People, Gothic 3 is not a bad game! It isn't. In fact it is actually a pretty good open-ended RPG. I have never before played any of the previous Gothic games, but the game does have more than its share of flaws.

Graphics. Really, is there anything to be said? The environmental graphics are very well done. Character models are pretty good too. But unfortunately, the animation is very choppy. This can be quite frustrating when you are trying to be emersed into the world of Gothic. The game actually runs quite well if you have new graphics cards, or even old ones.

Gameplay. Unfortunately, the combat is quite uninspired, it boils down to clicking on the right mouse button repeatedly until all threats have been dispatched. Of course magic is pretty fun to use, if a little shallow. There are a fair amount of spells that can be unlocked. For most of them, the longer you charge them up, the more damage you will cause, or you will trigger a special effect. For example, the ice rod projectile, when charged up, will freeze enemies on the spot (for a long time). Then there are the original spells like time bubble and animal form. Your character can also be customized with abilities, for example, the dark mage ability will allow your mana to regenerate. etc. Oh yeah, and you can dual weild!!!

Sound. The music is excellent and is probably the best in 2006 and possibly 2007. The voicing is usually good. Some sound effects are mediocre, but its all paid off by the amazing musical score.

Design. The world is huge, HUGE!!! I haven't even explored half of it yet, there are three regions in the game, a desert-like region, a temperate grassy region with lots of trees and mountains, and finally a snowy region. The transitions between these regions are done remarkably well and are breathtaking. The whole story focuses on the middle region of Myrtana (I think that's how it's spelled), where the orcs from the snowy region take over and force most of humanity into slavery. You can side with any faction and each will produce a different ending to the story. One problem though is that there are so many side quests everywhere that the main quest is broken up into sections, and gigantic gaps in between are the side quests. The game forces you to take on these side quests to build up reputation in a town, but this breaks the flow of the main quest and can make you forget about it altogether. With that said; there are enormous amounts of side quests, but most of them boil down to getting object "x" from place "y" and killing creature "z". But that is not exactly true for all of them, most of them are like that. Oh and the back of the box lies, it says that there are no loading times, but you often experience a period of time when your game suddenly freezes, those are loading times.

Story. A good story but as I said it is broken up so many times that it lacks urgency.

Stability. Some problems especially if you have an old processor (Pentium 4 or lower).

Graphics 8/10
Gameplay 7/10
Sound 10/10
Design 8/10
Story 7/10
Stability: Some problems

Overall: 7/10 - Good

Comments: If you like Open-ended RPGs you should buy this game.

Excellent surprise !

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 24, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is a game that you lead and create who to serve a save. Later when the skills get better the games gets better. Tremendous variety of things to do. Like jumping from one mountain to another one. More later got to go... to be continue.... Nels

Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: January 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've always loved the gothic series and now they've done a great job with the next one. It runs a little slow on my computer so I would recommened a really fast computer with a good graphics card. I haven't had any crash's in the game yet so that is even better. The huge world you have to roam around in will keep you busy for a long time, and there is always lots of fighting! Being able to chose from multiple paths to follow throughout the game is also another plus. Over all the game is great if you like games like Oblivion.

Gothic 3

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: January 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

AWESOME!!!!! There are minimal bugs with the right system. Graphics are great and the music is symphony sweet. It would be hard to top Gothic 1 and 2 (+ Night of the Raven), but this edition at least equals them and the differences are refreshing and challenging. I will play this game for a long time, many times.

Micro Soft Crimes

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: March 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I ordered this game because I really enjoyed Gothic 2 and found that I did not have all the video card requirments to play it so I sold it. I am so angry with Micro Soft for attempting to rob the market with expensive video card gimmicks to up their product sales. I have a really good mind to upgrade to a Mac who has better graphics and is much easier to use.

very fun to play, but definitely has bugs

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: December 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

Massive Game, Massive Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: March 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is a lot better than most folks think. I would have rated this a 4 overall but too many folks didn't give the game a chance. The game does slow a bit when you have been on it for a couple of hours. Just turn it off and re-load your game. Other than that, I haven't seen all of the bugs people complain about and my system is old (1.9 gHz, Athlon 64, 1 meg RAM with a Radeon 800 GTO). You do have to be patient with the game. Gothic 3 is so immense, it takes a long time to develop your character, get the best weapons and armor, etc. But that is exactly what I want in a game! I have now played this game two solid months without getting bored. My character can still die around the next corner even at level 53! This game does take skill and you have to approach each situation different. I love it. Compared to Gothic 2 Gold, Morrowind, and Oblivion, it does lack a little but those are the best 3 role playing games ever developed. Give it a break folks. Have some fun with Gothic 3.

The long wait was worth it...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: January 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Piranha Bytes pushed the release of Gothic 3 back a number of times, but the game was worth the waiting. The game builds on and surpasses all the great features of its predecessor. It has huge outdoor areas for exploration. The story line is not fixed, but the player can choose which areas to explore in what order and the character can be developed incrementally without any artifical choices between character classes and the like. Many quests can be solved in different ways, with force, magic, stealth, or in other quest-specific ways. It's a lot of fun to play.

Gothic 3 has been criticized for being too demanding on graphics and for being buggy. In my opinion much of this critique has been unjustified or been too harsh. Gothic 3 features impressive graphics and whoever wants to play it at its maximum settings, should better have a cutting edge graphics card. However, with medium settings it plays well on hardware that's geared towards 3D gaming, but is far from high-end - e.g., I played it on a laptop with an ATI X700 chipset. The game has the occasional bug (which is why I gave it overall 4 and not 5 stars). However, this doesn't detract much from the gaming experience. Just make sure to save regularly, and I found it is beneficial to restart the game after 2-3 hours of play as it tends to run out of memory if run for too long at a time.

Overall, Gothic 3 is definitely worth the money and brings many hours of gaming fun. With at least three different endings and many other choices, it also has lots of replay value.

More intelligent than previous Gothics

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

That means there's bound to be a swarm of people who think it's not as good. It's true, the combat isn't as good, but I'll say a few words about the story first, which some accuse was not found in the game.

In previous Gothics, you defeated the Evil with the help of Xardas in the island colony of Khorinis. Now you travel to the mainland only to find that during your boat or ship vacation the paladins lost the war against the orcs there, because something took away the magic from their runes. Some rebel whose town you just helped liberate accuses Xardas, and you determine to find him to find out what's what. You travel to cities through what ever routes you choose, to gather information about Xardas' location. Travelling is perhaps the most enjoyable part of the game, it's like a highly advanced open-ended version of Super Mario or platformer, with beautiful scenery and music. When you find out where Xardas went, you can change scenery, that is leave the current area and arrive in a new one, and start asking around for more specific coordinates. Finding him in his new tower or possibly old but mobile tower, you realize he was waiting for you, why of course. He admits that he was the one who made the paladins lose their divine powers, and that he's now the ruler of the orcs. He explains that this has made the power of Beliar, the Evil god, difficult to resist, but that there is nevertheless something that can be done. If you want to trust him, you'll go help the orcs in their search for the five divine artifacts of Adanos, the neutral god, whose power the orcs wish to use against the Hashishin, a desert people who also worship Beliar and who are becoming too powerful for the orcs. The Hashishin control the desert, while the orcs control the middle lands and the north.

Let's say you trust Xardas, as I did. When you find the artifacts, and bring them to Xardas, he tells you that they must be destroyed if the eternal war between Innos, the Good god, and Beliar, the Evil one, is to be put to an end. Xardas's argument is that only with all the divine artifacts and powers stripped from the humans and the orcs, will there ever be a possibility of lasting peace. Siding with either Innos or Beliar would only lead to a thousand year tyranny of one over the other, and after this forced peace, the war would eventually begin anew. The same would recur, forever and ever, until something was done to get out of this vicious cycle of taking turns being the oppressed/oppressor.

If you aren't a Viking and eternal battle ain't your thing, you choose to destroy the artifacts, and take into custody the two divine artifacts still remaining in Myrtana, the staffs of the black mage Zuben and the Paladin King Rhobar, both of whom you incidentally have to kill while you're at it (they are the earthly hands of Beliar and Innos, so you just have to remove them from earth as well).

Now Xardas is the only being with some divinity left in him (remember the end of Gothic 2?), so he'll have to go as well. Instead of killing him, you escort him to a gate which opens up to an unknown land, and you leave the world with him. In other words, Xardas gives up his unique power in order to save mankind from eternal condemnation to recurring war. Xardas's dream is that the orcs and humans will, perhaps, be able to leave peacefully in a multicultural post-divine civilization. Sort of what's happening here in the real world at the moment.

What makes this story line seem good, is the subtle, economic way it's told, without the usual hand-holding and guiding the player each step of the way. Instead, you have to actually think (gasp!) a little (oh) about what's going on in the game world, and what everyone says there, and make your own decisions.

What I would like to see in Gothic 4, is how the attempts at peaceful co-existence between the humans and the orcs will fail and end in rivers of blood and terrible calamity, and how the hero must come back from the unknown land to put up a new order of magic paladins and to take responsibility for his misguided social engineering in Gothic 3. There is no end to struggle in this world, but there are two ways: up and down.

The combat is now, as of version 1.6 (which is official by the way), pretty well balanced. What makes it inferior to the system in Gothic 1 & 2 is that you don't have to time your clicks to produce the attack moves and you don't have to time your attacks to survive. You mostly just click indiscriminately. Some sort of little strategy and timing is still useful in some cases, so the combat doesn't become completely tedious, and can in fact be exciting at times.

The performance is somewhat hiccupy in some, rather many, places and not really in others, regardless of settings and machine power, it seems. It's not that terrible. You'll get used to it. The graphics are really nice if you have a good machine (I also changed the draw distances for undergrowth and creatures to 6000 in the ge3.ini).

Probably a five star game when you consider the competition.

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