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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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Classic RPG

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: December 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

After installing the latest patch, this game runs great - and is great!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

Unexpectedly good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

I want my time back.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: September 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

.ini modification essential

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: September 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is an incredible game that cannot be played without doing your due dilligence and finding out exactly how to modify the Gothic 3 .ini file to suit your particular system. I spent at least 3 hours searching various sites and putting together a document that identified instructions for modifying the values of various configuration elements found in my Gothic 3 .ini file. Once I got it right, the game ran without a hiccup, and I was even able to get rid of the flashing light problem that plagues many people. I have a very mediocre system (Athlon XP 2200, 1.5 GB SDRAM, X800 256MB ATI card, 7200 RPM 150 MB HD, etc.), and out of the box, the game wouldn't even run at 800x600 with all the settings on low. I now run it at 1024x768 with most settings on medium and even a few on high, but mainly the .ini variations are where it's at. It's really unfortunate that the developers didn't do their homework and configure the game properly for the average machine like mine out of the box, and then allow folks to increase settings upward from there. With the settings I have, the game looks great, actually coming close to rivaling Oblivion on my system (which by the way, suffers from a similar problem, i.e. needing configuration adjustments, just not quite to the same extent).

In closing, if you buy this game now for 20 bucks, and are intelligent/experienced enough to go through the various sites that will guide you to the proper .ini settings, you'll get one heck of a great game at an incredible price.

Good luck!

H

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