20.10.2006

Gothic 3. A retrospective review by Graham SchofieldREAD THE NOTES ADDED AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF THE REVIEW, 4/1/2012.I truly wanted to love this game...I really did.I also wanted to give this game 5 stars all the way, but problems got in the way.....Read on ( long review warning !!!! )On paper it sounded perfect, a vast free roaming RPG that can be played in first or third person perspective, a limitless level ceiling, hundreds of quests that , whilst I was playing certainly did not feel generic OR dull.No indeed from the first moment this game booted up and ran I new I was in for one hell of a ride. I love RPGs. Especially PC based RPGs.All the Might & Magics done ? Check. All the Fallouts done?Check. Every PC AD&D game done ? Check. Did I lose my life to Everquest? Check. Am I now losing my life to WOW?...well, you get the picture....that's me...uber-RPG- geek.So when I first saw how beautiful this game looked, and how potentially complex, yet also, conversely ,how easy the combat could be...I was lost. I became the wayward warrior forging his way home after years of hardship, only to arrive at the local dock, head straight for my home town and finding it infested with invading Orcs, dispatched them as best I saw fit. Once that introduction to the combat was complete, I ventured round my home town, picked up a quest, which just so happens to be THE MAIN STORY QUEST. And what was that quest? To find a blind human necromancer called Xardas who had helped the Orcs conquer your homeland. Why had he done this? It was up to you to find out. If you, like me, read into that simple quest description " find the badguy and kill him" then join the club, as inevitably, that is what the game is about.I sprang out from my town, cocksure and confident I could take down those odd looking insects and weedy looking wolves. I bound forward with sword swinging enthusiasm into my first pack of wolves. " This " I told myself " is what an RPG is all about, hunt the weak mobs, grind some XP and get those levels". I wailed into the fray supreme in my combat abilities.........After I reloaded my save, I decided perhaps that wasn't the best way, and obviously a much higher level of badguy had accidentally wandered near my home town. I decided to specialise in bows, and started offing my prey from afar. This worked, albeit slowly, and I eventually prevailed.A vast number of hours later ,( I had clocked up just over 80 hours at time of writing, ) I was hard and level 56. But every now and then I would get a sober reminder of how much combat was all about timing as a single wild boar gored me all the way back to my last save.I had spoken to tens of dozens of NPCs, made alliances with rebels, lied to Orcs about my allegiances, double crossed the Nomads and stolen aplenty from the desert race of stoners, the Hashishin. My quest log has an easy 50 outstanding quests, I had easily completed more than that. I had fought every creature known in the game world, from the aforementioned surly boar, to Dragons and Ogres baying for my blood. I could shapeshift into almost any four legged beast in the game thanks to my magic skills and magic druid stones, and could transport myself across the continent at the click of a magic portal stone ( one found in every city)....And most importantly, I had some of the best weapons and armour available in game and was rich beyond the dreams of avarice.The orcs, in my mind had almost been conquered, I had freed numerous Orc held villagers from their oppressors, and found allies at nearly every turn...life was good, I had become the eponymous nameless hero , loved by my friends, and the bane of my foes.I stood atop a snowy clifftop, surveying all I could see on this bright, clear morning, the sun dazzingly bright should I turn to look at it, the sky a stunning azure blue. A few hundred foot below me, creatures broiled about, hunting their prey and going about their business, a distant conversation reaches me, warning me of a patrol...maybe friend...maybe foe. Across the ravine I am standing on the edge of, I see an Ice Golem lumbering his way back and forth, guarding no doubt, a chest with rich loot, planted where he now patrolled, maybe a 100 years ago , and he has been protecting it from all who steal its precious contents ever since. I turn to my left to see a large herd of Buffalo running to and fro, stopping only to feed. A noise somewhere in the forest beyond spooks them, and they break into a run across the fields they had just crossed, and a distant sound of their thundering hooves reaches my ears. To my right I hear a single Wolf howl, as out of the thick under brush five...no make that six, Ice Wolves prowl from the cover they had sought the night before. I am next drawn to the sound of a distant growl, and look to the vast cliff side towering behind me, at its top, a family of Sabre Tooth tigers patrol, dangerously close to the edge...had they caught my scent? I look slightly down and to my left and spy a crudely made sign, little more than a thick twig for a post, and a crudely written word on a piece of rotting wood, readable only if I get close enough..."Wolf Clan"...surely, that can be my next destination?How wonderful does this sound? This is simply one region, and one moment in this game, which you truly live...if, like me, you are able to allow yourself to be immersed in this false but oh so intriguing reality.A game with massive potential, that it almost lives up to...but brace yourself, because I am about to tear down your walls of hope and optimism with the brutality of simple facts.The game has a few problems:-Once installed the first thing the game insists you do is download and install a 60 Gb patch. Oh well.Once this is done and you are playing, if you are using AMD processors, after a few in game days of gameplay, you will notice that your day / night cycle appears to be happening approximately every ten seconds...save once and its day three on your save game, save a few minutes later and it's day 171 !A quick perusal of the README and some forums reveals the fact that you need to install some special driver software for your AMD processor that is, fortunately , included on the game DVD. Of course, installing these drivers makes all your previous save games incompatible. Restart time.Those two Items are frankly minor annoyances to what comes next.Random game crashes, often when using the portal stone, or when an enemy casts one of the, admittedly, spectacular spells at you. Maybe you'll get an exception message, maybe the PC will just lock up. Either way, it's a reboot or if you are lucky, it's CTRL-ALT-DEL time. So save regularly.Some quests cannot always be completed due to you maybe killing a vital NPC for said quest, or maybe for the simple fact that the quest is bugged. Of course, and this is the real slap in the face, you don't really expect this to be the case with the aforementioned ( at start of review) MAIN GAME QUEST.Yes you read that right, the game world is so wide open, that you can do what you want, but the game will actually let you do things that break THE MAIN GAME QUEST thus rendering the game un-completeable !You are tasked with finding the big badguy of the game, Xardas. Later on, you are further tasked, by your King no less, to find out Xardas' plans. To do this you must speak with him before you do anything else to him. But seeing as Xardas is in one of the toughest regions in the game with many, many strong foes on the only path to him, this of course , has to be left until later in the game. By default you will need to have good weapons, good armour and the skill to fight you way to him. By then of course, maybe you have freed a few villages from the conquering Orcs? Well put it this way, if you have freed four or more villages, the moment Xardas claps eyes on you, he attacks you...and unless you kill him, he kills you and that's it.There is no warning about this anywhere in the game, there is no friendly NPC who mentions to you that actually freeing said NPC from his Orc oppressors ( the POINT of the game) will mean that you can't actually complete the game. This is an unforgiveable schoolboy error by the company who made this game, and a genuine showstopper. There is no way I am going back to an earlier save in the hope that I have only wiped out three Orc villages instead of four, or indeed, restarting from scratch and repeating the last 80 hours.This is also a prime example of the games woeful lack of direction. You should be able to do as you wish in game, but not at the cost of bring said game "to it's knees" rendering it a game that cannot be completed.There are a few other issues like this in game, for instance the fire chalice quest. You are expected to find the twelve fire chalices, take them to the Monastery and endow them with magic. This done, at no point are you told you then need to take all 12 chalices to 12 Paladins placed throughout the gameworld. No, that you need to work out for yourself. At least NOT doing that does not make the game unfinishable, but it does highlight a crucial fact in this game. It's not finished.I loved this game, bugs and all, up until the last 10 minutes of MY gameplay , where it became apparent that the game was broken due to action I had taken 40 hours earlier. A lengthy scan of a few forums confirmed this gutting fact to me. Forewarned is forearmed, now you , dear reader, know what can happen, do your homework before embarking in the beautiful but heavily flawed game, and you may reach the end.To close this review, my final comment :-This game needed another 6 months of development, beta testing and system stabilisation before release. As it is, this unfinished product will bring ill repute upon the games developers, and exasperation to the seasoned RPGers out there hoping for the next big thing. A sad day indeed for the RPG fan..........and now an update in OCTOBER 2010.With the new Gothic nearly upon us, a few things need to be updated. The new Gothic 4 - Arcania is by a different company to the above Gothic 3, my review of that will come in due course.The company that did Gothic 3 made a game called Risen. An excellent game that you should seek out, although do note that on PC it is becoming something of a rarity.A brief re-review of Gothic 3. Now the community has patched the game, a number of issues have been fixed. I can suggest you go back and try this game again, a few issues still occur with the final boss bug, as mentioned in my review, but overall, the game is enjoyable. You may not have got that from the original review, but despite that review I played this game to completion 3 times since its release, after a number of false starts/restarts on my first play through.Gothic 3 ( and Risen ) are very challenging and different RPGs to a some of the western RPGS out there like Oblvion, Fallout 3, Fallout Vegas ( which came a day before release and I'm already 6 hours in !) and as such, should really not be compared, but taken on their own merits, of which they have plenty.If you like Gothic 3, may I suggest you play Risen and Two Worlds as well. I liked them all....FURTHER UPDATE 4/1/2012.Not only has the community patch made this game a virtual joy to behold & play compared to what it was like in my original and lengthy review ( above), but now GOG ( [...], just search "GOG" in Google) has got it on their website for $9.99, yes, that's 9 dollars and 99 cents ( around £6.70 in real money ). And it's patched to pefection AND it has no DRM. This means you can buy, install it and play it with no need for registration or a disc in the drive.Also since my last update in october 2010 ( also above) I can now happily say that Gothic 4, whilst quite different is certainly a worthwhile endeavour, as is Two Worlds 2. Both are available on Console or PC from Amazon.Coming up this year is Risen 2 which looks amazing. Thanks for reading. Now go buy Gothic 3. Probably from GOG though !Review by Graham Schofield

12.2.2013

The largely negative reviews that this game received upon its release, were largely justifiable at the time due to the bug ridden train wreck of an unfinished game which Jowood decided to release. First thing to make clear, is the game which I am awarding 5 stars for, is not the game as it was released back in 2006, but the game as it is now thanks to the Community Patch 1.75 and the Community Mod Pack 2.4. Gothic 3, running smooth as silk on a decent 2012 gaming PC, more or less bug free, with overhauled combat mechanics, is nothing less than a stunning work of electronic art. This blows every other single player RPG right out of the water bar none.Although the graphics may not be as advanced as the graphics in more recent titles such as Skyrim,the world of Gothic 3 is somehow much more appealing to the eye than that of Skyrim, with the Gothic 3 world having a much more handcrafted quality to it, with huge attention having been paid to the tiniest of details. Whilst the world of Gothic 3 may not be quite on the same scale as the world of Skyrim, it is nontheless massive and distinguishes itself head and shoulders above the world of Skyrim due to the fact that the Gothic 3 world is immensely interesting to explore as opposed to mainly serving as a Bethesda style space/time barrier between the cordoned off towns and dungeons. Whilst the Gothic 3 towns/camps are indeed the main components of where the story unfolds, they blend seamlessly into the rest of the stunning, dark, but majestic world of Gothic 3, in which dozens of hours can be spent immersed in sheer exploration. In addition to the beautiful and captivating landscape, what Gothic 3 masters more so than any other game is providing for an interaction with the flora, fauna, and minerals of the world, in a way that the player is always on the look our for certain combinations of potentially character enhancing resources and facilities. The combination of loot driven kleptomania and danger lurking around every corner and in every nook n cranny of a masterfully crafted world, makes 'exploration' an absolute delight in this game. Indeed, due to the clever placing of some highly valuable objects in various secret and also not-so-secret locations, the course of the game and the decisions that are made can be hugely influenced by the fruits of exploration.One of the proclaimed weaknesses of Gothic 3 when compared with its predecessors (G1 + G2), was the simplistic nature of the quests, or in otherwords, the sheer volume of 'go there, kill them, get that' quests in the game. Whilst this may ring true when analysing the game close up, if one takes a more macroscopic view of the quests then what emerges is an epic power struggle in which the gamer must ultimately weigh up the pros and cons of some crucial decisions. Whether these decisions reflect the desires that the gamer has for particular individuals or factions in the game or the need for expediency and sacrfice of otherwise favoured characters and units in the Gothic 3 world, as the game progresses the gamer will increasingly find that no decision is to be taken lightly and will have the constant urge to postpone certain things, in the hope of alternative solutions opening up (which they often do). The whole shebang culminates in the Nameless Hero rising to the position of a demi-god, in which his will (and thus the will of the gamer) decides the fate of the entire continent upon which Gothic 3 is based. There are three possible 'Grand Finales' open to the Nameless hero depending on his actions througout the course of what is probably the most open ended RPG game ever made. With that said, the 'openess' of the Gothic 3 world also contributes to one of its potential flaws whereby if the gamer fails to understand the mechanics of the 'in-game poltics', then he can make the game practically incompleteable at a very early stage. This was particularly true in the unpatched version of the game where it was possible to start 'liberating' towns or 'crushing' rebel camps from the very outset. However, with the CP 1.75, the stun-lock click fest combat (which made simultaneously wiping out dozens of human/ork foes possible in the unpatched version) has been completely fixed. Thus it is no longer possible for the gamer to successfully embark on such uninformed rash decisions at such an early stage of the game.With almost 6 years having passed since I purchased Gothic 3, I have just completed the game for the first time and have got to say it ranks amongst my most pleasureable gaming experiences ever.

19.10.2006

Gothic 3 is not without its problems, but it is also hard not to forgive even the worst of them, given the immense amount of fun the game has to offer, the immersiveness and the sense of loving detail put into crafting the game world. And this is really saying something, because technically speaking the product still needs work to iron out bugs, and imbalances in game play such as the killer wildlife that can floor and despatch even high level characters.It has many of the best features of the modern RPG - a huge game world with lots to do and plenty of freedom to go about do it. There are plenty of skills to learn, items to find, and quests to pursue,and the quests makes sense within stories of the peoples and characters you will come across.Human's have become enslaved by an invading Orc army, and you choose to aid in the rebellion, or toady for the occupation. There are other factions too, and performing quests for them will make them friendly, but might also displease their enemies. It really feels at times like a world where people live and things are happening. All this helps draw you into the atmosphere, intrigue and politics of the game world and adds to its addictive potential.Like its predecessors, Gothic 3 offers an unforgiving, dangerous world, but it is a challenging and ever engaging world too. Unlike the recent Oblivion, which it is inevitably being compared to, there is no scaling of enemies by level. This gives you impetus to develop and beef up the character so you can explore more dangerous places and find more glittering prizes.This is not an easy game, it makes you think both in game play and in solving quests. It has to be said that you will die many times at first and even after considerable experience have your share of disasters, but it will force you develop strategies and approaches, and make the most of your inventory and skills development. For my mind this makes Gothic 3 a great game, but for newcomers to the RPG genre, or those used to easy games, it may be a little frustrating at first.The game has a distinctive, sombre but intriguing atmosphere, which will make it immediately familiar with players of the previous two games, although in this incarnation the player can wander from the open desert of the south, through lush forests to the frozen north, all beautifully rendered - assuming you have the grunt in your PC.My pentium 3.4, with 2gb of memory and a mid range Geforce 6800 card cannot manage much more than medium settings and even then does not offer a truly satisfactory frame rate and periodic stutters. It also needs to be said that you really need 1.5-2 gb of RAM to make the game playable (I upgraded from 1 to 2gb of RAM after the initial install).Hopefully patches in the weeks to come will help with performance issues, and also reduce some of the bugs in the game, which are generally more irritating than fatal to gameplay, but hamper this being among the all time greats of the RPG genre.In the meantime, for my mind, it is worth forgiving Gothic 3's flaws and enjoying what is still a great game.

31.3.2010

Gothic 3 is something of a gaming tragedy. It's a vast and extremely ambitious role playing game that should have been a worthy rival to Oblivion and a shining example of how to make a huge rpg for the pc. Instead, because of a rushed release and some silly squabbling between the developer and the publisher it is a relatively obscure title that people are now picking up for less than five pounds. Here's what attracted me to the game:- Huge and beautiful game world that was all designed by hand and thus has more character than Oblivion's occasionally bland computer generated landscapes. There is a lot to discover that is not part of any quest making wandering around the world rewarding not just because of the impressive visuals but also because you get a sense of discovery (e.g.

3.5.2014

Finally got around to playing this game (in 2014) and what a pleasure this epic RPG is proving to be. I thought I'd played all the best/major 'swords and magic' RPGs but this game is right up there with the best of them.Gothic 3 is quite a few years old now but still looks and plays a treat. The game has many of the key elements that are familiar to fans of the genre - massive open world, lot's of quests, spells and weapons aplenty, varied bestiary, alchemy, crafting etc.The game itself has a buggy history but this has been rectified with the community patch which is freely downloadable or available bundled with the Gold edition. The patch also allows optional modification (toughening up?)

6.11.2006

Now after two patches, the game really makes a lot of fun. Most bugs and glitches have been fixed, and some unnerving game balance issues were solved, for example Nordmaar: It was an adventure just to run through the area in the first versions, and quests were more or less impossible to do without heavy armor, because of the lots of predators there. Now Nordmaar is less crawling with dangerous animals and generally all animals in the game are far weaker now. In the release version, a lone boar could easily kill a high level hero if close enough.System crashes are very rare , at least on my system, it runs stable.Graphics are really good, but Oblivion still looks better,

7.11.2006

Just noticed a lot of people complaining that they have a lot of crashes ingame. Could some of those people shed some light on the cards they are using, as in my experience ATI cards are notorious for problems with games. Myself, I'm using a GeForce 6800XT overclocked to 350MHZ with no problems.Edit 24/04/07I've recently upgraded my computer, now running an Intel E6600 at 2.9 GHZ, SATA hard drives in striped configuration, 4GB DDR2 RAM and an 8800GTS superclock (575MHZ clock, 320MB RAM). The game runs brilliantly, quick saves much quicker, probably about 5 secs which takes a little getting used to when you're used to it taking 30 secs or so.Right to mention the game itself, it's a beautiful game.

6.11.2006

From the ever dubious glowing first review to the people who've given up too easily. I've played with an out of the box install on a 3400XP 2gig ram, 7800GS system without any problems at all but other people have definitely had issues. More ram seems to help the most. There's been a patch released since launch and another one due.The Gothics never handed you anything on a plate and have always been a little rough around the edges but offer the meatiest roleplay experience in my opinion.I had to liberate an orc held city. Well actually I didn't have to but it was an option. I was having difficulty doing it by convential means so I lead a troop of monster from a nearby cave into the city and let the orcs deal with them first.

16.7.2009

First off - the overall game is not at good as Oblivion IV, so buy that if you have not done so. However in its own right it has some potential and if you endure with it (and reload often) it can bridge the gap until the next Elder Scrolls comes out next year! :)Some good points:- Great world to wonder around in - lots (sometimes too many) monsters/animals to slay- Life-like in that you are not just shepherded through the main storyline (i.e. at the moment (half way through the game) I only have an inkling of what I have to do and where)- For its age the graphics are good and the music is not annoying- Many skills to develop to take the character into different directions (though you will be

29.11.2010

This game is a few years old but does not feel dated in the slightest.When it first game out the was lots of performance issues but now, with the help of patches and mods, it runs like a dream on my middle spec laptop.Once you get this game your first task is to go on the discussion boards and download the latest patch, currently 1.74. Also it would be worth downloading the latest community mos and quest packet.Got all that? well now prepare to lose several weeks...This game is big, vast, and you can spend days trying to explore every nook and crany should you wish.ou have total freedom to go where ever you like though it helps if you are a lot stronger before going into the frozen norths.You start off in a battle for control of a little hamlet,

11.8.2009

This is a great game. Graphics, story and gameplay all great. But, and it's a big but. The game is riddled with bugs for example, it takes its time to stop jittering once you've loaded a save game and on the second day of playing it the picture wouldn't load and after closing and reloading the game I couldn't close the inventory screen (and that thing is laughable, takes up the whole screen and doesn't pause the game.) There are patch's to correct them but every time I tried to download them using the updater that comes with the game, all it does is start the game and forgets about the download. I tried doing it seperately and I couldn't be bothered with the super slow download of 880mb and then what it called 'screening'

21.10.2006

Having played Gothic I and II more than once I was looking was looking forward to this, and was not disappointed.This has all of the strengths of I and II with open ended gameplay, true roleplaying with simpistic statistics but the stats do make a difference so use your learning points wisely!Graphically this game is beautiful in a different way to Oblivion, but there is a similar issue in that low end PC's won't get the most out of the graphics here. I have a 3gig P4, 6600GT and 1g RAM but the game wants a bit more in terms of RAM. I am on the middle level of detail (still looks great) but suffer some lag which can be annoying during battles.Overall excellent,

29.12.2006

Everyone likes a free-roamer, and that is what attracted me to Gothic 3.From the screenshots and exhibition videos, it looked preety damn good too.However, at first play I admit to being slightly dissapointed.The graphics are not the best I've seen, and fighting seems a bit too off-balanced for my tastes. (Being mowed down by a Scavanger before you can even grab your sword being a perfect example).I gave it several tries, and once you get past these annoyances, plus some dodgy body physics, Gothic 3 is a very good game.I know only one game that allows you to do things like smithing, mining and even cooking and that is Runescape, an online game.The good storyline,

24.10.2006

This game represents what the -pure- rpg genre is all about:exploring a chaotic world with the least limitations possible.The character development leaves little barriers between classes,the main point being that your character can survive.The graphics are very impressive(not as good as oblivion's,but close),and the music could not fit anymore the overall atmosphere(it brings to mind the one from Arcanum).RPG fans have not seen such a game since morrowind, and it is in my opinion far better than oblivion.To all pc-gamers, this is what you have been looking for!

23.10.2006

Well im a massive fan of the Gothic franchise having played Gothic 1 and 2 as well as the expansion for Gothic 2 but Gothic 3 however is a slight disappointment, with the bugs it makes it feel it was slightly rushed but I must say it is easier to play than the previous versions. I would say It's good but not as good as Oblivion in my honest opinion, the ingame music is very good its brings the world to almost life. There are a few bugs but once they fix them it will definitely be worth your time if you enjoy RPGs.

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