[Flipside]

Been playing this for a while now, damn fine game, if, unfortunately, buggy even with the patch.

Basically, it's an RPG in a similar fashion to Oblivion, but far more experience based and with the emphasis on outdoor hunting and combat rather than dungeons. Whilst the world in Gothic 3 is actually larger (and for the large part better looking) than Oblivion, going for a wander will quickly get you a unguided tour of the inside of the almost insane amounts of animals or monsters that roam the world.

The storyline is, in essence, that you have arrived home after your adventures in Gothic 2 to find the land invaded by Orcs, the Kings castle surrounded by an impenetrable barrier and the news that the very Mage who helped you in Gothic 2 is apparently helping the Orcs. The rest is up to you to find out in the course of the game.

The graphics are great, I'll try to post pictures but, despite the fact there is a screenshot folder, there is no screenshot key listed in the manual (PrintScreen will capture, but not save, you have to leave and paste into Photoshop or the like, not a fast option).

Pros :
 1: Enormous world, and a massive story, with literally hundreds of quests.
 2: What appears to be several very different ways of approaching the game, you can side with the Orcs, the Rebels, the Hashishin or the Nomads, and the story appears to be affected by your choices.
 3: Challenging combat. As mentioned earlier, trying to play this like Oblivion WILL get you killed, two hits from a Razorbeast will kill you in just about anything other than Heavy Armour. You will need to get experience close to town before going wandering.
 4: Some gorgeous scenery, stalking Deer with a longbow in a forest is a tense experience, you stand little chance of killing a deer with a sword, and it's oddly gratifying to pick one off at distance anyway (You get meat from deer, which you can cook and eat).
 5: The Orcs don't look like Neon Martians.
 6: The Music is very atmospheric.


Cons :
 1: Loading times are pretty poor, and moving from one area to another can cause jumpy frame rates, which isn't nice if you're in the middle of combat.
 2: Some stability problems, regular saving is a must anyway, but (like Oblivion) some quests can break and there was one quest where I was escorting someone through the woods only to have them vanish in front of my eyes.
 3: As mentioned, the existence of a Screenshot folder, but nowhere in the manual does it tell you what key is Screenshot.
 4: Some aspects seemed rushed. You can get blueprints for swords and recipes for food, but the variety is pretty limited.

All in all, I'd certainly recommend this game to RPG fans, BUT I also hope that the current issues with Quests and stability are dealt with in a Patch soon.

I'll post some screenshots once I get my FTP up again and can get some

[Shade]

Hmm... tempting. Been a while since I bought a new game too. Might try it

[Flipside]

It is a great game to play, but you need a good system to enjoy it properly, some of the loading and saving times are insane

Forgot to mention, those stability problems can also cause sporadic crashing, just so you know.

[Shade]

I lived through windows 98; I think I'll manage...

[Flipside]

Good point.

[Starman01]

I just found out about gothic a few weeks back and played Gothic 2 a lot in consequence, one of the best games I played sofar.
I just wait now until spring when all the bugs in G3 are finally patched. Then I take 2 weeks of vacation, buy G3 and tell the world and sunlight goodby for 14 days

[Flipside]

Finally managed to get some shots through Fraps :-




This is near the border with Nordmar, If I'd got Fraps working earlier, you'd have got a shot of me running frantically away from 3 trolls and hitting them at range with arrows, which become like gold dust until you learn a little 'trick' for getting more



Rounding the mountains near Trellis, there's a divine artifact in there, one day I'll go in and genocide the place, now i've got the Palladin armour, it can be done if you draw off a few at a time.



Nordmar, the hunter and miners paradise, however, the odd lurking demon or two will keep you on your toes, even if the Ice Golems and Packs of Wolves don't.

As you can see, looks very nice, the bugs are annoying, but it's not unplayable because of them.


I'll try to get some combat shots tomorrow

[BS403]

WOW

[Starman01]

%§&$/§@   That graphic is really awesome 

[Flipside]

Taking out the trash in Silden



'Do you honestly think I'm going to fall for the old "Look out behind you" trick?'

Many Gothic 3 Avatars died to bring you these images

[Starman01]

Whoa, I certainly don't wanna meet you in the dark

Tell me, how hard are the bugs you hear about everywhere ? Is it playable or more frustrating ? (Looks playable though).

What about hardware specs, is a 3,2 GHZ, Radeon 9800 Pro and 1 GB RAM enough for a fluid 1024x768x32 gameplay ?

[Flipside]

Hehehe, well, Bow and Arrow works pretty well as long as you can funnel your enemy so they don't outflank you. Also, unlike Oblivion, people don't leap in front of your sword, they'll stand back or try to sneak behind you while you're engaging someone else (which is what happened in the second picture).

The game is mostly playable, I run it on a 3Ghz with 1Gig memory and an 512Mb X1600, however, when I'm seriously taking on a town, rather than taking screencaps, I tend to drop the texture quality down, since the game streams the textures it needs in from Hard Drive, and can get pretty jerky if combat happens to take you into an area that needs more textures.

The minimum Memory specs for the game is 1 Gig, and that's usually enough, just be prepared for the odd jerky section (one trick is, as soon as you teleport to a town, spin through 360' to force the system to load as many textures as it can).

As for the bugs, they are annoying, but not crippling normally, but frequent saves are a must, since the game can, admittedly rarely, freeze solid.

[Ace]

I've had nothing but frustration with bugs in this game unfortunately. Nothing game killing, but the freezes and crashes are annoying and random.

My overall opinion is that it's a 7.5/10, it would be higher if there was something resembling a real main quest like the ones Gothic 1 and 2 had. (i.e. not fed ex for some artifacts)

All of the things I think are great in the game are holdovers from Gothic 2, the towns really seeming alive due to the tightly scripted AI schedules, etc.

Too much of the art style is generic, as in each town per area is using the same art set and there's not a lot of variation or truly unique areas. The graphics themselves are technically great but there's not as much imagination in the environments as there was in Gothic 1 or 2. I'd rather have 4 well done cities that look unique and with good, logical, layouts than 12 Gothic 3 cities.

Khorinis had districts and made sense, none of the towns in this game so far I can say the same.

The graphics themselves once again are technically nice, but what's done with them makes little sense. i.e. barely visible mud roads throughout a kingdom that supposidely conquered most of this world? Oblivion's got its fair share of issues there (the only forts being ruined ones, the roads to other provinces non-existant) but overall the roads and such there do feel like they're travelable unlike Gothic 3's.

Overall if the game had a tigher focus like Gothic 2, but this engine it'd be great. Personally I'd love to see Oblivion in this game's engine with the AI schedules made tighter and that'd be pretty damn good.

[Flipside]

Admittedly, Nordmar is a bugger to travel in, due to the almost complete lack of roads.

I'll agree with some of your points, I would say if I were to point out the one biggest annoyance in the gameplay itself though, it would be the lack of decent maps. You can buy world maps all over the place, but they are all the same map. It's another aspect of the game that feels 'rushed'.

I'm not sure of your job is purely transporting the Fire Chalices around, I have a feeling that may simply be the 'easy route', i.e. if you side with the rebels and the nomads and just go around depopulating towns. I haven't yet found Xardas, so maybe I'll get more of an idea what's going on then.

[Ace]

Even the Xardas plot is fed-exing. Different artifacts but still the same.

I really hoped for a more involved plot like the games before... so... meh...

[Scooby_Doo]

Now I'd like to see someone mod Morrowind into that or oblivions engine