Customer Reviews

Gothic 3 Collector's Edition

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

There is a great game here; when it works, it's hugely fun. At other times, it crashes to the desktop A LOT. As in a few times per hour. (Yes, my drivers are all up-to-date; I'm really good about keeping everything current.) It does condition one to save often.

Before using a teleport stone, don't forget to "quick" save in case that causes a crash and need to "quick load" (a very humorous use of the word "quick", since it takes ages.) After every group of kills, save the game. If you've gone any sizable distance on the map and don't want to have to re-trace your steps, save the game. Before equipping any items in your inventory, save the game. You get the idea.

The game also freezes momentarily every 20 seconds or so (loading terrain maybe?), which I suppose I can live with. But it's annoying when you're in battle and you die because the game froze at the wrong time.

Well it sounds as though I don't like the game, but that's not the case. As I said, when all is working properly, the game is really fun. After spending a long time tweaking the in-game video settings to get a relatively smooth frame rate, I have to say the graphics are really nice and very scalable. It's especially fun to just wander about and see the sights, meet new and interesting creatures, and kill them. There are plenty of hidden secrets just waiting to be found, so there is a great incentive to explore.

It's also amusing that after fighting for the Rebels, liberating several cities, and killing scores of Orcs in the process, the Rebels still don't like me enough to sell me--SELL me, not give me--their best armor. But please continue to fight for us some more, kthxbye.

I haven't finished the main game yet, nor played the expansion, but I'm looking forward to experiencing the rest of the story. If you buy this, you will have fun, but remember to save often!

If you call yourself a Gothic 1/2 fan, you MUST play Gothic 3. It is one of the best RPGs ever made, right up there with the previous Gothics. I know there were issues at launch, including game stopping bugs, stuttering, and horrible performance.

But fast forward 3 years and the game is now very playable. The community has done an amazing job. The latest community patch is 1.73 (as of Oct 2009), and all bugs have been fixed. While performance hasn't really been optimized, hardware power has increased since 2006. So if you have a cheap Radeon 4850 or better (+ plenty of RAM) performance will be smooth. There is some stuttering for the first few minutes after you load a save, but it completely disappears after a while. The latest patch (also called Enhanced Edition) adds Alternative AI and Alternative Balancing. These features are extremely welcome and considerably improve the gaming experience (for example, there is no more "stunlock").

The game itself is engrossing. This is a pure Gothic game and plays in the same manner as the previous titles. There is a lot of focus on the dialogue, and quests are interesting. The game makes you feel like you're really there, eating and sleeping in Myrtana. Like in the previous games, skills are increased by using in-game items/people (trainers, praying, reading books, doing quests) and not by assigning skill points in a chart (as is the case with D&D cRPGs). The story is detailed and interesting, and there is a lot of spoken dialogue with the townsfolk.

If there was one word to describe this game, it would be EPIC. It's very long, and you can easily waste over a hundred hours just by completing the main quests. And if you are willing to explore the huge world on your own, you can easily add more to that number. Graphics are also beautiful, though I don't usually care about graphics as long as the gameplay is good. Still, it's the cherry on top.

(One gameplay tip: do NOT liberate towns in Myrtana and Varant until you are finished doing quests on all of them. Liberating them will cause all other towns to become hostile and you will lose all the awesome quests that would have otherwise been offered. So don't liberate until the very end of the game.)

If you ignored this game due to launch issues, now is time to play it. Thanks to all the community patches (the latest one is about 1Gb in size, and even removes copy protection), this game is now one of the best ever made. Now do yourself a favor and get gaming. :)

Been playing the game for about a month now. It's certainly not bad, if anything, it's great. Just a step down from what I'd expect from a Gothic game. This one has a few bugs and some major combat issues. Frustrating is about the best I can describe the combat in this game, and the load times can get a bit horrendous. Even with that, though, there is still an enormous world to explore at your own leisure. This game is a lot more open compared to the other two, and I thoroughly enjoy that part about it. Overall, it's a great game for freedom of exploring as long as the combat doesn't bother you too much.

I played and loved the original Gothic III but I can't say that I like the Collector's Edition: Forsaken Gods very much. The game play is not as smooth and the voice of the hero is weak and different from the original. I would not recommend this, even if you couldn't get enough of the original.

I am so disappointed. These were gifts for my son and nephew. We tried to start the games up on 3 different pc's and they will not work at all. I think there is something seriously defective with the disks. We knew the game has bugs, but have fun playing it so thought it would be worth it... Do not buy this... you will be very disappointed!

This is the first game I purchased and had to return on Amazon. The game disc took an hour to load, even longer for the install process to start, only to give me errors shortly after. The meanwhile my DVD drive was screaming. I tried the game in several different computers with the same result. The music cd played fine, the game disc was just a nightmare. There were no noticeable defects or scratches on the disc either.

Pros:
1. Very affordable
2. Comes with Full game, Expansion, Soundtrack, and map
3. Continues where gothic 2 leaves off
4. Fun game play with numerous choices
5. You can choose to join different factions
6. Multiple endings
7. Your choices have a direct effect on the game world
8. Easily 40+ hours of game play on a single play through, if you do most of the side quests.

Cons:
1. This game comes with all of the developers patches, but some may need to download community patches to make it playable.
2. The expansion is produced by a third party and doesn't follow the story
3. Manual is on disc in PDF format, and cannot be accessed during game play on most machines.
4. The expansion is quite terrible for too many reasons to list.

This game is horribly glitchy. Even though the company is selling it as though it isn't. It won't run properly on dual core machines, without external fixes.
You can get quest endings where you never got the beginning. It lacks any kind of direction, once you jump through all the hoops needed and download all the external fixes needed for it to actually run on your computer.

Don't waste your money.

Whoever is responsible for designing this game for playing on computers should be fed to the Orcs. Don't judge a book or, in this case, video game by its cover. Gothic 3 Collector's Edition box is interesting and unusual. It's metal. Probably designed this way to stand up to all the fist pounding from exasperated fans trying to play the game. I loved the story line and the environment is spectacular but you can't totally immerse yourself in the game because it freezes up, especially during a battle. I am a loyal Gothic fan but Gothic 3 is not for the impatient of heart.

As you get closer and closer to the ending, more and more problems occur in the game. I don't mean monster problems. I mean Software problems because the game keeps crashing. Is it too much to ask to please, please, please test games before releasing to the fans? I could just imagine the game designers saying: let's throw in free add-ons so the fans will think their getting their money's worth but they won't be able to play anyway. Muhwahahahahaha (evil laugh).

If you do decide to play this game, read Lu Richardson's guide (can be found at: [...]. It will help relieve your anxiety while playing Gothic 3. You'll be able to finish the game and experience the different endings. Lu, you rock! Also, FAQ/Walkthrough by GeorgeKl. Here's the link: [...]

Gothic 3 was maddening fun but heed my words:
Save you must or you'll be lying in the dust.

The game itself works fine, in fact it works better than I had hoped, I had bought a different version of Gothic 3 that wasn't meant for vista, I never got past the load splash because ANY VERSION OF THIS GAME THAT DOES NOT SAY "works with Windows Vista" WILL NOT WORK WITH WINDOWS VISTA OR 7! This is not an intentional problem, the security software on the disk allows it to install, but then vista can't recognize it when you start it and tells you there's no disk, whether or not there is. This version has a workaround that allows the program to simply start without the disk and problem solved. When in doubt or if you're somehow confused by this paragraph, buy this version, it works on all windows 2000 or later.

Don't try to play in 1st person. None of the Gothic series was meant for 1st person and this is by no means an exception. The gameplay surrounds the same unnamed protagonist as the previous two games exploring, surprise surprise, another landmass, this time he's on the mainland. Having played the whole thing several times I'd guestimate it to be about 20 square miles of explorable map. The combat is sickeningly satisfying in that EVERYTHING is a match for you. Literally, everything all at once could come after you and try to kill you and that would be an even fight. When you swing at something and hit it causes that target to stagger, which gives you enough time to hit it again, which staggers it again. Even when surrounded by hoards of angry orcs it's not a problem because while you swing away at one the rest just stand there waiting for their turn. Playing as any character type, mage, fighter, or ranger your only realy in danger when the enemy is a spellcaster. Lastly spellcasting seems useless at fist, but that's because spell damage goes up with you spellcasting skill, which to start with is 0.

If you've played to other 2 games from start to finish take not that there has been a big step taken in this game, there are three possible endings. The "I'm a goody two shoes help the helpless slay the evils!" ending, the "IMMA KILL ALL HOOMANS AND LOVE THE EVIL GODS AND ORCSES" ending, and the "#$%k you gods I'm gonna do my own thing." ending.

P.S. actually not everything that is melee is helpless against your onslaught, wolves will look at your pitiful battleaxe of might and awe summoned from the heavens to slay the mortals of earth, snort in disdain, dodge the axe seven times in a row and kill you by biting you 51.6 times per second.
Kill wild animals from a distance.