Customer Reviews

Gothic II

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have played nearly every major single player RPG (and some wierd obscure ones for that matter), and this game is the best out of all of them.

GRAPHICS:
The graphics in this game are very good but not perfect. The world detail is truly amazing and it better than any other RPG I know of. Dense forests, towering stone castles, icy mountain tops, etc etc, this game has it all. The character detail is pretty good to, much better than Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights. I also like the armor and weapon detail too. It is always a treat when I get a new piece of armor or a weapon to try it on and see how it looks, and unlike other games, the better the armors rating is the cooler it looks. The special effects for spells are pretty good, but not quite as good as Neverwinter Nights if you are looking for a comparison.

The lighting detail could be better. Another thing is I wished they would of made things more reflective. The armor is kind of shiny, but it would be really sweet if they made it so you could see your reflection in someone's armor. Also, the water detail isn't all that great. The animations aren't that great either. They did a good job with coordinating gestures and facial expressions with speech, but combat animations aren't really that great.

Overall the graphics are very good, and certainly at the top of any RPG, but it's certainly not Doom III.

SOUND:
This game has the best sound I have heard in any RPG - full surround and environmental effects. Another thing that is awesome is that everything is spoken, none of the dialogue is subtitled. I read somewhere that there is nine hours of recorded speech in this game, and this adds a lot to the game play. The voice acting isn't' all that bad as someone a few rows down mentioned, but I think it is pretty good for 9 hours of recorded speech.

CONTROLS:
The controls aren't the best, and there are games with a lot better controls out there, but you get used to the controls fast and it really isn't a problem at all.

GAMEPLAY:
This is where this game really shines. This is the most nonlinear single player game I have ever played, topping even morrowind. I would go so far as to say that this game is more non-linear than some online RPG's out there. The storyline is very gripping and is up there with Baldur's Gate II.

NPC's have schedules. For example, a potion maker might wake up, get some breakfast, go out in the woods to collect herbs, come back and brew potions, go to the local tavern to get a few drinks, and then finally go back to his house and go to sleep. To give you an idea of how this effects game play, here is and example of a quest I did in the game: for a quest I needed to beat someone up, but I couldn't do it in front of the guards in plain daylight. I waited until night and followed him home from the tavern and beat the hell out of him while he was in a dark alley and no one was looking.

The character development system isn't as elaborate as Dungeons and Dragons, but it is to the point and gets the job done very well. I actually like it a little better than Dungeon's and Dragons. You can learn different skills like brewing your own potions, making your own weapons, skinning animals, creating spells, etc etc.

I also like the way they did the economy and items in this game. Gold never loses it's value, ever. Another thing is that you're not always getting a new weapon or armor to look at every two seconds like in Diablo. Whenever you get a new item it is a pretty big thing and helps you out a lot. They did an excellent job of balancing this game in that respect.

Combat is probably the weakest part of the game play, but it is still very fun. Mainly this has to do with the controls and the graphics, because combat is not nicely animated like it is in Neverwinter Nights. You should mind though, that I am being very hard on this game, and combat is still extremely fun. I am merely pointing out that it could be better.

OVERALL
This is an excellent game. It isn't perfect, but it's good points are really good, and they more than cancel out the bad points(which aren't very many) and defiantly gets my five stars.

At first, I didn't think very highly of this game. But of course, how much of a different experience can you have within a few minutes? About an hour into the game however, I realized what a gem this is!

The Gothic 2 game world is beautiful and rich in detail. There is lots to do, and lots to see. And I think this is one of the major selling points this game has going for itself. It is a rarity for a game to have a sophisticated story line, and this game does. A lot of the things that happen do not require you to fight, which is also a rarity, and a welcome change. The world itself is more believable than other game worlds. Just walk into somebody's house, and they will get very upset and call the guards. Draw your sword in the middle of town, and people will not be happy either. It's just a lot more immersive than other games. Although some of the characters do get repetitive over time.

The fighting system takes a bit to get used to. At first, I hated it, but then I got to like it. Basically, one holds the left mouse button and uses movement keys to launch attacks or to defend yourself. This is a bit unusual and hard to coordinate at first. Once you get used to it however, it sometimes allows the player to win fights that one wouldn't win if it all just depended on a role of the dice. So overall, I like the combat system, I like that they had some new ideas there, but I do wish the exact implementation was slightly different. Overall, this is not a big problem though.

Both Gothic I & II are two of my favorite RPG's in the last few years. But... there is one disclaimer about the Gothic series before you give it a try. Admittedly, it does have a poor interface and some of the clumsiest controls you'll encounter in an action oriented RPG. The game plays like Morrowind with its 3rd person view but your hero isn't as easy to control. If you were frustrated with Gothic I (and you won't be the first person) but you still want to try a new RPG, my advice would be to pick up the sequel, Gothic II, because it fixes a lot of the common complaints from the first game. The events in Gothic II don't require you to know the story in Gothic I so no matter what your reasons for skipping the first game, you can start with the second game and not lose a whole lot. (If you're a fan of the history in the story though, it does help to play the first game.) Also, explore the web a little too because there are some good Gothic websites that can help you out as the instructions aren't the greatest. Don't be afraid to purchase the game because of these warnings though because if you really want to know why the game has its faults, it's because it was designed by a tiny group of programmers in Germany determined to build the ultimate RPG. While they didn't have the same funding or hype an RPG giant like Neverwinter Nights did, they still did a very admirable job and I've had just as much fun with Gothic as other titles that have received better press and ratings. The attributes of your character are simple compared to most RPG's but the game almost plays like an offline MMORPG with its character progression and exploration. The game begins with a cut scene that explains the events of Gothic I and suffering from side effects of the powerful magic in his final battle in the first game, your hero begin anew with his skills and inventory. The game has some unique characteristics such as night/day, NPC's that respond to home invasion, NPC's that actually sleep at night, and other simple but critical elements that make the game feel more alive. Gothic won't hold your hand and lead you through the game like too many mainstream titles these days so make sure you save often. It's not an easy game to pick up but once you get into it, you'll disocover that it's one heck of an addictive game and probably be a fan of the Gothic series for life.

The sequel to the critically acclaimed RPG, Gothic, Gothic II takes you on an even greater journey of adventure and discovery. The plot continues from the cliff-hanger of the original: After the imprisoned colony members are victorious, collapsing the magical barrier, the former Prison Colony is struck by a terrible earthquake, claiming the lives of many. The majority of survivors seize this opportunity to escape with only a handful of people remaining in the derelict prison.

Rescued by the Nemesis Xardas you start out with only a little food and some water. This is a 'dark' RPG game with non-linear quest and plot. The interface controls are much improved and better easier to use. The game area is even four times bigger. It has all the fun, intrigue and 'ruthless' of the original and so much more. You can play in either first or over the should third person mode. It is like Morrowind in a way, but is more fun if you like the "darker side" of RPG. There are three basic classes but you can develop how ever you want. The graphics and sound is even better than Morrowind. This game is already out in Germany, but the English version is coming.... It is a great game, even if did not get alot of publicity here in USA.

Ever since Ultima introduced NPC scheduling, there are not many RPGs that has successfully achieve this beyond the scale set by Ultima 7: The Black Gate. Sure, there are good RPG games since Ultima - Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of Old Republic. None of these, however have NPC scheduling - that means the computer controlled character, for example, a blacksmith, works in the morning, take a lunch break in the afternoon, continue his work till dusk, strolls to the bar for a smoke and a beer and finally going to bed late at night.

The said blacksmith will make weapons by going to the forge, then hitting the red metal in the anvil, putting the blade in the water bucket to cool it and back to the anvil again. He even has an apprentice to do some of the work.

This scenario is pretty common in Gothic 2. The city of Khorinis is filled with NPCs doing their daily chores, some of these having their own hidden agendas which you will have to help/not help as subquests. You can aid a thief and win favour with the Thief Guild or you can turn this scoundrel in and befriend the militia/paladin.

You can attack someone in the city but will get penalized by Lord Andre, the militant chief. The cost of your penalty depends on how many witnesses saw the fight at that time. The more witnesses will cost you more as these witnesses will report your bad deed to Lord Andre.

As the game progress, you have to choose your career path. There are 5 chapters in the game. In Chapter 1, which may take like 8-10 hours of play, you have to determine what you want to be: paladin, mercenaries or mages. Each of these path have their own quests and story-line, which, again provides replayability. I have played the most recent RPG, Star Wars and I thought that replaying the game as the Dark side would have given me more options or quests. Alas, the quests are more or less the same. Gothic 2 is different. My friend played as a mercenary and I, a militia and we have been discussing the many different quests that were given to us. I will definitely play this again as the Fire magicians ;-)

I will end this mini-review to stress the awesome atmosphere such as NPC scheduling and work cycle, day-night cycle, refreshing quests/subquestes that are not just Fed Ex type, adds a lot to the gameplay of a RPG. Khorinis is not just a game world. It is a place I escaped from Real Life. If you love Ultima but was disappointed with Ultima Ascension, try Gothic 2. You won't regret it... (you don't need to play Gothic 1 to play the sequel)

Gothic 2 is a bit frustrating at first but it catches speed like a rolling bolder about half way through. In fact, once you get the hang of the slightly annoying interface (which, kudos to the design team for making it UBER-realistic) it is just one of those games where your character can stand in one place and just look around and that alone is entertainment!!!

But the real fun begins when you beef up your abilities enough to stand a chance or better yet - lay waste to the masses. The worlds are rich and amazingly detailed. If you pump it up with some 6.1 sound, it will raise the hair on the back of your neck when monsters attack or you get caught out in the wilderness in the middle of the night without shelter in site.

I must admit, I paid full price for it $49 and would gladly pay that full sum again - it is good enough that I have City of Heroes sitting on my desk staring at me longingly and wishing I'd finish this. It may have to wait for me to go through and play as a mage (you develop your characters into 3 VERY different heroes as the game progresses.)

Overall - you simply cannot get over 60 hours of better entertainment for $10!!!!

I bought this game after playing baldur's gate 2 and morrowind. I thought that those two games were fun, but this game blew them away. I never played Ultima, so I had no idea what to expect from NPC scheduling. Now, though, I can't play games that don't at least have a day/night cycle. The NPC's have lives! They sleep, eat, go to work, even fight with monsters or each other, smoke, and have intelligent conversations with each other!

The graphics, after playing games like morrowind, were stunning, to say the least. trees look real, buildings look like photographs, and even the trails and woods and caves look realistic. The only places you have to worry about loading new screens are when you load the game, and when you travel from the farms and city of Khorinis and arrive at the mining valley. The graphics aren't perfect, but they are far better than any game I've ever seen (and I play a lot of games), with the only possible exception being the fact that there aren't always clouds in the sky when it is raining (but then, I've seen that happen in real life, too).

The story (taken in the context of the first game's established history) is fascinating: The Barrier, a great and magical prison, has collapsed, freeing the vicious and not-so-vicious criminals that had been thrown inside. You, who were one of the prisoners (although we are never told WHY you are a prisoner...), destroyed the Barrier after defeating an evil arch-demon called the sleeper. After laying crushed under rocks for at least a few days, you are brought back to help the Magician Xardas defeat a new, greater evil... Dragons have returned to the land, and only YOU can stop them from destroying the world. Needless to say, it's not terribly original, but the way the story is told is completely unique. You learn your abilities from masters of the crafts, from swordplay (which works for swords, axes and hammers) to archery, alchemy and taking dozens of types of animal trophies. You are given 3 options of guilds to join, but only the Fire Mages get the entire story, as near as I have seen (I've beaten the game 4 times, so far). Secrets abound for all three classes, leaving the game open for the sequel, scheduled for release very early next year (argh! must be ... patient ... argh!).

The only difficulty I've ever had with the admittedly unusual control system was when I first started using it. Of course, I was used to using a mouse to point-and-click your enemies to death type interface. Using the keyboard is very different, but definitely can be much easier after you get used to it. Even now, I still have some trouble trying to target a different enemy than my current target, but that's just realistic; it's not easy to break your focus when attacking someone who is attacking you.

Finally, I must say there are no major bugs in this game, which I think is fantastic. There were problems running it at first on my computer, but after I removed all of the Freeware and Spyware and that sort of thing, both G2 and the predecessor, gothic, run rock-solid. Never, ever have I had a game that didn't need a patch or three. Or four! I did have to upgrade my hardware, however, to get the best graphics possible (I now run a 2.2 GHz, 768 Mb of RAM, Windows XP, with NVidia GeForce 5500 for video). The same goes for the first game. No spyware, No problems.

I have to say, if you have any interest at all in action/adventure, Role-playing, or even Shooters, this is a game for anyone who likes games, or medieval story-telling.

Like some of the other reviewers, I wasn't really into this game at first. I kept playing because it intrigued me that the first offered "quest," which in any normal RPG would begin the storyline, actually gets your character killed about 15 seconds. There is no way to defeat this quest at level one. The concept of an RPG that does not spoon-feed you along is continued with a large area map for your character to explore, much of which will get him (it is not possible to play a female) dead before you can get him turned around to run away.

I'm not too wild about the fighting style in this game; I prefer a turn-based style. I especially disliked that it was impossible to even quick equip healing potions. To drink a healing potion during a fight, you have to go to the equipment screen, get the potion, wait for your character to drink it (which takes a few seconds), then re-equip your weapon. Needless to say, healing potions aren't much help in battle at lower levels. I did like that you can be attacked from behind and that a direct hit, on either you or your opponents, will generally make the hit character recoil a bit.

The main plotline is nothing special, but the side quests are fun and varied. Also, you can do them in any order that you want. The NPCs are pretty interesting, for a video game. I liked the plotline as much as either of the Baulder's Gate series and better than Lionheart or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. You cannot create a party of NPCs, unfortunately, but that is the only real fault of the plot in my opinion. It is possible to become a mercenary and play an "evil" character if you are so inclined. The other options are militiaman (where you eventually become a Paladin) and apprentice (eventually you become a Mage). I highly recommend this game for anyone who likes RPGs with complex plotlines.

There is no better single player RPG out in the market right now that comes close to being as good as this game. This is both my number 2 RPG of all time and my number 2 game of all time. I too heard about some of the problems from the game and stayed away. But due to a lull in the RPG market this looked like a good time to take a chance and see what all the fanboys were raving about.

It is it perfect? No. Neither is Julia Roberts but she is still a ten in most peoples book. The two main problems with the game are the controls and the level of difficulty. The controls do take some getting used to but if this hand eye challenged person can do it, so can just about anyone else. After a while you will be moving through the Gothic world with relative ease. The other problem with the game is the level of difficulty for a beginning player. But the game does warn you not to wander in the forest. Many nubes do, and they pay the price. Stay on the trails and you'll be okay.

But the greatness comes regardless of the quibbles. For example, any brave soul who wants to wander in the forest can do so. The game allows you to run from baddies, however, the baddies will give chase and it's quite exhilarating to be chased by a screaming orc while you are running for your life. But don't get caught.

And that's another thing this game does right. Orcs and skeletons are to be feared in this game. Not easy pickins but legitimate monsters that can tear you apart. And they are depicted in a scary but wonderful manner. Even the dogs and wolves in this game are smart and have been known to circle around objects to kill you. The people you meet actually do something other than just stand there and wait for you to talk to them. They work, play and sleep. This game world really feels alive like no other.

Some may ask why is that important? When you are running around doing things in the game world, if the environment is sterile the game loses interest fast. The game also mocks some of the early RPG conventions by going into peoples houses and just taking their stuff. Cant do that in this game. (at least not openly) All the neighbors will gather around and at first threaten and then attack if you don't back off.

One other quiible. While the voice acting is excellent, the game developer went cheap and only hired a very few voice actors. Still, the production values for the game are quite high and even though Gothic 2 is a couple years old the graphics will still impress. But it is the story and the game action that will suck you in. I just wish I was you, who is reading this so I too could go out and play this game for the first time.

I have played both Gothic and Gothic II and loved them both. I am a big fan of RPG's and have played everything from Baldur's Gate to Morrowind and I place the Gothic series at the top of the list.

The control system takes some getting used to, as it is keyboard based and we tend to be used to mouse based systems, but that doesn't make is clumsy, primitive, or bad. It's just different. The main keys you will get to know pretty quickly on are your arrow keys - used for everything from movement to attacking. Space is ready weapon, ALT is jump, and tab is inventory. CTRL + up arrow is use...on just about everything. I would suggest taking some time to get familiar with the system. You get a pickaxe and sword early on, so practice the timing by waving your sword around a bit. To attack hit CTRL + the up arrow. As you progress you will be a better fighter, and it's obvious because you learn more steps in your attack sequence. In the begining, try using CTRL + R arrow, followed by the up arrow for a fluid attack sweep.

The storyline is pretty linear, but the world is anything but. You can and will run everywhere and if you're anything like me you will quickly memorize the paths to certain key places.

Anyway, I will leave the story to your discovery, but don't let the keyboard controls stop you from enjoying this awesome game...its well worth the time and effort.