Gothic II
by Atari
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List Price: Category: Video Games See more product details |
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Video Game Reviews of Gothic II
Customer Review: Still the Absolute Best Single Player RPG Out Now
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Customer Review: Gothic II Review
Summary: 5 Stars
Story: 5/5
/-.5: A lot of the story elements in Gothic 2 are taken from stories already in existence, i.e. Dragons, Orcs, Seekers...
/+.5: ...but the other bits and pieces of the story more then make up for it.
*Comment: The story is extremely diverse in comparison with other games, and very immersive. The story, overall, is novel quality, and the elements taken from other stories don't seem to detract from immersion at all.
Game World: 5/5
*Comment: Never repetitive, incredibly detailed, excellent layout and extremely memorable. Absolutely spectacular work.
Gameplay: 4/5
/-.5: Clunky control of the character as you cannot move and strafe at the same time.
/-.5: Many bugs can be found in the game, albeit they will not hinder the telling of the story. Also, modifying the control scheme can result in annoying bugs.
/-.5: Leveling your character will be one of the hardest (a few exceptions here) aspects in the game, and seemingly unnecessarily. I often find myself wanted to cheat to gain levels just so I may complete a quest without resorting to hours of playing to get to the appropriate level.
/+.5: Just wandering through the game world is amazing. NPC's all have daily routines, the monsters as well will sleep at night (most of them, at any rate) and the city of Khorinis is excellently presented.
*Comment: The overall game play is presentable, but could have used more work. When just beginning, the character can seem clunky and slow, for Gothic 3 it would be better to use a more responsive control scheme.
Overall Presentation: 4.5/5
/-.5: Blocky character models could have used more work.
/-.5: The game seemed poorly optimized, as slow frame rates turned up especially in the city of Khorinis. (NOTE: *Reviewers system*: 2.2 GHz Athlon XP, 1 GB Dual Channel PC-3200 Ram, 128 MB GeForce 4 Ti 4200)
/+.5: The Game world, and the incredible attention paid to detail and textures, is astounding. Well worth the cash altogether.
Comment: Overall, the game's presentation is nothing short of spectacular, albeit it gets old leveling your character during the early stages of the game. Graphics and sound, although not on par with some of the newest shooters, doesn't really detract that much from overall immersion, which the game play and story provide flawlessly.
Reviewer's Score: 4.6/5
Total Score: 4.62/5
Percent: 92.4% A-
BOTTOM LINE: Gothic 2 is a very well-presented RPG that relies less on technical achievement, and more on a unique, intricate, and ultimately satisfying experience.
Customer Review: Quite possibly the best RPG ever!
Summary: 4 Stars
Gothic II is the embodiment of RPG perfection. With spectacular graphics, amazing level design, (one of its best attributes), and a very nonlinear storyline, Gothic II outshines its original by far. When I bought Gothic I several years ago, it was widely unknown and the store I bought it from stopped carrying it shortly after I bought it. But it was a huge success! So of course when I saw Gothic II annnounced, I knew I had to buy it.
Gothic II has many seemingly minor improvements over its predecessor that actually make a world of difference. Here are five examples.
1. Finally, there is "happy" music - walk along the countryside when you are not battling to hear a nice, quiet little tune play.
2. Lo and behold! - the sky is actually BLUE! No more weird, yellow Gothic I sky! (Sorry if somebody actually enjoyed it - I know I didn't.)
3. Now when you trade with people, you can sell them an item and get gold for it - the trader has "infinite" gold, so you can sell all your items to him/her and they will pay you in gold. I liked this much better than Gothic I's awkward trading system, where you and the seller had to accept an agreement of trading one item for another item. In Gothic II when you want an item from a trader, you simply highlight it and press the action key. If you have enough gold, you'll buy it. If not, sell something of your own and get gold to buy it with. I love it.
4. Your inventory system has been redone - no more confusing "Sections" you have to go through to get to an item.
5. The levels are so much more DETAILED now! This is the most lavishly detailed game I have ever laid eyes on. Explore a forest; ferns dot the floor and ivy crawls up trees, shrubs and bushes are scattered about gloriously. I simply can't praise the level design enough.
The only negative I can complain of is that your health and mana don't recharge depending on your character level or a similar attribute, which is why I gave the game only four stars out of five. This may not sound like much, but to me it was a big problem. You have to find healing plants/potions and mana plants/potions lying around the level to restore your health. You can occasionally buy plants and potions from merchants, and sleeping the night out on a bed will restore health and mana as well, but the merchants run out of stuff and you can't very well sleep every time you finish a battle now can you? Keeping up health and mana later gets annoyingly difficult, considering plants don't regrow, merchants don't get new items, and as I just said, it wastes a huge amount of game time to sleep every time you finish a battle (and this isn't usually possible - where would you find a nice comfy bed out in the middle of a forest?)
But all in all, my final words are "Buy this game! You'll be glad you did!"
Customer Review: Amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
Simply the best. Incredible immersive atmosphere, great leveling system, great combat and literally 1000's of spoken lines of dialog. Like Morrowind You can break from the main plot for days and find some really great areas. In fact, my favorite find was a "Dragon Slicer" two handed magic sword being guarded by some Shadow Warriors: I couldnt handle them at the time so I did a snatch-and-run and jumped off a low cliff to get away! I think I've spent over 50 hours exploring and questing to arrive at a level 14 Paladin.
A few have complained about the controls - not sure why. As a "rookie" the controls are intentionally quirky to reflect your skill level. At "master" level I can assure you the controls are very precise. When I tried to wield the "Dragon Slicer" as a rookie I was getting flattened all over the place. Now I'm almost ruling the kingdom. Learn to parry and strafe combo in melee and the game will reward you. If not the skeletons will teach you the error of your ways!
I cannot recommend this game more!
Customer Review: Exceptional game, with some irritating flaws
Summary: 4 Stars
Aside from the Elder Scrolls series, few games offer the degree of freedom you enjoy in Gothic 2. You can explore a vast, realistic world at will, meet a host of strange and unique creatures and individuals, and (naturally) kill them. There are numerous quest paths to take, and options available for class customization. The graphics are exquisite, and the sounds and soundtrack well done. Though voice acting is a bit bland, it's at least understandable and doesn't detract from the experience.
The actor and monster AI are quite well done, though it tends to work better outside of combat rather than in. Monsters often get stuck if you're up on a rock or ledge, though I'm half convinced this is a feature rather than a deficiency (more on that later). Town citizens react in a realistic manner if you try to steal from them or act aggressively. Of particular note is that drawing weapons is considered a hostile action- something strangely absent in many RPGs. The realism is enhanced by excellent modeling (though human characters and expressions are somewhat uniform) and occasional cinematics.
The first thing you're likely to notice about Gothic, however, is that the controls are very odd. Strafing makes you go perpendicular to the direction you're facing- it doesn't allow you to move diagonally. This will certainly throw anyone familiar with FPS controls. You click to target an enemy in combat, and then use directional keys to perform attacks or a block. Your character tries to track the target, but more often than not hits something or someone else. Additionally, the controls are sometimes very unresponsive. Accessing your inventory causes you to put away your weapon, and you have to run through your presorted items (which can be massive in number, since there's no encumbrance limitation) and select, say, that healing potion. Most of the time if you need healing in combat, you will die.
Couple these problems with the fact that early on, most enemies will be able to smack you down with ridiculous ease, and you have a pretty harsh initiation into the world of Gothic 2. It doesn't help that most of the vermin out there come in packs. I found myself doing a lot of running until I hit about level 15. It's a good thing guards lend you a hand if you happen to lead some monsters by. This also makes that occasional rock or ledge extremely useful, provided you have a ranged attack.
The world itself is actually quite small, as you'll see when you get a map (you have to buy one- no freebies like in most RPGs). However, the developers did a great job of expanding the world vertically, so there's a surprising number of places to visit. Many of these are creepy caverns filled with monsters and treasure, and secret areas lurk in hidden corners away from roads. The different environments have creatures to match, and you can usually tell when you're treading on the territory of some powerful beast (wonder where this blood trail leads...) There's enough NPCs around to make the world seem reasonably populated, and they go about their business like real people would.
As for more serious problems, I noticed significant game instability during saving. Furthermore, whenever it crashed during a save, the save was unrecoverable (yikes!). I also saw the world reset every time I changed areas during a chapter transition. This led to weird things like people I had killed returning to life. The patch didn't fix these problems.
Lastly, if your PC isn't relatively powerful, you're going to see some major lag in populated areas like Khorinnis. Reduced video settings might fix this, but playing on low detail in this game is just no fun. One cosmetic gripe I had was the lack of character customization- you have precisely one choice in terms of your appearance and voice. This is for continuity purposes, I understand, and doesn't detract too much from the game experience. Nevertheless, it is something missing that's present in most current games.
There are scores of quests, most of which work as expected. I did see a few quest bugs, but that's to be expected given the complexity of the game. The main quest is what drives the plot, and although it does have some interesting twists, it isn't exactly brilliant. I suppose the developers spent so much time and energy on the world, the graphics, and the side quests that they had little juice left to work on the main quest. However, there's enough paths to make the game replayable nevertheless. Specifically, you can play as a mercenary, paladin, or fire mage, and each route leads to unique quests and capabilities. If I could resolve the technical issues with the game, I'd likely play it through again.
In summary, Gothic 2 isn't a perfect game, but it's definitely a great one. For what it costs now, it's one serious bargain for any RPG addict.