Gothic II
by Atari
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Video Game Reviews of Gothic II
Customer Review: Stellar game - exceptional replay value too.
Summary: 5 Stars
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!!!!
Customer Review: The Best Single Player RPG I have ever played
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Customer Review: One of the best RPG's to ever hit the gaming world...
Summary: 5 Stars
For true fans of role-playing games who are tired of linear worlds where actions are determined by the no-choice plots of profit-minded programmers, there is good news. Like Gothic (1) before it, Gothic 2 invites the player on a journey into a gaming world where NPCs actually care what happens. Unlike most RPGs, the path of the game is not easy to see from the beginning. From the start, there are decisions to make that will alter the way the world reacts throughout the game. When the character rises in the ranks of a guild, instead of the dull "Yes Guildmaster" that many gamers have come to know and despise in RPGs, the world actually seems to notice that he is still alive.
Among Gothic 2's major victories, players will find the no-nonsense gameplay to be refreshing. The controls have been much improved over the controls of Gothic (1) though the option to stick with the original controls is left to the player. When the character draws his sword in town, he better have a good reason. The locals get very upset. When a player enters someone's house whether innocently or to rob them blind, they notice and come on the war-path promptly. The player will sigh with relief even at the beginning of the game. Instead of spending needless time trying to decide what race and class to choose for maximum punch, the player is thrown nameless and immediately into the world not knowing if they can kill the bandit attacking them or the wolf close behind. There are no natural abilities in this game. Skills, of all sorts, must be learned and refined.
Gothic 2 can take anywhere from 30-40 hours to beat and offers great replayability with different quests depending on the player's choices. It is well worth any gamer's time to find this game and give it a few spins.
At an average cost of $20 (US) this game is a bargain and though a few years old, the graphics still amaze anyone with a decent system. If the gaming world is truly lucky, Gothic 3 will not be too many years away from becoming a reality. This game earns 5 out of 5 stars.
Customer Review: Really good RPG
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Customer Review: deeper than the ocean
Summary: 5 Stars
If you've never played the original Gothic and you like CRPG's at all, you owe it to yourself to try this game. The game world is very much alive, and moreover, it feels like it has a history - as if the world really did exist long before you came around. It's very open-ended, which means that if you're foolhardy enough you can go and get yourself killed really quickly. But this also means you can rob peoples' houses and murder indiscriminately should you choose to.I have to admit, theft and the occasional murder will get you really far in this game. There are moments of pure hilarity - initially when you're weak and you pull out your sword in town, people will draw their own weapons and command you to put yours away. As you grow more powerful, they will simply say "There's no problem here" and try to back away from you. While this is indeed pretty funny, it also says a lot about the depth of this game.
Through the course of the game, you will be forced to make some tough decisions. There are many times when you either support one NPC or another, and your choice has lots of repercussions. This game is DEEP and very replayable.
This, and the original Gothic, have been the only CRPG's I have ever played where I looked up at the night sky with wonder, feeling as if I was truly a part of a living, breathing world.