Gothic 2 Gold Edition

Since I was one of those who bought the original Gothic, after finding it advertised as a coming game inside some other game from JoWood, which didn't release Gothic, I suppose they were going to but never did. (I'd guess it was inside either Chaser or Arx fatalis) I played the game and loved the gritty atmosphere and as soon as I saw that Gothic 2 was on the way I was eagerly awaiting it and bought it upon release. The atmosphere isn't as harsh as the initial but the world is so much bigger that I think they're equally good, both in their own respect. I've played through it more than once and I've always wanted to play the extension, was close to getting it and the homemade english translation that was available, but I never found it available here in Sweden so I never got it. (now I'll finally be able to play it too) What's there to say about the game, it's a big world you can freely roam, like the first one the story is pretty good as well, it's however not really an RPG in my opinion, more an action/adventure since the storyline, as soon as you've chosen your path, is the same for every "class". (which I honestly don't mind, wouldn't give it a five star rating if I did, would I? :)) Apart from bugs - which I've luckily enough never did encounter many of in this or the original, I had fully functional mouse in the original, unusually enough - the most common complaint is the interface, I suppose it's a love/hate thing, I love it, I like being able to time the left-right blows. (Gothic 3's more "normal" clickfest did however turn me away from that game, it also felt too big, you lost focus) The aiming on multiple enemies isn't perfect, even if it was worse in the original, but few games are perfect and I can live with that. Scenery is very nice, animals have their own life, NPC's also seem more living than in other games, the pathfinding of enemies is brilliant, just because an enemy runs out of your viewfield won't mean that he'll just come strolling back without remembering being shot, he may find an alternate route and attack you from behind when you focus on those you can see. All in all it's a very good game, with a lot of gaming time if you go out exploring and IMHO it doesn't get boring or tedious to do that, it is fighting for the third spot in my personal top ten list, the first and second spot are way ahead of everything else though and it'll take a small miracle to replace those two, but maybe one day a game will, so far it hasn't happened and I'm glad that there are games like Gothic /2 to be there fighting for the places behind.

very nice game

Well, I don't think that Gothic series must to be reviewed now, all words was told. It's a great game, that envolved even 20+ years later, when I played it first time! Just try it, if you wouldn't still. Interesting quests, sometimes heavy battles, big world with a secrets.

...maybe even the most fun I've had on my PC. There is something about the design of this game, and even the design of the artwork, that makes it the best RPG experience I've ever had. There is no level-balancing in this game, which means that there are areas that you just can't safely enter until you reach a certain experience level. This required a lot of extra effort for the developers, as they had to design the plot(s) to coincide with the level of the monsters in different areas. In my opinion this is a far superior design to that of Oblivion: when you finally are able to conquer an area you really feel like you accomplished something. This type of design does make the game slightly more linear, but you really don't notice - you're far too busy having fun. The graphics, although dated, are beautiful. I remember when I first played the game, just raving to friends about the gorgeous countryside I was exploring. The artists made the most of the technology they had at the time. It's been a while since I played, but as I recall most of the game is played from an over-the-shoulder perspective. The combat is pretty much real-time hack-and-slash, with magic and ranged weapons as well. There are 3 different paths you can take, each one plays out differently with different areas and quests available depending on your choice. This allows for at least 3 playthroughs, which is a lot of great entertainment. Anyway, I highly recommend this game. Just be patient and persistant through the first areas - it's worth it in the end.

I know this Review won't make a lot of people happy, but i feel i should also show the "not blinded by nostalgia" side of things. Also i want to point out, that this is my view at this moment...in 2012. I bought this on gog, since i didn't get my old boxed version running (or even installing) after debating for 2 days if it is worth the money or not and now i wish i would have bought something else. I recently played Risen 2, followed by Risen 1, which is imo a lot better (and looks even better at times than part 2 strangely) and now after i finished both, i wanted more. Knowing about the botched Arcania and allready played the mediocre Gothic 3, i thought i move further back to the game that i bought in the past, but never really got into it at those times, even though I loved Gothic 1. Now after installing it, waiting forever to get it started (has some issues on my win7 64bit and takes forever to start) i took my first steps, allready repulsed to not have a mouse cursor in the menu. Those first steps where very akward...mouse sensitivity was all the way up and still felt to low, which i had to counter with my Logitech sensitivity button, but that wasn't the end of it. The whole control sheme is disgusting from a modern viewpoint and the main difficulty in this rather hard game comes from the controls. I was expecting a similar system to Risen 1 at least, but boy was I off. I can't say much about the story and rest of the gameplay, cause the graphics (i expected old graphics, but not those extra hard fade ins of enemies and objects that this game has) and controls made me quit after 10 minutes. So yeah in short: I accept that this is one of the best RPGs ever produced, but if you want to play it today, you have to have a veeeery high tolerance. I am not a graphics whore and also grew up with the developement of computer games, all the way back to a C64 and still love to play several old games today, but i simply can't deal with how bad the controls in this game are. I hope this viewpoint helps out some people. I was blinded by my memory that this was a great game and by the amount of positive reviews.