Gothic 3

Be warned that even despite the community patch Gothic 3 is very finicky about what rigs it will run on. It can even be a slide show on high end computers if it doesn't like your setup. The Community Patch really does wonders for this title. I was able to play the first twenty minutes of the Steam version before giving up with the poor performance and can say that if you can get it to run, it is even better than newer Gothic released like Risen. On a side note: The epilogue release to Gothic 3 - "Forsaken Gods" looks and works near perfect with it's most recent update and modification.

The developer of the Gothic series got severely shaftet by publisher on this game, resulting in a very bad polishing budget. Most of the game content is bugged and a lot of the world feels empty due to the early publishing of the game. However, a community patch exists, and it makes many of the bugs disappear.

This is not a full review -- I really couldn't praise this game or summarize it any better than Herzalot and others have already done, and yes, you owe it to yourself to install the community patch as Ubivis has helpfully pointed out. Rather this is to clear up the widespread misconception about the combat system supposedly being a "clickfest", with only one left-button-mashing attack mode. This is simply not true -- page 22 of the manual clearly lists six separate combat moves available to your character, and when you combine these with the AWSD movement keys, your options for combat are in fact quite numerous. In addition, every creature/monster/opponent you face in the game has its own unique style of attacking you --almost always telegraphed ahead by movement and sound -- requiring you to respond with the particular attack most suited for that enemy, making combat one of the more rewarding aspects of this wonderful game Everything other word of praise for the Gothic franchise (we'll pretend Arcania doesn't exist) is richly deserved, as this is without a doubt one of the most ambitious and lovingly crafted games I've ever had the pleasure of playing.

Legend

Good game, worse execution then for previous titles, we lost the beloved features to get the vast world to explore. If it catches you, good for you. It offers a lot of think but they can fall behind the wall of content. The atmosphere will catches you but the playthough may be weary with the time. The world is there but not the story as we got before. We wish the story patch to be finished in great shape one day, then we can try to re-explore the gorgeous world again.