Time shift is a game without any character and charm, so much in fact that even in the short hours of entertainment it provides, you feel like you've had enough of it. Everything is lifelessly gray and ugly (to think this game was released in the same year as Crysis...), the story and the world it presents is something you possibly can't care about; everything about the game is so exceptionally dull. The time manipulating gimmick in the game can be its one selling point (and I'm sure this is what the developers thought when they were slowly killing their ambition as the project went on, if there was any in the first place), but the problem is the ability to rewind time is rarely used (and that's just for scripted in-your-face scenarios) and is pretty much useless in combat, the ability to slow time was implemented much more satisfyingly in F.E.A.R. and the ability to stop time... well, yeah you can stop time, go among your enemies and bash them in the face with the butt of your gun. The game's got that going for it. It's not that Timeshift is a bad game. It's just that it's such a wasted opportunity, it's almost infuriating. Timeshift is a game that is completely reliant one single idea, an idea which is not that novel in the first place, and it does so little with it. A game that is so spineless, so much on the safe side, might be worth playing for some cheap hours of entertainment, but it's not worthy of any admiration. So yeah, 2 stars.
Costume Quest is a feeble attempt for a Halloween themed casual game from Double Fine and it's just way too underdeveloped and simple in its every aspect to be anything worth remembering. Story is simple. It's Halloween night and two siblings, Reynold and Wren, are asked by their mother to go out with their costumes and make new friends by trick or treating, but one of the siblings( depends on your choice ) is taken away by a monster and the other one must venture into an Halloween night adventure to save her/him. CQ's game-play is consisted of exploration and turn based JRPG style combat. Both aspects are extremely simple without any sort of real challenge. Exploration is mostly about finding NPCs that give you quests, finding six hidden kids in each level, fining candies scattered around ( they act as currency ) and finally finding houses that you have to trick or treat. ( It's a part of the main quest. ) There are 4 levels ( counting Grubbins on Ice DLC which is included in PC version ) and all of the actions mentioned above should be done in them without any kind of variety which makes the game super boring and unexciting. Other half of the game ( turn based combat ) is better and more interesting, but still, it has the same problem. It's simplistic and shallow. Every time you encounter an enemy, you are directed to the battle screen and the costumes your characters wear turn into a stylish semi realistic version of themselves. Your normal attacks can do more damage if you press certain buttons in a certain time ( depends on the kind of attack ) which makes the combat a bit more engaging. Each costume has its own spectacular talent ( which gets unlocked after 3 turns ), some are aggressive, some defensive and some supportive. Except costumes, battle stamps have a slight effect on the way combat goes too. But the problem is that some of them are very overpowered and make losing by getting your characters killed impossible, even if you want to. Even if you lose ( which rarely happens ), there are no consequences and you can do the battle again without losing anything. But still, combat in the game can be a mild amusement( especially at first ) and all those flashy animations for special abilities sometimes feel very rewarding. Double Fine games are known for their humorous approach to their subject matter. Unfortunately, humor in CQ is very very childish and chessy and most of the dialogues in the game ( which are not voice acted ) sound like they're take from a kid TV show whcih even kids find too childish. There are some one liners here and there, but they can't save the humor in the game to be an absolute bore. Considering the humor and the simpleness of everything else in the game, CQ is obviously a game direted at a young audience. Visual style in the game also leaves a lot to be desired. Since this game is Halloween themed, it would have been better to use a more serious, darker,creepier visual style for it. ( by keeping the lighthearted feeling of the game of course. Kinda like some Tim Burton movies. ) But the current style gets old too fast and it's more appropriate for games with jungles and green areas which CQ doesn't have. There are games that don't take themselves seriously, there's no problem in that. But CQ has gone too far with it and the result is a lazy boring game which you have to force yourself to finish, although it's already short.
Good things about the game: -Just like all the Action RPG's, Torchlight is an addictive and entertaining game. - Somehow charming visuals. - good duration between level-ups. - Different and fun to use Classes. - Some very neat skills. - Good and suitable length. game finishes before it gets very boring and Repetitive. (of course the game has a lot to offer for people who are willing to continue the game after finishing the main storyline.) - Some Nice music tracks. especially the torchlight town's music. - Enchanting items is very fun. ( of course if you have a lot of money. ) - some people might think Torchlight is an easy game without challenge, but it offers a fair challenge ( especially at the end ) with the Hard difficulty or higher. although it's totally easier ( even at higher difficulties ) than other Diablo clones like Loki or Titan quest. Bad things about the game: - it Has nothing new to offer. - Gets repetitive. - Bad and somehow annoying story. although nearly all of the ARPG's suffer from a bad ( or average at best) story, but the story of this game is really bad. without any excitement or twist. an evil creature ordrak is the bad guy and corrupted a wise person named Alric and you have to defeat Ordrak and save Alric if you can and save the town of Torchlight and in this case, the world too. Whatever. - Not a very good voice acting. - Fishing is boring and you have to try a lot to catch a worthy fish. - Many useless skills. To sum up the review , I should say that Tochlight doesn't do anything ambitious and that's it's main problem. developers wanted to gain profit from a tested and guaranteed formula. Tochlight provides fun and entertainment. ( a thing that many games can do. ) and that means it has done it's primary mission as a game. but it won't do anything new, amazing or revolutionary. But I'm sure Runic games will do better with Torchlight 2 now that they have self confidence and know they can make something great.
Farcry 2 suffers from a big unforgivable problem. It's boring. There are many neat ideas. Many cool features. Many things to look for in the game's big map. ( Diamonds, Jackal tapes, guard posts, safe houses ) But none of them helps the fact that the game is boring and repetitive. You mostly drive in your car in a big map, going from point A to B to C to D and so on and shooting some enemies along the way. Unfortunately, they respawn fast and become very annoying after a while. ( especially in higher difficulties ) You just have to try and avoid them. But they follow in cars and really don't give up on you. In other words, they slow you down which makes the game more repetitive than it should be. Although repetitiveness of the game is not bad enough to prevent you from finishing the game ( at least not for me ) but it really prevents the game to become anything superb. Although it had the potential. But I said something about cool features and neat ideas, right? Well, the thing is Farcry 2 has a certain Deus ex-ness (!) to it. It means that you can do the combat the way you like. If you grab a flame thrower and a sub machine gun, your combat strategy differs from the time when you pick up a sniper rifle and a shotgun. You are free to kill the enemies the way you like and the good thing is none of these ways have any advantage over each other and it all depends on your taste. This is the redeeming aspect of Farcry 2 and unfortunately, I don't see many people talk about it. I think it's the best part that was implemented in the game. Most people I know hated the story of F2 or didn't care about it, but I found it very unique and interesting. It's mostly about the greed, deception and betrayal of the two groups who are in charge of the African country which the game takes place in and the game and your role as a mercenary in the matter and does a good job showing how low and hopeless their goals are. Also dialogues of the game were short and funny and I remember finding them extremely amusing. Farcry 2 visuals are technically good, but due to use of the same textures, it loses its attractiveness real fast. But the fire effects were some of the best in their time. Overall, Farcry 2 is not for gamers who are not very patient or want non-stop action in their FPS. But if you appreciate freedom in the way you can approach problems, Farcry 2 definitely delivers/
Simply put, there's a great idea behind AC. You play as a cool assassin ( Altair ) with great acrobatic skills wondering the streets of some notable medieval cities ( Damascus, Acre, Jerusalem ) tracking and hunting down your targets with the gadgets and abilities you got. It's fun to play as Altair mostly he's fast, agile and gets around easily. But the main problem of the game is that there's little variety and challenge put on your way and if it wasn't because of the unique settings, story and fairly good depiction of historical characters and events and capturing the whole " crusade wars" atmosphere, it would have been a really forgettable game. There are 9 targets for Altair to kill and every one of them is in the poor/average/rich districts of the three cities in the game. To gain access to enough information for attacking your targets, you have to do limited tasks like pick-pocketing, eavesdropping, interrogating , killing archers and guards silently, racing through some checkpoints in a limited amount of time and saving citizens from guards. Doing these tasks is easy and repetitive and killing your main targets is hardly any difference. There are some moments when you get exposed and guards start following you. You can easily lose them with a bit of running and jumping, but if you decide to stay and fight, they are no match for Altair since he is seriously overpowered and can kill a whole bunch of guards with some quick counter attacks. Fortunately, the game features great visuals and soundtracks which makes the experience a lot more pleasant than it should be. AC is not a bad game by any means. It's fun while it lasts. But it could have been done a lot better. But as the start point for a very interesting franchise and story ( Desmond story ) , I think it definitely deserves to be played.
Gothic 3 is perhaps among the most ambitious games ever made. But that's a two-sided coin. It's the reason for both praises and hates this game gets . Many people praise this game because of its literally open-world nature and pure freedom of exploration In a huge world. But there are other people too who hate on the game for the same reason, calling it a sloppy confusing bug-ridden mess. Well these people are somehow right too. Gothic 3 is sloppy at many parts, Sometimes it's awfully confusing and it's a really buggy game. But by no means, it's a mess. All of these faults can't hurt the brilliant core of the game. Just as some fans say, Gothic 3 is an unpolished gem. It is unpolished, but it is still a gem. Due to the fact that game is completely Open-World, there isn't much main story in it. You and your friends from previous game arrive in mainlands with ship. Nameless hero lost his equipment by pirates and forgot or lost most of his abilities ( Obviously ) so he can start a new adventure. Mainlands consist of three regions, The beautiful Flourishing Myrtana, deserts of Varrant and the icy lands of Nordmar. You start the game in Myrtana and your first quest is to find Xardas. Myrtana is occupied by Orcs (who are civilized, they talk and they don't attack you on sight like previous Gothics, there are still savage Orcs though in Nordmar. ) and there are human rebels who want to take back their cities from orcs. You can choose to either join the rebels and destroy the orcs or join the orcs and eradicate all three rebel bases or just follow your own way. If you ally with humans, you truly ally with them. After your reputation with them becomes more than 75%, All of the orcs become hostile to you and attack you on sight and vice versa. There is truly freedom In Gothic 3. No gimmicks. Only Fallout 1&2 and previous Gothics in a smaller scale are in the same league with Gothic 3 in terms of RPG freedom. As it has been said, the world is huge and this huge world is filled with huge number of foes and beasts that should be confronted with combat. Gothic 3 's combat system was somehow a subject of criticism by some. Previous Gothics combat system were somehow tactical in which you had to push buttons in a certain rhythm for effective hits. But in Gothic 3, you only need to click the left mouse button constantly to defeat your Opponents. Although that's not completely true, because there is a new bar among your ordinary Health and Mana bar called Endurance and its duty is to limit Nameless hero's Sprinting, weapon swinging etc. but still, whenever your stamina ( or health and mana in that case ) becomes empty, you can use one of the game's bugs ( or maybe it was done in purpose, idk ) in your advantage. Whenever you open one of the in-game menus ( like Inventory screen, Character screen, etc ) you completely become invulnerable! You can drink potions , wait for your endurance to refill etc without any worry. But it has to been said even if Gothic 3 Combat's is a clickfest, it's still fun and challenging. Gothic 3's Musical scores are perhaps some of the best created for a video game. Some of them can be compared to Lord of the Rings scores. Kai Rosenkranz truly used all of his musical knowledge to create some of the most epic and ear-catching soundtracks of all time. Nearly half of the joy that exploration has in Gothic 3 is provided with the game's top-notch sound-tracks. Although the same thing cannot be said about sound effects or voice acting. But as an originally German game, there can't be much complain for voice acting. Gothic 3 visuals are extremely gorgeous and detailed. Great draw distance , Pixel Shader 3.0 support and Dynamic lighting are just few of the Genome's engine abilities. Although with all of it's power, it's a very unstable engine. One of impressive things about graphics is the rendering of three different environment (desert, jungle , ice region ) pretty well. Gothic 3's RPG system is still based on learning points and it's pretty much like Gothic 1&2. But differences are: 1. You should acquire spells with LP too. There are no rune stones anymore. 2. There is a skill screen which is full of skills in different categories ( fighting, hunting, magic, smithy, thieving, alchemy, misc ) and you should pay attention to learn skills alongside with increasing your basic stats like strength , ancient knowledge ( intelligence in other RPG's ) etc. We can't talk about Gothic 3 without talking about its bugs and glitches. The game loads the whole world map in one loading . of course, that's a really good thing, but the problem is that you die a lot in Gothic 3 , especially at first, and every time you die, you have to tolerate the long loading screen. Though it's a good way to prevent players get the bad habit of letting the main character die over and over again until they find a solution, but it's a waste of time too. There are many big and small bugs here and there including broken quests, odd NPC behavior , etc, but the good thing about them is the fact that they are not fatal and don't make the game unplayable. These bugs are the result of the ambition of the game. It is really hard to imagine such a huge game without loads of bugs. Gothic 3 like it's predecessors, is a cult favorite game. It is not a game that can appeal to mainstream. But it will satisfy the cult who follows it in the best way possible. You might labor a lot for completing a quest, but when you see that lovely green line " Quest success " and XP points, all of those labors replace with pure joy.
Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods is a stand-alone expansion for Gothic 3 and it was supposed to correct the mistakes of it, but it adds a few more mistakes without solving the old ones. Forsaken Gods is exactly Gothic 3 with these differences: -Only Myrtana is available for exploring. Entrances to Varrant and Nordmar are covered with rock. -Unlike Gothic 3, the game is very easy even from start due to the fact that you level-up very fast because of the generous XP points of quests, even the easy ones and numerous chests that contain precious loot. -Nameless hero's personality has changed a lot. He is now an arrogant, hot tempered, idealistic and ceremonious power hungry type of character who is a lot different with the idle, sarcastic , Carefree hero of previous games. Of course his new behavior is essential for the goal of the game ( reuniting Myrtana and becoming a new king ) but this 180 degree change might be a bit confusing for fan of the series . -Now you enemies have endurance bar too, so they can't attack you constantly. -First person perspective for bows and crossbows. -New characters, dialogues and quests. -NPC AI about your actions in the city is disabled. Now you can freely rob every house, open every chest, beat everyone up ( or in most cases, kill them ) and guards won't question or attack you. Also the reputation system is completely removed. You can't decide to ally with a certain side anymore. Perhaps Forsaken gods biggest fault is the fact that it is even more buggy than Gothic 3, although it's smaller and shorter. FG might be one of the few games that have a bug in the main quest of the game which prevents it from finishing without the use of cheating. Although thanks to the community patches, you won't have much problem if you install them . There are many other bugs, like many dialogues which don't have voice acting, invisible NPC's, NPC's terrible AI in path finding ( there are many escorting missions in the game ) , etc. most of these bugs are annoying, but they don't prevent you from playing. They just show this expansion was created with extreme carelessness. Nearly everything including Items, Character models , game environment, skills and enemies ( except for few ) soundtracks ( of course, listening to Gothic 3 soundtracks over and over again is not a bad thing at all. ) are recycled from Gothic 3. The new things are storyline, dialogues, voice acting and quests. Storyline is pretty straightforward. It was meant to fill the gap between Gothic 3 and Arcania: Gothic 4's story. In Gothic 4, nameless hero is the new king Rhobar. Forsaken Gods only explains how did he become the new king. for becoming a new king, he should do a bunch of quests. Quest are inferior compared to Gothic 3 's quest and they are mostly "errand boy" kind of quest. But some of them are interesting or funny. ( like the one which you should beg for 1 gold coin in Gotha. ) Voice acting, except for the nameless hero himself ( though his voice actor is changed ) , is mostly weak. But dialogues are surprisingly good compared to other parts of the game and still they have that raw, downright and sarcastic feeling of Gothic dialogues with them. It is obvious that Gothic 3: Forsaken gods didn't mean much to Jowood and they relied purely on fans to buy it because it is a Gothic title . They hired an inexperienced company to make the game ( Trine games ), although it's not their fault. Even though Piranha Bytes was behind Gothic 3 and it was a major title in the series, it was a really buggy game. Jowood shouldn't have given this responsibility to them. But with all of the things said, Forsaken Gods can provide plenty of enjoyment in it's 20-40 hour play-through ( you can continue the game after finishing the main quest. ) mainly because it still has the addictive game-play of Gothic 3. But you need to be a really forgiving person and a fanatic Gothic fan to get any enjoyment from Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods.
Gothic 2 is one of those games which can easily find a well-deserved place among your most favorite games ever if you play it properly. it has so much care and attention in it's whole design and small and big details that I can hardly name any other game for comparison. One of the best things about Gothic 2 which sometimes made me appreciate developers with all of my heart is the perfect connection with the first Gothic. actually, the plot starts exactly thirteen days later after the events of Gothic 1. so the connection is obvious. After the fall of the barrier in the first game, nameless hero remained under the ruins of the sleeper's temple. but the magic of the armor he was wearing kept him alive. Xardas, the most important character in the series felt a new threat is rising and resurrected our hero from the ruins, but unfortunately, he lost all of his inventory and powers. after the sleeper was vanquished, with his last cry, he called upon most evil creatures ( including dragons which are considered very powerful creatures in Gothic universe ) and the goal of our hero is to defeat the Beliar's ( God of darkness ) minions and especially the dragons. for defeating them, our hero needs Eye of Innos which is an artifact that lets out hero to talk with dragons and get informed of their motivations . in the other hand, since the barrier has fallen and the ores in the valley of mines are not secure, the king has sent Lord Hagen and a group of paladins to secure the ore in the valley and the eye of Innos is known to be in the possession of Lord Hagen. but before anything, Hagen wants a proof for the presence of dragons and you have to go to valley of mines to get the proof... Story is extremely well written and the relation between characters and factions are logical and realistic. but the best thing about the story is it's connection with the first game. you see many of the characters from the first game and the game is full of great and heart warming references to the first game. for example, in the first cut scene of Gothic 1, you briefly see a magician which gives you a letter and throws you in to the barrier. but in the final hours of Gothic 2, you'll find that magician was Pyrokar, one of the major characters in the game. surprisingly, valley of mines, the main area in the first game is also one of the main parts in this game too. although it changed much, but you can find great nostalgia by finding familiar areas and locations. Gothic offers the same effective faction system of the first game. there are three factions in the game : Fire magicians, Militia and Mercenaries. you can only become the member of one faction and you have to do it wisely. because there is no turning back and the attitude of many characters, your way of fight and many dedicated quests are determined by which faction you belong to. In terms of Game-play, Gothic 2 truly shines. combat is similar to Gothic, you can use swords, bows, crossbows and spells to fight your enemies. controls might be weird at first like the first game, but you'll get used to it in no time. The game uses the RPG system of the first game, you get 10 learning points for each level you gain. and you have to spend them by going to a certain tutor. one of the things that changed is the new ability " create runes " . unlike the first game which magic runes were directly ready to use, you have to create them in G2. for creating a magic rune, first you have to learn it by spending LP, the more the spell is strong, the more LP it costs and you must have the certain ingredients and the scroll of that spell. then you can go to a rune table to create the desired magic rune. creating runes makes magicians need more LP and makes it even harder and more enjoyable to play the game as them. killing every single one of your enemies is a great joy, because they are challenging to fight and hard to beat. one of things that makes the role-playing part of the game more specified is the matter that you fight with same monsters and creatures during the game ( while the new ones come ), but they become easier to beat the more you advance. you just feel that you are actually "advancing". a feeling that most of the RPG's should bring but they fail because enemies are mostly at your same level. One of the problems of Gothic 1 was it's somehow short length. it could be finished under 40 hours with trying to do nearly everything in the game. but G2 fixes this problem too. personally, it took me nearly 82 hours as a magician to finish the game with trying to do as much as possible. ( of course, with doing NOtR campaign. I never played the vanilla version of the game. ) and I'm only talking about the time which was calculated in the save games. Artificial intelligence in Gothic 2 is truly amazing. every NPC has a certain task to do and does it perfectly. for example, people go to bed at nighttime and then get back to their work at morning. they eat, they protest if you go to their home , they won't talk to if you steal from them or beat them down and report you to authorities. there is a truly living world in Gothic 2 which you feel you're only a part of it and you don't feel the world is only created for you to do whatever you want in it. AI of your enemies is even better than NPC's AI. they block, dodge, change their possession, follow you if you try to escape, they don't attack you when you are blocking, etc. every kind of enemy has it's own way of fighting. for example, orcs and lizardmen fight aggressively and when you have a bit of a distance from them, they attack you carelessly while they're moving. but humans fight with more care or Goblins try to confuse you while they spin around you. Gothic 2 has some really great musical scores. some of them ( especially the main theme ) can be considered among the best. sound effects are suitable for the game too. for example, when you are walking in jungles, you can hear many small voices like crunch of the leafs, snoring of near animals, etc. voice actors in the game are mostly from the previous game which is a good thing. since they really did their job well and were able to deliver the feeling of the characters. they were suitable for the Gothic universe. Well, I think talking about visuals in a role-playing game is like talking about a story in a plat-former. it's basically not a bad thing to have, but it's a last thing to pay attention to. but since Gothic 2 is a 3D open world game, it needs good visuals. the game uses the same engine which was used in Gothic. visuals are better, if you put the graphics at the highest settings, it can be even a competitor for the RPG's of the same year especially if we pay attention to two things:1. there is one short loading to load a whole map. and there are two ( three with NOtR installed ) maps total. 2. this game was originally released at 2002 in Germany. and I think the graphics are above standard for a 2002 game. Gothic 2 is not a perfect game. like every other human work, there are some flaws , like the confusing and extremely hard start, the horrible inventory system or some occasional bugs and crashes , but it will give you a perfect experience. it's one of those games that it's greatness gets revealed more by every passing year. although I can't guarantee everyone can like this game , but Gothic 2 knows it's audience perfectly and satisfies them in the best way possible.
PROS: -Gothic has one of the best and more importantly non-cliche story lines in RPG history. It's not the good guy killing the bad guy or save the world kind of thing. Actually, the main aspect of the story is very simple. A king is trying to get ore to make weapons for fighting his enemies ( orcs ) and sends criminals to a magically protected penal colony with resourceful mines to prospect ore and the main hero of the game is one of them. People in PB used this simple background in the best way possible and made a story that completely affects everything in the game and always makes you want to know more about it. -A great world with a lot of immersion. I really couldn't think about anything else when I was playing Gothic. Just the game itself. -Great lore. I have seen magicians, orcs, gods, monsters , etc before. But I don't remember seeing them mix with each other in such a great harmony and coincidence. Nothing seems overdone or overflown in Gothic's universe. Everything ( from characters to inventory items ) plays its part perfectly in describing the world of Gothic without overstaying its welcome. Actually, the good thing is the universe is perfectly connected in Gothic games. One of the reasons I consider Gothic 2 my most favorite game ever was the fact that I played Gothic before it. Just seeing the perfection connection between two games was delightful and made me enjoy the game a lot more. -Great and innovative RPG System. when you level up, you gain 10 learning points , but unlike many RPGs , you can't spend what you gained from your level-up right away. you have to go to a tutor and then spend them anyway you want. You can increase your attributes like Mana, strength, dexterity or increase your skills like working with Crossbow, 1 handed weapon, 2 handed weapon, bow etc. So you choose your class not by simply choosing it at the start of the game, but by advancing and making choices during your play-time. In other words, you choose your class dynamically. -Awesome Graphics for its time. Playing the game on highest graphical settings in 2001 was a real treat I guess. -Wonderful believable Characters who are all gray. You can't judge their morality just like you can do in other RPGs . Good and bad in Gothic universe has only meaning for Innos and Beliar. Two gods in the game's universe. Even Xardas who is a necromancer and servant of Beliar sounds like a fair old man most of the time. -Great Dialogues followed by great voice acting (for a cult-classic European CRPG of course ) . Many people might think voice acting is cheap in this game, but I actually find it to be in greatly in harmony with the game's atmosphere and character's personality. -Highly addictive. I couldn't touch any other game while I was playing Gothic. -Artificial Intelligence is phenomenal both for enemies and NPC's. Their reaction to your actions is very well detailed. For example when you sneak, NPCs become suspicious and ask you why are you sneaking. When you draw your weapon, they will draw theirs too and will attack you if you don't sheath it soon. They talk with each other, they will go back to their home when the night comes, when you go to their house, they'll tell you to get out. Enemies spin around you, they won't attack you when you are blocking, they block your attacks, even humans and orcs have different fighting tactics, orcs are more aggressive and reckless due to their nature, but humans fight with more and care and focus on defense, Animals don't attack you if you just go away, wolfs mostly attack in packs, etc. I just could go on. But I think that proves how good AI is in Gothic. -Killing every single enemy is a big enjoyment because of the challenge they give. - A nice sense of humor which never gets absurd. Especially for the nameless hero's dialogues. -Game Gives you huge freedom to become whoever you like. A fire mage, water mage, paladin or mercenary. -Great armors and weapons and spells. ( of course some of them ARE useless...) -Memorable Music. Kai Rosenkranz is a genius. The main menu music is perhaps one of the best music tracks I have ever listened. Absolutely epic and iconic. CONS: Not much not to like about this game , but here are some few: -Gothic is a bit short. (According to the fact that it's an open world game.) Personally It last around 38 hours for me with all of the possible side quest done as a Fire Mage. -Very hard at first. You can hardly kill a scavenger (one of the weakest enemies in the game ) without constant savings and reloading at very first. Although this is not entirely a bad thing, because it just makes you really feel the power later in the game. But it's very annoying at first and probably the only reason many people couldn't get into the game. -Some minor bugs. Although really not a big deal with the latest patch. -Weird and Unusual controls. Although you get used to it. Verdict: Gothic is truly one of the biggest achievements in history of games. it was a very ambitious game for its time and didn't fail although it was its developer's first game. The good thing is that greatness of Gothic didn't just end with this game. Gothic 2 is better than Gothic in every possible way (except story and atmosphere), Night of the Raven made Gothic 2 even better. And Gothic 3 even with its bugs, made all of the RPGs around its time like Oblivion look like a student project to me. But just like all cult-classics, Gothic is not for everyone. If you want to enjoy Gothic, you have to be a patient gamer. You should not quit from the game in rage when you see you are getting squashed by your enemy before even having the chance of drawing your weapon. You should not get confused when you see there are lots of possibilities without any kind of guide ( except the ones in the Internet ) directing you which one to take and what's the consequence. In the other words, Gothic has a hard time holding the interest of gamers in general . But it will blow away the cult that follows it in the
