I picked up Gothic 3 back when it first came out. Having finally burnt myself out on far, far too much Morrowind, and wanting another epic open-world RPG to fill time until the (ultimately disappointing) next installment, Oblivion, I purchased this game based on the breathless previews. I was disappointed. General bugginess aside, Gothic 3 really only does one thing wrong. Unfortunately, that one thing is going to be a majority of your gameplay: Combat. The combat system is at the same time both very simple and hair-pullingly frustrating. It is, in essence, a stunlock race. Both you and the enemy has 'strong' and 'fast' attacks, and whoever spams 'fast' attack first will stunlock the other to death. No ifs, and, or buts. If you get in the first blow, you win. If they do, they win. Combine this with the incredible fragility of your character versus every enemy in the starting areas, and it becomes exceedingly frustrating. What's worse, while this style of stunlock combat is just barely bearable one-on-one, Gothic 3 almost never affords you that luxury. You are expected to fight enemies in groups ranging from a mere handful up to dozens at the same time. You say you want to find and defend a chokepoint? Too bad, attacking forces you to also lunge forward with each swing, and the movement controls in combat are atrocious, so good luck getting back to your doorway. And yet I'm still giving this game 3/5, after all that passionate ranting. Well, once you look beyond the combat, the picture brightens. Gothic 3 provides you with a staggeringly vast and completely seamless world (at the expense of astonishingly long load times whenever you load) that is fully open to exploration, with enemies, secrets and treasures scattered liberally around the landscape, which itself varies from mountain peaks to forests and rolling plains, snowy tundra, and arid deserts. Only 'important' NPCs can be interacted with, but a large number of faceless nobodies populates the world, following a scripted schedule that enhances the immersion as they eat, sleep, work and so on (better than Oblivion managed). There are also a multitude of quests, often tied in to the goals of one faction or another, and giving you broad freedom to undertake them. My recommendation? Set the game to 'easy', rely heavily on ranged weapons, and be prepared to reload quite a lot until you gain a dozen levels or so. Underneath it all there is a fantastic world to explore and discover. It's just a shame the game tries its best to force you away.
