Gothic is my alltime favorite from my the youth and once you've mastered the controls you're up for an adventure. In Germany atleast this game series is quite a legend (also this only accounts for Gothic 1+2 as the others deteriorated). You start up as an unlucky newcomer in a area that is basicly a prison (bound by magic walls that stops everyone from leaving but not from coming) to supply the king's war with the ork tribes. However, the prisoners rebelled and now there's 3 seperate factions, each unique in spirit and mind. All these 3 factions trade, but there's rising hostility and the player has to decide which to join. But until then it's a long way and the player will get bullied or killed by the many monsters that lurk in the landscape. I dunno why so many people have issues with the controls, but I can recommend just using the keyboard for all actions. Maybe read up a howto or sth. but once you get it the controls work pretty fine. Combat is also good, you can step back, block, use a combo attack etc, The difficulty is probably pretty hard for people used to soft rpgs like Oblivion/Skyrim where enemies adjust to your level as in Gothic there are no levelled lists at all. There're also no potion keys to drink in-fight but if you're a sissy you can add them in one of the config files. Because of the missing level adjust you greatly feel your character progressing.
