Gothic

Ever looked for an equivalent to Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall? Your search has ended. This is one amazing game full of life and so much rich detail it will blow your mind. There are 3 sides to choose from in this prison wasteland, The Old Camp, The New Camp, and the Brotherhood. Choices are tough and living is even harder because in this terrible place you face the greatest villian of all...........man.

Personally I enjoyed the Gothic-series more than the Elder Scrolls. I know, the latter are bigger and more polished (ahem!), but Gothic feels better (even though the controls are clumsy and unusual at the least). Okay, so don't compare Gothic 1 with Oblivion, but still I feel the Gothic series deserve more credit than they're given. In the Elder Scrolls it's easy to get side tracked so much you forget about the main quest. In Gothic there are many side-quests, it isn't linear and doesn't feel like it is, and yet, you're always inside the main story. The characters are more human en recognizable than the ones in the Elder Scrolls. So yeah, I loved the Elder Scrolls, but I sleep with Gothic... ;-)

I first got my hand on this back in 2002 or 2003 on a bootlegged disc a friend of mine bought in Turkey i think? Anyway. it did take some gettting used to the controls, but once you learn, you'll like it. This came from nowhere, out of nowhere and it blew my mind. this is how an RPG is supposed to be! Immersive, compelling storyline with the quirks you yourself can change wether you play as an old or new camper or whatnot. You control some story elements, which was kind of revolutionary back in that day. So if you ever played and liked an RPG that isn't top-down hack n' slash. Try this game! Worth every penny, dime and öre!

This is one of those games, that your average, everyday gamer picks up because he/she likes RPGs, but after they start playing it, they immediately question their decision and shortly thereafter, they rage quit the game and never touch it again. Why? it's simple, Gothic is NOT an easy game. You, my dear reader, are probably asking yourself "I don't get the point, it's not like most RPGs are cakewalks...". Yes, you are absolutely correct, The Elder Scrolls games are challanging, so is Dragon Age and <insert favorite RPG's name here> but Gothic is a whole different story, in Gothic, you have to immediately learn how to survive, you can't simply up and enter a random NPC's home and loot it, you'll get your back side handed to you and your Ore (game currency) stolen, you can't pick a fight with whatever monster you encounter along the way until you some decent equipment and a few levels in your belt. If you can get past that and learn how the game works and how to best go about surviving and getting better at advancing your character, you'll find a highly enjoyable RPG that doesn't necessarily make your character feel "god-like" after only playing two or three hours. You'll find a living, breathing world full of interesting places to explore, individual characters and highly distinct enemies. Character development is one of my favorite aspects of the game, your character doesn't automatically become better at wielding a sword or bow just because he leveled up, he needs to go to a trainer to improve say...his One-Handed Weapon skill and it actually physically alters what you are able to do (i.e without any training whatsoever, your character will only execute a sluggish slash with a sword, with some training hell be able to execute combos and mastering the skill will let you execute a better, less interuption prone combo). The soundtrack didn't particularly impress me, but it did a nice enough job and the graphics are actually good. My only complaints are that the game isn't easy to get into, like i already mentioned, sometimes it's not easy to figure out what to do to advance a quest or you miss a quest item and get stuck unless you use the console command to generate the item, combat can be a little...wonky sometimes (i noticed many times that depending on my positioning and the enemy's, i could hit him/it as many times as i wanted and while the attack registered, i didn't actually damage him/it at all) and that it doesn't run 100% perfectly only Windows 7, don't get me wrong, it's playable from start to finish without much, if any trouble at all, but i ran into problems trying to view the ending FMV and sometimes my HUD simply up and banished leaving me, for some reason, unable to see my character's health bar or able to access the pause menu. If you can get passed those nitpicks, you'll find a great RPG, just be sure to bring a walkthrough or two along as you might need them and don't be afraid to use the game forums to ask for specific help.

I didn't play this game until 2012. It wasn't my first video game, and it wasn't my first RPG. So I am not speaking from nostalgia. This game is a computer roleplaying masterpiece. But no one ever talks about it, not in the USA at least. It has a very niche and loyal following here. I am under the impression it is far more popular in its home country of Germany. Here, people usually put games like Morrowind on the computer roleplaying masterpiece throne. Now I'm not saying that Morrowind doesn't deserve its praise (it does), but I think Gothic deserves a place there too alongside it. There was something that these two RPGs did that made the worlds feel real and believable. It's really hard to put your finger on it, but if you've played either game, then you know what I'm talking about. The refusal to hold the player's hand, the dangerous early game, the mundane yet realistic and believable quests, the soundtrack, the slow exploration and discovery of the game's landscape. Your rise from a feeble nobody to a powerful godslayer. These games just had a sensibility to them that's been lost in recent years to games like Skyrim and Fallout 4 that seem to just want to give the player a shallow power fantasy with instant gratification for everything. Why can't we go back to the days of Gothic and Morrowind? Morrowind is a well-beloved game with a lot of respect, and I wish for Gothic and the Piranha Bytes team to have that same exposure and love.