Posted February 03, 2009
Gothic II is - sadly - the pinnacle of the Gothic gameline so far.
The story and settings of Gothic 3 were very ambitious..; and poorly realised.
Gothic II takes the best of Gothic I, and expands on it:
realistic approach to RPG in a fantasy world - with more sense of 'society'
world interactivity - with more to do, learn, try, discover
land harvesting - still you can't grow your own pumpkins... too bad
choices that matter - more of them, and with deeper impact
nice difficulty curve for players wishing for a challenge - or beginners with a deathwish with the unaltered expansion Night of the Raven (surviving is definitely not easy... in the wilderness)
simple yet effective characteristics
open world that really use the 3D available - larger (huge), even more beautiful, take a swim!
lots of quests, many far reaching
mysteries
politics
thievery
architecture
Dragons!
Night of the Raven is a true add-on, better integrated than mosts. But it has some downfalls: less money, more dying, a handful more of bugs.
Sadly it takes also some of the darker sides:
a bit buggy (but nothing critical if you save often)
difficult at first (animals are here to impede your progress... you can still run)
stupid inventory (you must have some kind of bag of infinity) but with categories this time
Some dialogs impact are not evident... this will make a second (or third) playthrough enjoyable as your take on quests or issues may become quite different.
The possibility to choose between Gi or GII control scheme is nice... though I went back to GI controls after all.
Don't forget to use the gothic.ini file to adjust your settings (inventory size and transparency, wind, sky, blood, IA...). There are some nice additional contents on WorldOfGothic, and some higher resolution texture packs.
Denser than Gothic I, and even more enjoyable.
Don't miss on Gothic II !!
My advice to those dettered by the difficulty : cheat to ease on the difficulty. There are nice tools to do that while keeping the game balance (especially for the add-on).
The story and settings of Gothic 3 were very ambitious..; and poorly realised.
Gothic II takes the best of Gothic I, and expands on it:
realistic approach to RPG in a fantasy world - with more sense of 'society'
world interactivity - with more to do, learn, try, discover
land harvesting - still you can't grow your own pumpkins... too bad
choices that matter - more of them, and with deeper impact
nice difficulty curve for players wishing for a challenge - or beginners with a deathwish with the unaltered expansion Night of the Raven (surviving is definitely not easy... in the wilderness)
simple yet effective characteristics
open world that really use the 3D available - larger (huge), even more beautiful, take a swim!
lots of quests, many far reaching
mysteries
politics
thievery
architecture
Dragons!
Night of the Raven is a true add-on, better integrated than mosts. But it has some downfalls: less money, more dying, a handful more of bugs.
Sadly it takes also some of the darker sides:
a bit buggy (but nothing critical if you save often)
difficult at first (animals are here to impede your progress... you can still run)
stupid inventory (you must have some kind of bag of infinity) but with categories this time
Some dialogs impact are not evident... this will make a second (or third) playthrough enjoyable as your take on quests or issues may become quite different.
The possibility to choose between Gi or GII control scheme is nice... though I went back to GI controls after all.
Don't forget to use the gothic.ini file to adjust your settings (inventory size and transparency, wind, sky, blood, IA...). There are some nice additional contents on WorldOfGothic, and some higher resolution texture packs.
Denser than Gothic I, and even more enjoyable.
Don't miss on Gothic II !!
My advice to those dettered by the difficulty : cheat to ease on the difficulty. There are nice tools to do that while keeping the game balance (especially for the add-on).