Gothic 3
Review
What a pity that Jowood chose to release it in this state...
by Sergio Brinkhuis
reviewed on PC
So far, so good (can you hear the 'but' in there?)
Gothic 3's gameplay is as vibrant and compelling as that of its predecessors but unfortunately, it loses much of its shine because of its many technical issues. There are several small bugs such as NPCs that join you only to get stuck or lost somewhere, and minor sidequests that break before you can complete them. But these can be overlooked in an otherwise great game of this magnitude. The things that cannot be overlooked are the frequent crashes and hangups, the game's terrible performance and the incredibly long load times. Things got so bad that I started doubting my PC and installed Oblivion to see how that performed (it ran smooth as a baby's behind). I even bought a spiffy new videocard (which in all honesty was long overdue, and this was a great excuse to use on the wife :) but that did not change anything. My system easily matches the recommended system settings but apparently those recommendations are only valid for towns and caves. Perhaps Jowood should put 'recommended for mountain and forest areas' system requirements on the box separately?
Additionally, some of the battles are a little quirky. It is possible to get stunned by enemies which in itself isn't a problem, but some enemies, like Wild Boars, are so good at this that once they have you stunned, you are stuck in some sort of loop and you get hit several times in the space of a second. This is in fact so fast that if a Boar can get at you once, no matter how strong or healthy you are, there is a strong probability that you will die.
Earlier I said that 'nothing looked out of place' when I talked about the graphics. Well? Maybe 'nothing' is a big word. The game sports some serious clipping errors. Enemies tend to disappear into the walls and so do people that ask you to follow them somewhere. Don't think you can follow them though, you will not be able to. On the other hand, you will be able to follow them right through trees. I experienced an even more upsetting 'feature' of the graphical engine when people started losing their hair. Seriously, all humans in the game wear hairpieces and every now and then, their hair could be seen floating through the air about six feet away from them.
No messiah
At its very core, Gothic 3 is still the same as its predecessors and this is far from a bad thing. There is nothing wrong with the game mechanics of the originals, and developer Piranha Bytes must have realized that 'more of the same' would be appreciated by fans of the series. A new, deep story combined with a fabulously well-crafted game world is more than enough for us, right? It is for me. However, Gothic 3 is -not- the RPG Messiah that so many had hoped it would be.
The game's horrible performance keeps me from enjoying the game. Saving takes 10 to 15 seconds (no progress bar appears) and loading can take several minutes. Saving often is the only thing you can do to deal with the unfair battles and other issues I have described above and playing this game will make you intimately familiar with the loading screen. All these issues have such an impact on your enjoyment that the game is just -not- fun to play. It's simply too frustrating and the hope that patch 1.09 would resolve these issues went up in smoke right after installing it.
So while I can feel Gothic 3's brilliance ooze through the low framerate, I can only conclude that this is yet another title that should not have reached the shelves yet. Another 3 months of bug hunting and engine optimizing would have made this game a match even for Oblivion but right now, I can only recommend you to buy one of the other great titles this fall season, and buy the game when Piranha Bytes and Jowood have released another patch or two.
7.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
