Why is Gothic 2 better than Oblivion?

[voodoo1man]

My reason is simple: better graphics. Sure, it doesn't have bump-mapping, but there is no comparison when it comes to the terrain. Gothic 2 wins hands-down. Actually, even the original Gothic had more impressive terrain graphics than Oblivion. Also, all the art in Gothic and Gothic 2 is much more tastefully colored.

There is just one thing I hate about Gothic 2. However much you dislike (I personally don't mind too much) the TES "you wake up in a dungeon" cliche, the way Gothic 2 starts off is infinitely lamer. And if that wasn't bad enough, in Gothic 1 you did really wake up in a dungeon. It just goes from bad to worse.

 

[Jasede]

"My reason is simple: better graphics."

Congratulations, you made me stop reading there.

 

[Claw]

Also, all the art in Gothic and Gothic 2 is much more tastefully colored.

Don't you mean bland and drab? :wink:

 

[denizsi]

While it does have much more mature content than Oblivion,.. I never got to see it because of the bad controls

Is there really a logic here, because I can not really comprehend one?

 

[flabbyjack]

While it does have much more mature content than Oblivion,.. I never got to see it because of the bad controls

Is there really a logic here, because I can not really comprehend one?

The codex is confusing to those who cannot fathom its complexities. Often, this will lead people to fear the thing they do not understand. Do not be afraid.

 

[denizsi]

That is an off-codex line I quoted.

 

[Elwro]

Fear leads to anger.

 

[Grog]

Fear leads to anger.

And we all know that leads to Darth Vader turning into a whiny, little, pansy-ass bitch.

 

[Top Hat]

1) Tasteful sex scene
2) Hard gameplay. In the beginning, don't even THINK about taking on those mine crawlers, even a wolf or some bandits is a challenge.
3) A three-branched main storyline -- Either fight with the mercenary rebels, the holy monks, or the paladins of Innos.
4) Alchemy AND crafting system. Hunt and skin game, or collect trophies to sell. Or you could raid mines for precious ore.
5) Plenty of RELEVANT npcs and side-quests.
6) Story doesn't end with 'OMFG I saved teh world', it's deeper than that.
7) Be a messenger to a fortress besieged by orcs and dragons. Slay said orcs and dragons in a series of non-linear yet epic battles.
8) Because the game combat is so hard and the creatures are not scaled to your level, character progression actually exists.
9) NPC schedules. Although the Gothic 2 NPCs aren't goverened by a complex AI that determines when they're hungry, instead they are governed by a simple routine script that tells them to get up and go to sleep. It was FAR simpler to implement, leaving the team open to focus on other, more functional, aspects of the game. Too bad the Oblivion team had to focus on their crappy NPC AI...

If these features had been in Oblivion:

1. There would have been an analogue of the lockpicking game, where you try to maneuver the penis to hit the G-spot. After which the speechcraft mini-game would appear, with the options changed to "Thrust", "Moan", "Talk Dirty" and "Orgasm".

2. To include hard gameplay, the player would be made to read a page of text aloud to kill the monsters. We all know the difficulty of 'redding'...

3. A three-branched storyline. Either save the world, save the world but get killed by a ebony-armored bandit, or save the world and have a discussion about 'mudcrabs'.

4. Alchemy AND crafting systems where you never fail. Oh wait...

5. Plenty of relevant NPCs that you wouldn't be able to kill, and relevant sidequests which require $1.99 for each to complete.

6. Story instead ends with "OMFG I just saved the world and this deep, soil-eroded hole."

7. Be a messenger, where you aren't given directions of where to go apart from the HUGE BLOOMING, RADIANT COMPASS. You'll fight orcs and dragons, only they're level-scaled so that they're about as hard as the rats in the Imperial dungeons when you were Level 1.

8. Your character will advance, so your character will start HDR/Bloom-glowing until it hurts to look at the screen.

9. NPCs would all be based on Todd Howard's script. This means that they will ask you for 1.99 Septims to continue talking, demand "More motherfucking chocolate milk, bitches" and whenever you mention "RPG Codex" guards will immediately troop in and arrest you for public lewdity.[/code]

 

[jiujitsu]

I've never played Oblivion, so I cannot say much about it. I can comment on the Gothic series though.

The way things went for me is I played Gothic 2 once then I played Gothic 1(At least 3 times back to back). I found that Gothic 2 left a little to be desired in the area of NPC developement. I'd ask, "Why are these guys important...?" I played Gothic 1 and became familiar with many of the characters that carried over. So, I feel to remedy the character issues of Gothic 2 you just have to play Gothic 1 for the back story. I played Gothic 2 a couple more times through after I finished with Gothic and I enjoyed it more due to my memories of these guys from the first game. My favorite character, however, is from the Gothic 2 expansion, Night of the Raven. He is Captain Greg and he is hilarious.

The three seperate paths you can take in the game are nice for the sake of replay value. It's also refreshing to have to stick with your choices unlike in Morrowind where you can become the grandmaster of every faction there is in the game. It does become fairly linear after the initial choice. I can't really complain about that, though. I like a strong storyline. It's pretty open-ended though, so you can do what you want when you feel like it.

The main character isn't a badass by far. He's not dark and cold or even at least cool looking. He's more of a goofy rogue type personality. It keeps the mood light. This is just preference for the individual, but in some RPGs you can actually roleplay the personality and even the look you like. It's kind of cruddy being stuck in a certain personality. That's a little more than we can expect anymore, though.

No fancy dialogue trees. It's pretty much straight forward all the way through. You can't get creative with discussion. The meat of your character's developement is combat. The rest are thief-like skills.

Combat is pretty difficult. You really have to practice the controls and blocking. Personally, I like it. It seems impossible sometimes and can be so infuriating you wonder if you really are a serial killer about to break through from the abyss of your twisted mind and beat your conscience and everyone around you into a pile of bio mass.... Err, it can make you mad. I've found the expansion has made Gothic 2 so much more difficult than it was before and it was still pretty hard then. The melee AI is really good. I'm not sure about the specifics of it but each opponent seems to recognize patterns. So, cheesing is kind of hard.

I don't feel magic is balanced with weapon skills. On one hand it can kill things with hardly any effort, but once you do you're at the mercy of anything that's left since you're now out of mana. You have to spend skill points to raise you mana bar... and your magical arsenal. It's too much and you are weak no matter what you do. It's more difficult than weapons. Especially, considering you can use powerful magical scrolls even if you aren't a mage since scroll mana costs are really cheap.

The graphics are out of date, but they are decent enough. It isn't that important, anyway. Once you start playing a game you get used to the look and feel and concentrate on other things. Graphics are for the initial reaction of the game. Personally, I think first impressions mean dick.

I like the game. That's what I think.

 

[voodoo1man]

"My reason is simple: better graphics."

Congratulations, you made me stop reading there.

Well, this was Oblivion's main selling point, wasn't it? Somehow I was more impressed with the graphics of a 5-year old game running on a 5-year old computer than I am with Oblivion, running with the highest settings on some super-expensive l33t g4m3r PC last month.

 

[NoisyKillerHPB]

I think the point he's making is that's a shallow reason to prefer one game to another..

 

[Sentenza]

I still refuse to acknowledge that such game even exists.
If Gothic 4 or whatever they make after third one has a playable female character, I might even admit that such games have been made during the dark ages of reason when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

I hate you.

Nobody ever complained he/she cannot play as a male in TombRaider (although I never played it and wouldnt' touch it with a 6 ft stick)
You *could* have a point, but I don't want G4 with Xena instead of the nameless

 

[Sentenza]

the way Gothic 2 starts off is infinitely lamer.

Hahaha... Yep, but then, it plays quite well...
Don't judge something by the way it starts; otherwise it's like saying Diablo 2 rocks cause the intro movie is fucking good

And if that wasn't bad enough, in Gothic 1 you did really wake up in a dungeon.

Uh?

 

[Elwro]

(If dungeon=prison, because the Valley of the Mines was a prison.)

 

[Sentenza]

(If dungeon=prison, because the Valley of the Mines was a prison.)

dungeon = prison camp
wake up in = get thrown into
Got it!

Besides, although a 'magical barrier' its quite a lame idea, that was a good explanation for the gameworld being finite

 

[Sentenza]

1) sex scene is stupid

I would have liked real sex instead; ah well, technological limits i guess

2) OB at level whatever (20, 40, who knows) is harder than anything in G2

Nothing like getting down that orc at level 1... ah, memories...

"gameplay" should require more skill to win

Yours or of your character?

the controls are lousy and in some cases don't allow for skill at all (non-aiming missile-fire / magic, auto-lock), so the 'game' involved in winning fights is generally just level grinding. That's not a game, it's an MMO.

Besides that MMO ARE games (well, sort of), what's the problem here? You're upset that character skill ARE involved in the outcoming of the action, that the controls arent the same button smasher shit or whatever?

3) It's better than OB, but the storyline really doesn't change much. "Oh you're an enemy mercenary, we'll still give you all the help out the paladins quests, but if you'd like you can completely reverse course at the end"

It's the journey, not the destination that matter...

5) relevance isn't meaningful in the game, what's important is that they're well-written and fun.

No, that's important in novels

OB still probably tops it with a heroic sacrifice motif, which isn't saying much.

Yeah, never seen before

8) see #2, also character progression is diablo/MMO/dungeon siege bullshit and should be purged from all games.

They purged it from Oblivion

9) The fact that it took less time to make is irrelevant, what's important is that the NPC schedules work.

And they do?

 

[Rina]

Nobody ever complained he/she cannot play as a male in TombRaider (although I never played it and wouldnt' touch it with a 6 ft stick)

Completely different genre there. TombRaider is closer to something like MegaMan where you are not expected to roleplay or feel anykind of connection to your character at all.

You *could* have a point, but I don't want G4 with Xena instead of the nameless

Well how about having the luxury of choice: He-Man or Xena? Or even better, actual character creation instead of YOU ARE BOB TEH CH0S3N ON3 FR0M H4PPYG4YVILL4G3 4ND TH1S IS YOUR M4GIC4L C4T TODD!!11 bullshit.

 

[Sentenza]

Completely different genre there. TombRaider is closer to something like MegaMan where you are not expected to roleplay or feel anykind of connection to your character at all.

I feel quite connected in Max Payne, or I wouldn't have bothered to finish it...

Well how about having the luxury of choice: He-Man or Xena? Or even better, actual character creation instead of YOU ARE BOB TEH CH0S3N ON3 FR0M H4PPYG4YVILL4G3 4ND TH1S IS YOUR M4GIC4L C4T TODD!!11 bullshit.

Quite the contrary, what I liked of the nameless is that's a very ordinary person, who's become a *hero* despite his will (to me, he's more of an anti-hero character); yes he's the choosen of Hinnos and blablabla, but he doesn't seem to give a shit about that, despite somehow he's forced to follow what seems to be his destiny...

On the character creation... well... to me RPG are about shaping your character through the choices he (you) made in the course of his life; to others is creating a character (wich in some shallow case is reduced to choose his/her gender/appearance; but you can do the same in GTA if I'm not wrong)

 

[Mustawd]

I feel quite connected in Max Payne, or I wouldn't have bothered to finish it...

Sorry, but Max Payne is a shit game m8.

 

[likaq]

Nice 10 years old necro

 

[Mustawd]

Apparently today is Gothic 2 necro day.

 

[Eirikur]

If Gothic 4 or whatever they make after third one has a playable female character, I might even admit that such games have been made during the dark ages of reason when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

I hate you.

I wonder if you've collected your tears for the past 10 years, so that we may bathe in them.

 

[Sykar]

The better question is, what is not better than Oblividerp?

 

[Mustawd]

Raven's Cry.