Review Game Chronicles pushes its Gothic 3 review online

[suibhne]

Tags: Gothic III; Piranha Bytes

Print magazine <a href="http://www.gamechronicles.com/index.htm">Game Chronicles</a> reviewed Gothic 3 in late December, but the piece is <a href="http://www.gamechronicles.com/reviews/pc/gothic3/gothic3.htm">now available online</a>. Somebody apparently still believes there's life outside the intarwebs? Anyway.
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The score lands with a thud: <b>6.9</b>. Thesis statement:
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<blockquote>The greatest tragedy is Gothic 3 offers some excellent quests and a storyline with unbelievable freedom, but it’s hard to focus on the grand goal of saving your homeland when the game keeps freezing up at critical moments.</blockquote>
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Like so many other mainstream reviews, this one offers a few inaccuracies ("You can only fire arrows from about 10 yards away") and questionable lapses of judgment ("There are also no appropriate boundaries between newbie and extremely dangerous areas – in one 'starter' cavern I fought my way past the goblins at the entrance only to find myself face to face with a dragon just a short distance down the main tunnel"). But it's also one of the most in-depth and balanced of the mainstream reviews. The reviewer's experience is brought down by the combat system (with the by-now-familiar complaints: lack of balance, deadly forest critters, etc.) and poor technical performance, but there's plenty of appreciation for the game's faction design and flexible gameworld:
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<blockquote>Gothic 3 offers you the chance to really make your mark on a game world. If you help some woodcutters drive off wild boars, the next day you’ll find them happily chopping wood. On a grander scale, you can help the rebels restore the countryside or help the orcs complete their conquest.... I’ve rarely played a game where my actions can have so many benefits and consequences.</blockquote>
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The final score is a bit difficult to tally if you're following from home, mostly because the game's best achievements (open-ended gameworld, quest design, choices and consequences) and worst failures (poor performance, instability) all fall under GCM's heading of "Gameplay". But you don't read these things for the scores, do you?
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamechronicles.com/reviews/pc/gothic3/gothic3.htm">Game Chronicles</A>

 

[elander_]

"There are also no appropriate boundaries between newbie and extremely dangerous areas – in one 'starter' cavern I fought my way past the goblins at the entrance only to find myself face to face with a dragon just a short distance down the main tunnel"

I think this can be fun if it's not abused. It keeps the player attention high.

 

[MountainWest]

in one 'starter' cavern I fought my way past the goblins at the entrance only to find myself face to face with a dragon just a short distance down the main tunnel

1) It's not a starter cavern. It's an open world and noone forces you to enter the cave.
2) There's goblins, minecrawlers, ogres, THEN dragons. Especially the ogres ought to hint that it's not a starter cavern.
3) The dragon doesn't trap you in a box and erase your savegames. So either run - as you should do considering you're low level and they're... dragons - or reload and move on to the next cavern. What's the fucking problem?
4) A valid complaint would have been that the cave was boring and uninspired.

 

[OccupatedVoid]

Your HTML tags have failed.

 

[Volourn]

") There's goblins, minecrawlers, ogres, THEN dragons. Especially the ogres ought to hint that it's not a starter cavern."

Nope. It's goblins THEN dragon. The dragon is just one stair below goblins. You are likely talking about the second drgaon in that same cave. If there was actually background to the cavern then this would be logical. I could see the dragon scaring the gobs and even the ogres into being its patsies; but the crawlers don't seem to be the fearing type...


"I think this can be fun if it's not abused. It keeps the player attention high."

I agree.

The review isn't perfect (none are); but it's not bad. It missed the biggest issue - G3 simply gets boring after the 1 million town (exaggeration) and cave that any role-playing chocie they give you just comes across as boring, bland, and not worth the effort since it's all basically the same. *yawn*

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Agreed 100 percent, Volourn. For the first 20 or so hours (at least for me) Gothic 3 was fantastic, bugs and stuttering performance aside. The roleplaying options present were astounding and just the amount of things open to you and you could do was so refreshing. Sadly, in the midst of doing all this the devs forgot a very important facet of the Gothic games and that was style and personality. After freeing the Nth bland same-y town in the same fashion, things just got stale. Even the recurring NPCs seemed a bit thin (Lares was neato, though).

All in all, a wonderful game that almost nearly cracks my top 10. I just wish the devs aimed a bit lower and were able to inject more personality into the game.

 

[Crichton]

G3 kept my interest all the way through my first playthrough, but I'm not as excited working on the 2nd playthrough since 90% of the content is going to be exactly the same. Even working on a different character type isn't going so well; after carefully implementing skill-based missile fire (three cheers for aiming!), they left it out of the magic system, just hold down the button and fireballs aim themselves (and even turn corners if you use the full strength one), so I gave up on my druid and started with a crossbowman, but at the moment the crossbow's useless, so I'm still LMB'ing away in melee.

 

[suibhne]

Your HTML tags have failed.

Thanks. It's weird - they were fine when I first posted. I must've screwed something up. :wink:

Unlike Volly, I haven't found G3 boring even after exploring 90% of the gameworld, but I don't have the same drive to play it as I did at the beginning. A stronger sense of storytelling would've helped quite a bit.

 

[Fez]

I saw in a German interview the developers seem to have taken those kinds of comments on board and have promised not to make such a huge but bland world and concentrate more on the atmosphere again. There might be some life injected into G3 with an expansion though. It's crying out for a mod kit for the fans too when you consider the huge sandbox style world.

 

[mister lamat]

does the word 'inspansion' exist? if so, that's what g3 honestly needs. something to flesh out a lot of the existing world would be perfect and worth shelling out for.

 

[Jasede]

That's just what Night of the Raven was, an add-in. Sure, it added a new landmass, but it also completely polished the existing mainland, adding new quests, things, fixing bugs, increasing the challenge, etc, etc. Today, I was seriously tempted to buy Gothic 3, but decided to keep waiting until it comes bundled with an expansion.

 

[MountainWest]

does the word 'inspansion' exist? if so, that's what g3 honestly needs. something to flesh out a lot of the existing world would be perfect and worth shelling out for.

Considering thats what they did with G2, I'd say it's safe to assume that that's what they'll do with G3 - if there is an expansion, that is. As for "inspansion": "add-in" is a term I've heard.

@Volourn: Yea, you're right. I mixed up the cave along the path down to the beach with the one behind those lurkers.

 

[mister lamat]

those are all 'new things' though. from the consumer side, charging for a reworking of the main story line is a ripoff, there's little else that could be done to make the game 'better'. bugs aside, it does what it does really well, it's just missing a heart.

 

[suibhne]

@Volourn: Yea, you're right. I mixed up the cave along the path down to the beach with the one behind those lurkers.

They're just different entrances for the same cave.

 

[MountainWest]

@Volourn: Yea, you're right. I mixed up the cave along the path down to the beach with the one behind those lurkers.

They're just different entrances for the same cave.

Ah, 0 out of 2. I'm on a roll.

Note to self: don't trust your memory. Recent events suggest reasons to believe that it's furtively drinking your whiskey.

 

[Country_Gravy]

Where is this cave? I haven't found any dragons at all in the game, but I am only about 25% done exploring the gameworld. Trolls are a major pain in the ass, though. I have master swordsman and the flame sword you can get at the beginning that has 100 blade damage. Where are all the better weapons. Even most of the large weapons don't do that much damage. Am I missing something?

 

[suibhne]

Ah, 0 out of 2. I'm on a roll.

Note to self: don't trust your memory. Recent events suggest reasons to believe that it's furtively drinking your whiskey.

Well, your basic response to the reviewer's complaint was spot-on. There's no such thing as a "newbie zone" in G3 (aside from the very opening when you can't really be killed); after all, that's the freakin' point.

Your recollection of the critters in the cave is also correct if you use the upper entrance. If you enter through the lower entrance, it's possible to kill a bunch of Goblins and then hit the dragons right after. But seriously, c'mon - who cares? If you see a dragon and can't take it, you run. Methinks the reviewer has been hitting the MMO pipe a bit too much. :wink:

One of the things that disappoints me in G3 is that the character can outrun anything in the world. That's crazy, from a logical point of view. But it's also a deliberate design decision that encourages exploration and allows the gameworld to be full of risk.

 

[suibhne]

Where is this cave? I haven't found any dragons at all in the game, but I am only about 25% done exploring the gameworld. Trolls are a major pain in the ass, though. I have master swordsman and the flame sword you can get at the beginning that has 100 blade damage. Where are all the better weapons. Even most of the large weapons don't do that much damage. Am I missing something?

The cave is under Cape Dun. As for weapons...I'm just about finished with the game, and my best single-handed weapon only does about 120 damage. The Flame Sword can spoil you at the beginning; I honestly wish PB hadn't included it, especially at 25 different vendors.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Where is this cave? I haven't found any dragons at all in the game, but I am only about 25% done exploring the gameworld. Trolls are a major pain in the ass, though. I have master swordsman and the flame sword you can get at the beginning that has 100 blade damage. Where are all the better weapons. Even most of the large weapons don't do that much damage. Am I missing something?

The cave is under Cape Dun. As for weapons...I'm just about finished with the game, and my best single-handed weapon only does about 120 damage. The Flame Sword can spoil you at the beginning; I honestly wish PB hadn't included it, especially at 25 different vendors.

I believe there are MEANT to be stronger weapons, but the loot lists are bugged or something.

 

[suibhne]

I don't think so... I've been a regular at the JoWood forums and haven't seen any suggestions like that - and anyway, my 120 damage weapon cuts through foes like butter, and my melee skill is only around 220. I think the Flame Sword was intended as a newbie-friendly weapon and was just handled poorly.

 

[MountainWest]

One of the things that disappoints me in G3 is that the character can outrun anything in the world. That's crazy, from a logical point of view. But it's also a deliberate design decision that encourages exploration and allows the gameworld to be full of risk.

Yep, I don't know what's better. It would be a nightmare to get killed everytime you met a creature of higher level. At the same time it's not only illogical that you can outrun, for example, a wolf, it's also a design that lets you kill any creature as long as you have a bow or crossbow. The fact that creatures give up chase fairly soon only make it worse.

It could have been solved - at least the most annoying part: low level characters being able to safely kill high level creatures - by giving the high level creatures a higher armour rating. That Pirhana took a concious decision not to do so, for whatever reasons, I've no doubt... but at the same time it's obvious that you're not supposed to go hand-to-hand with a troll, so why let the player kill them with a bow?

 

[Volourn]

I don't think the flame sword is all that overpwoered even at low levels since what weapon you use is meaningless. It's all about you hitting the enemy first, anyways.

 

[suibhne]

It's also true that your character's skill is far more important than the weapon's damage rating (at least until you start wielding a 200-dmg Krush Tarach :wink: ).

 

[Volourn]

Nah. Characetr skill is not that important either. It's mostly about player skill.

 

[suibhne]

Well, that's also true.

However: what I meant is that a character with 350 Strength and the game-opening Orcslayer sword will be far more effective than a character with 120 Strength and the Flame Sword. Against a single opponent it doesn't matter much, since you can just spam LMB or RMB, but against large groups it makes a difference.