Wanna play Gothic! ... But which one?

[Jasede]

They made Arx Fatalis!?

 

[Shagnak]

Er. Wut?
Nope.

 

[Fez]

The only connection I can think of is that JoWood published them.

 

[A user named cat]

Wow, okay I completely overlooked that someone did a better and more complete texture overhaul for G2. Installed gold edition again and checked it out, looks damn good despite the older, blocky architectures. All textures are 1024x1024, a big improvement from vanilla.

Elveons textures

 

[Gnidrologist]

Definitely the first one. Even if you wont ever consider playing other Gothic game.
Series are very story driven and the story is really good for a computer game. I haven't played many games with better plot twists and convincing, yet simple npcs.
Also, if you're in shortage of gaming time, G1 is the better choice as it's way shorter that second, especially with NotR.

Oh, and G1 graphics have aged really well. Mutch better than, for examople, Deus Ex, which is considered among the most replayable games ever (dunno why).

 

[ghostdog]

Hmmm I thought the same gyus that made the Gothic games , made Arx Fatalis but I was wrong. It's just that Jowood published them both. Anyway Arx is a good game nevertheless.

 

[JarlFrank]

Hmmm I thought the same gyus that made the Gothic games , made Arx Fatalis but I was wrong. It's just that Jowood published them both. Anyway Arx is a good game nevertheless.

Arx was made by the guys who later made Dark Messiah.

 

[Squeek]

...Gothic 1. It's only problem is the somewhat obscure controls....

Just repmap them so you use the keyboard with one hand and the mouse with the other. Works for me.

 

[1eyedking]

The controls ended up growing on me. They make for interesting melee combat.

 

[Gorath]

...Gothic 1. It's only problem is the somewhat obscure controls....

Just repmap them so you use the keyboard with one hand and the mouse with the other. Works for me.

The second set of default controls are ASDW + mouse. No remapping necessary.

If you have a gamepad give it a try. Gothic was developed with a console conversion in mind.

Recommended reading to get an explanation of the simple-but-unintuitive controls for trading, etc is JemyM´s FAQ. Don´t even bother with the manual.

Gothic can be pimped with a couple of patches to unlock the frame rate, re-activate the concert in chapter 2, replace the sky texture, etc.


A word about the combat:
You are meant to be at the bottom of the food chain. You have bad gear - if any - and don´t know how to handle a sword. You are thrown into a male prison full of bad-ass characters, dangerous creatures and Orcs. Your chances to survive a fight are realistic. Especially against multiple opponones. The good news is that most of the world is open. Run away and talk to them later.
The first creatures you´ll meet are scavengers. If you make close to 50% against a single scavenger you are doing fine.

 

[Gorath]

The controls ended up growing on me. They make for interesting melee combat.

Exactly. You can feel the difference better equipment makes - and the more experienced user.

As unintuitive as the controls seem - they are at least simple and fast. You´ll forget about them after a few hours.

 

[1eyedking]

Gothic can be pimped with a couple of patches to unlock the frame rate, re-activate the concert in chapter 2, replace the sky texture, etc.

There's something wrong with Gothic's sky texture?

 

[Gorath]

No, some people thought it´s not blue enough.

 

[Claw]

Recommended reading to get an explanation of the simple-but-unintuitive controls for trading, etc is JemyM´s FAQ. Don´t even bother with the manual.

What's wrong with the manual?

 

[Jasede]

It wasn't blue enough.

 

[Gorath]

That, and it´s simply not good at explaining things. Don´t waste your time with it.

 

[AZ]

the first first
It is better because the more coherent setting and story.

 

[eth]

It wasn't blue enough cause of that thingy that surrounds the planet and all that, remember..? I remember G1 gfx being great for the time and i guess they would still look fine if you pump the resolution to the max possible setting + enable AA, AF and such from outside the game.

 

[1eyedking]

It wasn't blue enough cause of that thingy that surrounds the planet and all that, remember..? I remember G1 gfx being great for the time and i guess they would still look fine if you pump the resolution to the max possible setting + enable AA, AF and such from outside the game.

That's what I did, but still I played the game at 800x600. Higher resolutions flesh out the game's dated textures.

 

[cutterjohn]

I think that World of Gothic file area may have some utilities that allow you to change some of the things that make Gothic 2 difficult.

In any event, if you haven't played Gothic 1, I'd just start there and go on, being somewhat of a purist myself, although I got G2 BEFORE I managed to get a copy of G1. I had G1 running fine under win2k SP4, but for some reason got to the first village(not very far along), and stopped playing it. (IIRC some other RL things came up, along with other games that I had been waiting for and those G1 graphics(stock) are truly horrid, especially the trees. Why do European RPGs almost always come with graphics whose palette seem to consist primarily of black, brown, and some sickly shade of green?)

G1 Graphics: That said, again hit up World of Gothic as IIRC there is at least one texture mod pack for G1, and may be other "mods" to help the graphics out a little. I never got around to trying them out myself.

 

[Claw]

That, and it´s simply not good at explaining things. Don´t waste your time with it.

I'm afraid I already did, and I understood everything fine. Oh, well.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

G1 graphics(stock) are truly horrid, especially the trees.

Gothic's trees are one of its best effects. It's the first polygon-based game I can recall playing where the woods actually looked like woods as opposed to a random collection of giant lollypop sticks (contrast with the Morrowind expansion Bloodmoon). There's bounding box around each forest which bulks out the folliage at a distance and the interior modeling is realisticly handled with exposed root networks, fallen trees, uneven terrain, undergrowth, etc. I can't think of any game that handled trees better up to that point.

 

[Gorath]

That, and it´s simply not good at explaining things. Don´t waste your time with it.

I'm afraid I already did, and I understood everything fine. Oh, well.

Congratulations. Consider yourself more intelligent than 99% of all reviewers.

 

[JoKa]

That, and it´s simply not good at explaining things. Don´t waste your time with it.

I'm afraid I already did, and I understood everything fine. Oh, well.

Congratulations. Consider yourself more intelligent than 99% of all reviewers.

that goes almost without saying, considering 99% of the reviews.

 

[The Rambling Sage]

I strongly disagree.

Maybe it is a matter of preference and perceived promise. I knew nothing of the game when playing it for the first time, and through the first chapter i was already prepared to consider it one of the best games i ever played. It seemed to be a serious story about people in a rough situation trying to survive and escape, and i liked that. I was even willing to forgive the LOUSY writing for the promise of a mature and interesting tale.

Then the plot comes around and you discover the world they created is just a backdrop: As it is the prison it could be any other place in the universe where leaving is not an option - the characters are just plot devices, and the quests have no meaning beyond to move the story along. And the longer you go the more obvious it becomes the world and its inhabitants are there just for looks, oblivious to every single development.

The plot is guided by a long string of McGuffins and Dungeons. All characters, other than maybe Xardas, could be described in one line. The interesting Back-Story never goes anywhere. The orcs actually have a culture, that turns to be little more than a way to introduce yet another treasure hunt and naming their weapons random things. The great world they built never reacts to anything, and feels completely disconected of the argument. The writing is lousy, and the presentation of the background is shameful. It is like the barrier was really a prison for plot devices and one-liners.

But then the world is great, immersive as hell during the first hours, and it really manages to create the ilussion of going somewhere. So there - I think it is a good game that did not live to its potential and whose plot sucked a lot, and more than once it trips on its own great begining.

And the chosen one thingie was not a "child of circumstances" - Xardas mentions an orc prophecy about someone coming to defeat the sleeper, and that he believes you are the one. Or something like that, i haven't played the game beyond the second chapter in a while..