Gothic 3 was a game that was released at least a good year before it was ready. The launch was an unmitigated disaster with the game being so buggy as to be completely unplayable for many. Over time the game got patched to a somewhat playable state, but at this point it still suffered from horrific AI, some glitches, and areas that were quite obviously unfinished (lack of characters, quests, etc.) Luckily, the community stepped up and continued patching the game, squashing for the most part the remaining bugs and even implementing graphical improvements. They also built mods that add quests to certain areas, attempting to address the obviously unfinished state of the game. It's a shame that the launch for the game was so horrible, because it's a really ambitious, and rather good, game once patched up. The world is simply MASSIVE, there is a ton of stuff to do, many ways to approach things, different factions to join or oppose, and multiple endings, depending on who you chose to help or betray.

Like its predecessors, Gothic 3 sticks with the same archaic - if not utterly inane - conventions unique to the Gothic series. Wild, mundane animals like dogs and boars that should go down in a single sword slash tear through the hero; their attacks are also unblockable even with a shield. On the other hand, the menacing orcs that have taken over the continent are easily disposed of with the simple block-and-attack combo. The balance in the game is a mess.

Now supposedly, the latest community patch comprehensively fixes the bugs and optionally, the balance in the game (called "alternative balance" option). However with the alt. balance activated, the game becomes a serious pain in the ass. Dogs, boars and oversized mosquitoes ("blood flies") are still incredibly dangerous whilst other enemies have been beefed up. Spell and skill costs have also been adjusted but the patch clearly goes too far - the world is basically unplayable. You will spend hours pulling and sniping enemies you have no business beating; you will have no money or skill points to afford decent skills - just the bare necessities such as animal skinning; you will be in a perpetual state of poverty; you will never be satisfied. The game is actively HOSTILE to the player. Areas will be LOCKED UP by harmless looking enemies (dog-sized raptors, "wargs", which are black furred wolves but fight like dragons, etc.) discouraging the player from exploring. Other RPGs like Morrowind also had tough creatures in certain regions, but these areas are demarcated (based on distance from towns and AWAY from the roads) as well as being generally tucked away inside ruins, caves and remote regions - not distributed across open land. In Gothic 3, traversing the world is like going through a minefield without a minesweeper. It SUCKS, and at least 90% of the game the first dozen or so hours is always about trying to avoid or kill some ugly little brutish wildlife critters. Basically, this game hates you. The feeling quickly becomes mutual.

If you have patience to overcome some unpolished designs, or eagerness to find mods to fix them, Gothic III would entertain you for years. I played the previous series and was impressed with the series of improvements, especially graphics and combat system.

I absolutely love Gothic 3. It is so comical, and so fun - my friend and I have spent hours cracking up over the crazy hand gestures that the NPCs use. The graphics are good, and the story and world are large and complex. And you can spawn seagulls out of your body with cheats, it really doesn't get any better than that!

Gothic 3 looks great,has an enchanted graphic,and based on a new engine,with pixel shader 3.0,makes you look on every aspect of the world.I found the game really amazing as a spectator into a virtual world,lighting effects,the clouds,the monsters,everything please my eyes,but i found the quest and the story a bit shallow.Of course,I still love the Gothic Universe,and if you are a big fan too,don't skip this one.

Gothic 3 is, in its basic form, a fun game that can entertain for a decent amount of time, but being a dated game makes it feel less impressive. The controls are rough and the combat feels lacking. The sound effects are also rough to the ears.

Still, if one is looking for an old rpg to have fun with, then Gothic might be that rpg for you.

Gothic III is the heir of two acclaimed rpg games: Gothic and Gothic II. All of the three games have a rather old graphic (expecially the first two) but, where the first two are based on a well written adventure this one is not. The game is a bit buggy and, sometimes, really frustrating. Still, if you can manage to go through this matters (i.e. with mods) is still an enjoable game.

if you're willing to spend some time to patch and mod this game it works fine for me. i was playing this game on release...that was terrible. But now this game is on my "must-play" list. I really enjoyed the 3 or 4 times I completed this game because of many alternatives the game offers.

This game is not completely terrible, but if you are looking for something on par with Oblivion then you will be dissapointed. I did enjoy this for a brief while, and at the current price would recommend it for at least a try to see if you enjoy it.

I have no particular fondness to the Gothic series, I admit. But for the discounted price, I decided to give it a try. Still, the fate has decided that I am not be a Gothic fan afterall...

Intro movie was very, very cheesy. Let's just treat it like an unwanted cover, but as a taste of plot to come, it was plain awful. Then the horror started. I am amazed that for all this years, this game runs so poorly, especially considering what it has to offer. I am an IT engineer myself, with diploma and experience and whatever, and I just can't stand to see such a blatant try to push a badly written code to users.

I mean, Great Cthulhu! I saw big pixels, and still couldn't get a decent paced swordfighting. Someday, when I upgrade my hardware, I will give it another try. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy games made this year that run reasonably smooth and with decent settings.

A great sequel to a amazing sandbox style RPG, this game also allows the freedom to explore, any choice you make will open a different path making this game replayable! Combats needs a little time to get used to because there is some reflex element involved which a lot of RPGplayer tends not to have(including me). But this game offers so much more than what meets the eyes, 10/10 in gameplay, 10/10 in story ,8/10 in graphics. A must get for any RPG gamer or for anyone who is interested in trying out sandbox RPGs.

"Get your hands off him you darned dirty orc!" Or maybe you'd rather be friends with said orc? The choice is yours in Gothic III. You are once more the nameless hero only this time you finally got off that little island you've played the first two games on and moved up to the mainland, of course the mainland is in the middle of a war, a war with orcs. You, once more, being an outsider can pick and choose what side you want to help, all while growing in power and skill. Most of the control issues has been fixed from the first two games and the graphics are much better. Although at times the combat turns into a click-fest it's not a new problem for cRPG players, the witcher suffers from click-click-click-combat issues as well. Most people are divided on Gothic III either calling it the best or where the series sold out. I for one just think of it as a good little RPG choosing not to judge it on the past games. All and all, probably the best in the series which balances graphics and story, with IV looking the best and II having the best story. I'd suggest watching an LP or some game play video of the game before buying just to make sure it's your cup'o tea.

To me Gothic 3 was a bit of a let down, it wasn't outright bad, it had good moments but the fact that it was rushed out is showing and the bugs, graphics, controls and game balance can at times make this game quite frustrating.

Fortunately there's a very involved community and the player patches have even been sponsored by the actual makers of the game. So if you can grab ahold of the "official" community patchers through the worldofgothic fansite, then your experience will be much improved and it will be a worthwhile rpg purchase. Especially given the fact that it has been out for a little while and can be had at quite a cheap price.

The original Gothic and Gothic II were some of my favorite open world games despite their awkward combat and UI. Gothic III improves on these flaws and adds a bigger world to explore with more diversity than the previous games had. What is lost, however, is that sense of unique plot and adventure that the first game had. I enjoyed exploring the world and the faction system. Gothic III is an entertaining romp in a vast RPG world that is well worth a play through.

fun game for the most part but has more bugs than a roach motel you will need patch it fully up to 1.7

even then it has some bugs to it but works better

its open world rpg you travel around do quest and quick save is a must due to some parts of the bug that will ruin the game quest if you do something wrong

Get the community patch for this game and issues will be fixed big time. This is a fun game. It has great animations for people being run through by a blade and dying. But of course an RPG needs much more than that and this does deliver.

The way to level up is different. You get points and then can only increase your skills by spending money on characters that will teach you things or by doing favors for them.

You can be nice and fight the orcs and then decide the heck with it and fight for them. But then everyone might hate you. If go into a settlement and cause trouble you can't just stay away for a while and then come back and everyone likes you, nope. You cause trouble and come back be prepared to get smacked around or even killed depending on what you did the last time you where there. Or you could just clean the settlement out completely and steal all their stuff. Of course the different factions don't like it when just one person cleans out one of their places so ....

And lots of people from two factions can be fighting each other around you in this game while you're fighting someone. This is not a pansy RPG with just you fighting one thing that randomly pops up every now and then like an unmodified game of Oblivion.

Gothic III is probably the best game of the Gothic series. Unfortunately, it's also the buggiest game of the Gothic series.

This can mean something of a love - hate relationship. When everything is fine then the game approaches greatness. You have a vast, free-form world to explore, plenty to do and see and a number of quests to participate in for various factions. When it goes wrong, it can leave you gnashing your teeth in frustration, particularly when you find out a bug has rendered the game unfinishable and you have to start again. Save often, and try not to overwrite is necessary advice.

The combat is a little unpredictable. When it works, as it does against most humanoid opponents, it is one of the most enjoyable interactive systems in an RPG to date. Unfortunately, because animals cannot be parried you can often find yourself breezing through a combat against an entire orc platoon and struggling to survive against a simple boar. This leads to a difficulty level which unpredictably swings up and down.

The community patches resolve a lot of issues and get the game to a reasonably playable state, however quite a few problems still remain. If you can persevere then what you have is a rewarding game of exploration and adventure which will likely keep you occupied for many hours to come.

I gave this game 4 stars, because, although there is excellent open-world rpg gameplay, this game's difficulty, combined with the bugs found in it, present a challenging front. The combat, at least in the early stages, requires a high level of tactical capability, and if you let them get a hit in you will DIE. I have never seen wild boars that molest you with their tusks for 5 seconds straight except in this game. But I digress. This game is an excellent rpg in terms of exploration, storyline, and actual roleplaying. The graphics are generally solid and the varied regions you can explore will keep you coming back for more. Overall, Gothic 3 is an excellent game, despite the difficulty (which can in fact by remedied by changing it to easy in the options menu) and minor graphical bugs. It is an excellent romp for any action-rpg fan and is surprisingly addictive and, less surprisingly, full of replayability as you try different skill and morality paths.

Just to let people know; If you want to play this game, you WILL need community patch 1.70 or newer. It fixes alot of the bugs that are present in the game, and adds new AI content as well.

Anyway, I will recommend this game to anyone who likes open-world RPGs like Oblivion. But do not think this game is easy. I played the game on medium difficulty and I never made it past the 2nd village. Because it takes extreme tactical capability in the early stages of the game. And don't even bother with the hard difficulty, unless you know what the hell you are doing.

The game has one of the most deep and engaging storylines I have ever seen in a game. And just for this, I recommend you to buy it.

The graphics are actually alright. It's not the best, but it doesn't look like crap either, despite it's age. When you play Gothic 3, you should be concerned about the gameplay and not the graphics. So if you're a hardcore graphics enthuiast, this might not be for you.

Gameplay reminds you alot of hack'n'slash, but the combat system brings you a way to block incoming attacks, and with the community patch, your opponent will be smart as hell to block your attacks, so you cannot just go blindly spamming the attack button. And also, you do not have god-mode on, so you can take about 3-6 hits depending on the enemy and your class specifications.

All in all, I think this game is awesome, but it is for the very diehard RPG fans, that like the old-school way of RPGs. If you like WoW, this might not be for you. If you like Oblivion, it's only the open-world theme that will drag you.

If you liked Risen, this will rock your world.

With the latest community patch this is a really good deep action RPG.

The world is beautifull and interesting and filled with quests. You can join alot of different parties. Only downside that even with the community patch the game still has some bugs and isnt to stable (and i have a pretty fast PC)

I've been following the Gothic serie since the first one, and i have to say that gothic 3 is one of the best game i've played. Like always, there always bugs, and like the others said in their reviews, the game is very demanding on a graphic point of view because of all the details and the size of the map (which is more than huge). This game is very plesant to play, and you have a huge liberty of actions, just the other Gothics. If you like RPG, it's a must. If you don't, you'll stop playing after a few hours because of all the bugs. Except of the bugs, it's the best RPG i've played.

Warning!!! Do not buy this game if you have onboard integrated graphics no matter how good. I received an Exception Access Violation and I am running Intel 965 chipset which is one of the best onboard graphics cards in my opinion. They should also list this in the requirements.

Initially I refrained from purchasing Gothic 3 because of the myriad technical problems. But when Community Patch 1.7 was made available, that made this game both viable and enjoyable.

The cinematics display well-rendered graphics; however, I found myself wishing for a bit more polish with the in-game graphics and animation. Nevertheless, the graphics coding is GPU-specific for nVidia GeForce users, and Gothic 3 has the nVidia Logo prominently displayed during the opening credits, along with nVidia's "TWIMTBP" (The Way It's Meant to Be Played) rating.

The fact that the developers of Gothic 3 took the time to crack open the books and write GPU-specific coding speaks volumes about the game and the people behind it.

Gothic 3's executable has shown a marked improvement in performance with the issuance of Community Patch 1.7. I put the game to the test, and the program responded flawlessly - nary a CTD to be found. Gothic 3 joins Drakensang: The Dark Eye in the list of RPGs that won't crash a PC running XP SP3.

It's also nice to be have selectable Anisopteric Filtering and Anti-aliasing. I like the World Map, but the Quest Log seems to be a bit bland, in my opinion. The Inventory layout is very workable and well thought-out. I was annoyed at having to do extra clicks to access functions such as displaying the screen showing the keyboard assignments: aside from the standard WSAD movement keys, not too many others are where you would expect them to be in a RPG, which means a slightly steeper learning curve for the game.

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This game has a few nice touches of realism added-in, such as clicking on a campfire, and you find your character roasting a chunk of meat over the flames. It's the little things like that which can make or break a RPG, and it's a welcome change to see these touches of creativity within the genre.

Gothic 3 is a good deal overall - well worth your time, effort, and your cash.

you probably already know whether or not you love gothic iii, so this isn't a review per-se. i'd just like to let gamersgate members know that this version *is* compatible with the newest (huge, massive and wonderful) 1.70 version of the community patch.

if you are a first time buyer of the gothic series, or just haven't played gothic iii due to its stability issues, there really isn't a better time to try it out - the 1.70 version of the patch is really very good.