Insatiable Drakon lives here...

       The main parameter of game quantity is its game play. Although the third Gothic has little in common with its previous parts, the game play turned to be perfect indeed. I think it is the best one in the whole series. A lot of improvements implemented made the third Gothic much more interesting – there are lots of enemies now and they are always ready to compete with you in murderness. Now you can change level of difficultness of the game while playing.

         Magi can regenerate their mana without sleep and parisons now – they just should get some special skill. But the most interesting moment is changing of other characters’ attitude to you depending on your deeds. Actually there is no storyline in ordinary meaning of the word. This world is dynamic and easy changeable and only our actions influence other characters’ attitude to us and result of the game. And remember that you make complete your quest to the good of any of competing sides irrespective of what side gave it you.

         There are six different groups in the game each of them having its own tasks and ambitions: orcs and rebellions, hunters and druids, nomads of desert and barbarians of Nord. Representatives of mentioned pairs hate each other and provide lots of quests, which can get you money, experience and change of reputation (but tasks are written in the form of dialogue – it is very inconvenient).

         Gradually behavior of your enemies changes from bad language to direct aggression. Vice versa your friends help you and become your allies. But they cannot help you very much because artificial intellect is not very high. Fight system was changed very much in comparison with an old one – we can rotate strong kicks with fast short lunge that are extremely effective.

          But unfortunately you cannot retreat walking backwards. This decreases our maneuverability very much. Enemies are divided into two main categories – some of them (like orcs and humans) are easy to kill, some kill us with no chance for us to survive (varans, ogres). Situation with weapons usage skills is unclear: there is no much difference between those who studied them and those who didn’t.

        As for the graphic it is quite controversial –for example impression from perfectly depicted city buildings may be suddenly spoiled with badly realized “flecks of sunlight effect”. Wonderful forests and deserts are mucked with trees of valued plants. Water that is extremely beautiful when you look at it at short range looks like muddy molasses at long range. And if you remember that Oblivion which was not less beautiful than Gothic 3 worked much better with the same system requirements you start to feel some bewilderment.

         Music was developed much better. We can hear natural sounds of forests, birds, sea waves and wolves. Soundtracks depend on location you walk through – if it is some sand desert you hear orient motives, if it is a city then classic melodies sound.

Advantages:

Witty plot and quests.

Tremendous visual effects when magic is used.

Wonderful choice of spells.

Great variety of weapons.

Game world develops very dynamically.

New fight system.

Enormous quantity of new and old enemies.

Convenient control.

Disadvantages:

Requirements are unreasonably high.

Game is loaded too long.

NPC is stupid.

There is no connection with other games of this series. AI allies fight very poorly.

Bad realization of archery.

There are a lot of small bugs here.

          It is difficult to say whether developers succeeded to create perfect game when we are talking about Gothic 3. On the one hand, fans of the series have to make up their mind to the fact that many features they became accustomed to in the previous games of the series are absent here. But they will hardly be sad for a long time as they will be dazzled with extremely dynamic and bright world of Gothic 3 with its numerous battles and wonderful spell casting. If the technical side of the game was a little bit better I would put a “nine” not.