Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Disappointing"

Gothic 4 is a remarkable mix of outstanding graphics (provided you have the horse-power to run it), good sound effects, fine interface, fine controls, and some extremely lame elements besides.

What stands out most is the high-school level voice acting for many of the secondary characters. Most of the familiar (Diego, Gorn, etc.) or important characters are voiced perfectly fine though. Much of the dialogue doesn't flow well either. Translation issues?

To make matters worse, the gameplay is for the most part boring. The intricate story and realism that are a hallmark of the series are completely gone. Steal all you like, nobody cares. Unsheath five foot of steel: nobody gets nervous. That used to be different. Better.

There is a great variety of perfectly good "consumables" to use, however there is almost never any need for them. It is also not encouraging that empty glass bottles are outrageously expensive, while used potions don't return an empty one.

What a terrible shame that such a pretty game and such a great franchise is brought down by such stupid issues.