There are two major open-ended single player fantasy RPG series for the PC – The Elder Scrolls and Gothic. Elder Scrolls is the more popular series, but Gothic is pretty good too. Elder Scrolls is popular because of its huge game worlds, accessible gameplay, and pretty graphics. Gothic, on the other hand, has strengths that are a lot less obvious, and much harder to describe. The series trades some size and beautiful graphics for superb AI, realism, and extra immersiveness. It can be very hard to get into, but when it’s at its best, the Gothic series is as great as any RPG series ever made. Gothic 2, like its predecessor, is hard and it’s not pretty, but it’s immensely fun and rewarding if you stick with it. You may find the game to be fun and addictive, provided you can overlook the way that it constantly shoots itself in the foot.

Gothic 2’s story picks up immediately after the ending of Gothic 1. You begin outside of the former prison colony, on a large island. Orcs and peasant unrest threaten the land, and a religious/military group called The Paladins has occupied a nearby city for an unknown reason. Immediately, you are given a major quest, and you set off into the world to finish it as you see fit. If you didn’t play the first game, then you should before you play this game, because the story and setting tie so closely together that you won’t understand what’s happening early in the game.

If you did play the first game, then you will be in familiar territory at the outset – wrestling with Gothic 2’s unintuitive and klunky control scheme. The game does feature some improvements, but like the first game, Gothic 2 sometimes begs you not to play it by making simple tasks difficult. The interface is slightly better than the first game, but it still lacks basic features like mouse support for the inventory or menu screens. When you open your inventory, you have to use arrow keys to navigate between items. There is no paper doll for your character or drag-and-drop ability for armor or weapons. The buy/sell interface has no mouse support either. You can hotkey up to 9 actions, but there is no HUD to remind you how your hotkeys are set. You can’t hotkey potions either, so forget about drinking one in combat. Gothic 2’s bad interface seems like it was set up for a console, but it wasn’t, which is why it’s so puzzling.

The controls for Gothic 2’s combat also follow in the footsteps of Gothic 1, which is to say that they are bad. They always feel sluggish and somewhat unresponsive. Spellcasting is cumbersome and impossible at close range. It’s impossible to evaluate this game without comparing it to Morrowind and Oblivion, and combat is one area Elder Scrolls games completely blow Gothic 2 out of the water.

In order to enjoy this game, you will also have to look past its often subpar presentation. Graphically, Gothic 2 was not a great looking game when it was released in 2003, and the years since then have not been kind. This game is downright ugly at times. Characters and environments are extremely blocky and look like they are something out of a game from five or six years ago. The game’s skyline and dense foliage look really nice because of the long draw distance, but the foliage can be a real annoyance up close. It’s so dense in some areas that it blinds you. This experience is extra frustrating when you’re trying to fight some monster in front of you, but can’t see it because there’s a huge green blob in the way. It helps though, that the outdoor areas, caves, and small buildings are completely seamless. It’s possible to play this game for 25 hours without seeing a loading screen, which means that the sub par graphics come across as a worthy tradeoff.

Gothic 2’s audio also comes across as somewhat average. The music is pretty good and it changes depending upon what area you are exploring. A huge plus of this game is that it has thousands of voice-acted lines of dialog and sound bites. A drawback to this approach is that it seems like only five voice actors did all of these lines. In particular, the guy who does Xardas’s voice seems to be everywhere, and he sticks out like a sore thumb. Combat sounds range from average to bad. In particular, the squishy sound of a blade connecting with flesh sounds really weak.

While the game’s faults are obvious, its strengths aren’t. Gothic 2 excels in ways that are very hard to describe – so hard, that you almost have to experience it yourself to understand it. There’s a lot to be said for big sandbox games like Oblivion and Grand Theft Auto. Many times though, these games are characterized by great breadth but little depth, but not Gothic 2. Gothic 2 manages to simulate a huge, living breathing world better than any RPG ever made – period. This game has the depth and variety of a linear game, but the open-endedness of the best games in the business. Therein lies the game’s greatest strength.

Dungeons and wilderness areas never feel like copy and paste tile sets. They are all uniquely crafted areas that reward you richly for exploring. No RPG has ever made exploration as fun and memorable as Gothic 2. If you survive the battle with some tough monsters in a cave, there’s always a good reward for you at the end. Say goodbye to randomly generated and leveled loot. Towns feel like actual towns, with people working, sleeping, and going about their daily business doing whatever it is they do. People will get angry when you enter their homes uninvited and eventually attack you if you don’t leave. They will also get offended if you approach them with a weapon drawn and unsheathe their own. Even with “Radiant AI”, Oblivion cannot match the NPC AI and activity in this game.

Gothic 2 has over a hundred unique NPC’s, intermingled with miscellaneous characters like “worker” or “citizen”. The unique NPC’s are truly unique – they have their own conversation trees, agendas, activities, and abilities. Never is there a time where you talk to a named NPC and feel like he or she is just a cookie cutter Xerox copy of another one. NPC’s attitudes and dialog change towards you as you accomplish your goals. It’s one way that the game rewards you richly for your trials. It’s one of the game’s many underappreciated features that only shine through after you have played it for a while.

One of the side effects of Gothic 2’s realism is an extreme learning curve and level of difficulty early in the game. You do not start off the game with a map. There is no encounter scaling in this game, and there is nothing keeping you from running off into an area that you are unprepared for and getting massacred in two seconds. These obstacles are actually blessings in disguise. Once you become stronger and get better equipment, triumphing over your former enemies and feeling yourself becoming more powerful is incredibly satisfying. It can be said that the core any RPG is the “carrot-and-stick” process of solving problems, earning experience, and gaining levels. Part of the draw of an RPG is to start off as a helpless weakling and gradually progress to near Godlike power. No game released in the last three years is as addictive in this area as Gothic 2.

Like other open-ended games, how long you spend on this game depends a lot upon your playing style. The game world is bigger than the first Gothic, without any drop in quality or attention to detail. It took me 50 hours to finish it, but I can see somebody else spending 35 or less. You can stop to explore, smell the flowers, and do every quest you can. Or, you could go directly through the storyline as fast as possible (which would be hard). There are tons of quests in this game, none of which are a mundane “fetch me this necklace” type. Regardless of how long it takes, Gothic 2 does a great job of keeping you engaged throughout its entire length. Herein lies its greatest trump card over the Elder Scrolls series. There’s enough choice in character development to support replaying the game at least once. Gothic 2 has tons of content – even more than the first game, and you will surely get your money’s worth out of it.

If you liked Gothic 1, then you will be very pleased by Gothic 2. It is a substantial improvement over the first game in a few ways. Gothic 2 offers a sense of realism, immersiveness, challenge, and attention to detail that no other RPG can offer. The only question is whether you may have to patience to endure lots of dying, ugly graphics, and some clunky controls. If you ask me, it’s more than worth it. Overall, Gothic 2 is a great game.