Gothic universe = Best game immersion
1. About the interface. Once you got it, it's simple. You press the ACTION key and then use the direction keys for
interacting with the environment, trading and fighting. You don't need the mouse,
you can use it but then you'll have to provide different controls via keyboard for side weapon swings.
The fighting system it's simple and very tactical, because it's about timing. I still
wonder why many people enjoy lots of crap games, like Diablo, for their stupid fighting system: click and click and click
until you get a finger strain! Gothic lets you use you brain and your intuition. Timing
is, beside having a good weapon and armor, everything!!!
2. Many said the game is very difficult. No, in fact it's much more simple than most other games once you KNOW HOW to play the beginning
of the game. Just follow the main road to the Old Camp, work in the forge, craft lots of blades, sell them for ore and aquire the best piece
of armor from the markets (Fisk in the Old Camp, Templar guard in front of Swamp Camp), then defeat the molerats near the camp and equip the dead guard's amulet. Invest in STRENGTH at least the first levels (
considering probably you'll want to become a mage later) and use one of your new forged weapons for fighting. Okay, once you get all these straight (patience
is required, of course...), you can go hunting scavengers, molerats, bloodflies. Stay away from bigger monsters, even from wolves. Visit all camps by
making Baal Parvez and Mordrag take you there. You get free XP from their fights. Try to enter Gomez castle as soon as you can (You must give up the dead guard's amulet to one of the Shadows but don't worry,
you'll get a much better one soon!!). Once you enter the castle, don't go to Gomez!!! You can go to him later, if you really must.
Go up the staires and empty the chests from the upper floor. In one of them there is a very powerful amulet of protection.
I recommend you join the new camp if you are a beginner. Lee will instruct you in two handed
fighting once you get level 10 and you don't need prerequisite one handed like you do in the other two camps!
Anyway, if you have the armor and the amulet (Fisk's or a novice loincloth from the swamp camp & dead guard's amulet) you should be able
to advance very quick in the game.
3. Monsters don't need to respawn like in other games! They still respawn but in later chapters and in smaller number.
Don't worry. That's the most realistic part compared to stupid Diablo where you could fight bosses and others endless, annoying times. Consider it, once you kill a boss
it should be quite dead, right?
You gain enough experience from monsters, more than enough. If you join the New Camp you'll find yourself even in middle game with lots of spare points
which you could invest in archery or magic or whatever. Consider melee combat most important, though. It's
a game where this counts.
4. System requirements? What if I tell you that when I first played the game I had a PC with
a 1,70 Celeron, only 128 RAM and a video card Savage integrated on the motherboard??? It woked on minimum but I could
still play it well enough. If you have about 256 RAM and a video card of 64 RAM, it runs perfectly. I tried it later when I had
a Ge Force 4 and increased my RAM to 256. Perfect!
What critics can I add to this game? Well, there are melee hits which do nothig to some monsters (this bug is corrected, it seems, in Gothic 2), even if you have the maximum strength and
toughest weapon! That is the worst thing about this game. Also, the fact that Gorn, a friend of yours,
attacks you sometimes while in that mine... But if you avoid those big monsters in the beginning and if you have patience in fights later,
it's not a problem anymore. As for Gorn, try to use a sleep spell scroll and then run :))
It's a wonderful game, a game based more on psychological than brutal, a game I could still play and play, never getting tired of it. Have you tried infiltrating the orc town as a meatbug early in the game? There is nice
stuff there and the best two handed sword in the game (not counting URIZIEL) FOR FREE!!!
It's a perfect RPG and a fascinating universe: lots of landscapes (you can go anywhere), beautiful day/night system, clever missions with options to chose how to accomplish them,
dialogues (Isn't it cool when your main character speaks? Not like other mute games...), most of which are very funny, no tons of weapons and armor and objects. Just
what you need! A top class still nowadays!