The NEW Gothic 3
As everyone that has played Gothic 3 knows, the game was released riddled with bugs and a combat system that was downright archaic and ridiculous. It seems PB has gone back to it's roots with G1 and G2 and made a combat system worthy of the PB name. To basically sum it up, this is what Gothic 3 SHOULD have been.
The graphics in game are nice. Beautiful vistas, a fair amount of different foliages, trees, etc. The color gamut is nice and varied and doesn't look overused in any of the areas I have explored so far. The dungeons look fantastic and the sound ambience used in them will truly make u peek over your shoulder should you be using a 5.1 or 7.1 setup. One of the things that has truly stood out for me is the rain and thunderstorm effect. It is quality and very well done. The rumble of the thunder coming though superbly on the speaker setup and the lightning effects are dazzling to watch. With proper reflection done on skin and land, it shows that PB put a fair amount of effort to absorb you into the game.
Combat, although similar to G3, is anything but. U can block and parry accordingly, and thrust and slice as well. With leveling up your character you can unlock new moves that add a fair degree of learning to swing, block and parry and counter. Magic in game is nice and varied and the effects are well done as well. No ridiculously long spells to conjure while you get eaten up by mobs.
Mobs, in the beginning, are simple. Nothing too hard as PB is trying to absorb you into the game. However, soon after, mobs do become moderately more difficult and you must use your brain a little more to defeat them. Nothing mundane as in G3, and nothing as ungodly difficult as G3 as well.
Voice acting is well done and you can tell that PB spent a little more coin to make sure it was done well this time around. No cheesy one liners or voice acting done by their relatives. Discussion choices abound and you won't find yourself bored by clicking through the many choices that may be offered.
So far, I have encountered no bugs or texture clipping as has been reported by users of Nvidia cards. I'm playing it on a GTX295, with an AMD X2 6000 with 2 gigs of ram and WinXP and a Soundblaster Audigy (yeah, i know, but i love this card!). The sound really comes through well on my Logitech Z-5500's and I couldn't be more happy with the immersion factor right now.
All in all, I recommend Risen highly. It seems PB has gotten off the bench with the failure of G3 and truly created an RPG for those of us that have been missing the quality work they did in G1 and G2. Go do yourself a favor, and buy it and play it. I won't think you will be dissappointed at all.