Review Gothic 3 trashed at GameSpy - 1.5/5

[Vault Dweller]

Hell, by most accounts I've heard Gothic 3 was bugged worse at released than Oblivion.

Oblivion didn't run on my old computer that was within min specs, giving me the infamous "white christmas" screen - everything was white and completely unplayable. I bought a new one and didn't have any problems after. I played G3 on the same new computer - it ran flawlessly, so I can't say anything bad about either game's performance on a decent PC.

What's clear from the review is that both games are resource-intensive and will require a top of the line machine (even GameSpy "gaming rig" couldn't run Oblivion at high resolution and settings - that's gotta tell you something) to run it, both games are loaded with bugs (he even cited Oblivion's random CTD's, so it was as bad as it could have been), etc. Yet the scores are completely different, (without anything else in the review that may explain the difference) and it looks like Oblivion was given a huge break, while G3 paid for every bug in both games. That's what I disagree with.

True, I'll give you that, but then the flaw would be in his *other* ratings, while your newspost seems to indicate the reviewing is imbalanced because of the bug rating specifically.

Might just be my reading, though.

Let's blame some on your reading and some on my writing.

 

[Vault Dweller]

http://www.rewiredmind.com/review/gothiciii

Please tear this turd apart for us.

http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=15942

 

[The Vanished One]

I want reviews to be as subjective as possible. I want to read true thoughts...

imo a review should be an analysis of a game, that covers every part of it, in the most objective way possible. Of course a review can't be fully objective, but shouldn't be an opinion. There are forums for that. A review should tell you what the game is, and not what someone thinks about it. True thoughts are welcome, of course, but shouldn't affect too much the review.

Of course this is only my opinion. We're in a forum after all :D

 

[Brother None]

What's clear from the review is that both games are resource-intensive and will require a top of the line machine (even GameSpy "gaming rig" couldn't run Oblivion at high resolution and settings - that's gotta tell you something) to run it, both games are loaded with bugs (he even cited Oblivion's random CTD's, so it was as bad as it could have been), etc. Yet the scores are completely different, (without anything else in the review that may explain the difference) and it looks like Oblivion was given a huge break, while G3 paid for every bug in both games. That's what I disagree with.

I disagree with needing a high-end PC just to have shiny graphics. But ah la, that's not really a relevant complaint in the modern world...

That said, I think we're also reading the Gamespy review differently. I see some other essential complaints, in that the reviewer just didn't fancy the method of storytelling...come to think of it, that is a bit of a stupid reason for a low score, I s'pose.

 

[itsLasher]

Lol, I love the bottom of the rewired review "Comments have been disabled due to spam. If you have a different opinion, you have a different opinion." Haha, great job guys. What a biased ass that guy is!

Gamespy in general blows. I don't even bother to read their reviews or info. To get a good review with them you have to whore yourself to the "staff."

 

[aries202]

HI

I'm really tired of reviewers comparing Oblivion & Gothic 3. It is like comparing, imo, oranges & apples. Some days you like oranges, other days you like them apples.

Imho, the devs. at Piranha Bytes know that they're catering to a niche market. And does it best to meet the expectations of this niche market.

This is, imo, what reviewers miss most often.

The reviewers at Gamespy noticed bugs, which
made it impossible for him to play the game. Maybe someone should have told him to download the patches for the game, the 9!! patches, that PB since G3' release has worked very hard in order to get released for the Gothic 3 community.

Gameppy's review is, imo, a rant about how many bugs are in the game, a comparision with Oblivion and
a notice about the thing G3 does well. And then an immediately tearing this down.

Or maybe Gothic 3 gets these low scores because reviewers don't want to see stuff which have already been in a game ??

Total objectivitt is of course an illusion. A reviewer needs to state his personal opinion of the game, while being fair and neutral in describing the mechanics of the game. (of course, gamespy's reviewer is also telling us about his personal frustrations about playing the game, Gothic 3, but I don't really see what, I as a potential game buyer is able to use this information to which I'm given).

aries202

 

[Volourn]

He's reviewing the game from his experience; not from yours. Just because you *and I like the graphics and art stsyle does not mean he has to. Don't be a dumbass VD, and expect everyone to view things exactly as you do. That's why you are a G3 fanboy. Because you expect everyone who discusses the game to think the same things about the game as you do. That's lame.

I may disagree with this review; but let's not be fanboys, ummmkay?

 

[Claw]

You go first.

 

[Bah]

Oblivion didn't run on my old computer that was within min specs, giving me the infamous "white christmas" screen - everything was white and completely unplayable.

From what I understood, the "whtie christmas" screen problem happens on systems with video cards that don't support pixel shader 3.0. There's no way to tell Oblivion to use pixel shader 2.0 instead of 3.0. So that probably meant your old video card was not technically within the min specs for the game since pixel shader 3.0 is required.

 

[sabishii]

Oblivion didn't run on my old computer that was within min specs, giving me the infamous "white christmas" screen - everything was white and completely unplayable.

From what I understood, the "whtie christmas" screen problem happens on systems with video cards that don't support pixel shader 3.0. There's no way to tell Oblivion to use pixel shader 2.0 instead of 3.0. So that probably meant your old video card was not technically within the min specs for the game since pixel shader 3.0 is required.

Is shader model 3.0 the latest version? If so then, no, you didn't need shader 3.0. You only needed it for HDR, but it runs fine with 2.0 In fact, there is an option in the config to change it to shader 1.4.

Just because you *and I like the graphics and art stsyle does not mean he has to.

That's true, but sometimes what people like is just absolutely ridiculous. Like putting huge spoilers on Honda Civics. Sometimes I can respect someone else's opinion, but other times they are just utterly atrocious.

 

[iNCA]

What bothers me about that review is that after ranting for a paragraph that his mouse is not working, he decides to continue playing only with the keyboard!

So of course this leads to the "impossibility to see the skill requirements" (which you can only see by hovering the mouse over) and of course this leads to a crappy combat system ('cause it is harder to control the camera).

Since in our days pretty much all computer games are based on the fact that you have a mouse, why the fuck did he continue to review the game like that?

 

[The_Pope]

Supporting one side or the other will eventually piss off the other side so badly that their strongholds will attack you on sight

"I wuz playin starcraft and I piked the d00d in powah amah coz he looked awesum. Then the gaem told me I cudn't make teh zerglings coz thay didunt liek me!!?!! Wat a stupad gaem."

 

[WittyName]

He's right about the combat and the choppy play but I actually found the graphics to be as good as if not better than oblivion. The interface is just fine. It can be a bit cumbersome at times in the middle of combat, however.

 

[Brother None]

Well, he liked Daggerfall, and there were a few obscure references by previewers to Oblivion having a "more Daggerfall feel".

Forgot to reply to this...

Sir, I find the implication that Oblivion is a sequel to Daggerfall pretty GODDAMN offensive.

Just sayin'

 

[elander_]

"Well, he liked Daggerfall, and there were a few obscure references by previewers to Oblivion having a "more Daggerfall feel"."

Somehow i doubt he has ever played Daggerfall for more that 5 minutes.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Talking about me? Because that's whom this line referred to.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Well, he liked Daggerfall, and there were a few obscure references by previewers to Oblivion having a "more Daggerfall feel".

Forgot to reply to this...

Sir, I find the implication that Oblivion is a sequel to Daggerfall pretty GODDAMN offensive.

Just sayin'

So do I.

 

[cutterjohn]

my $0.02
The review doesn't seem to be fair wrt final scoring. Oblivion was overscored IMO, meriting a weak 8 or upper 7s as a first person melee(I class it as the same type of game that Dark Messiah is, but which Oblivion does a better job of implementing, so if forced to score it as an RPG I would give it a 1 for some effort somewhere, not sure where though), while Gothic from what I've played so far would merit a solid 7.5 on my scale. (Loses points for obnoxious bugs, poor rendering, and performance as shipped. Apparently Piranha Bytes does have a Gamebryo engine license, so I don't know why they didn't use it as they could've really used the resource wasted on their pet engine(Genome) on more meaningful game development.)

Now, my overall take:
UI: It's WAY fucking better in G3 than G2, which really annoyed the crap out of me. Key puch - key punch - ... (or scroll - scroll - ...) sorting through my inventory. I could take the rest of the UI in G2, but the crappy inventory management was just horrible, which G3 has fixed in a good enough fashion for me.

Now as to the character info/skills screens those got to look a little too busy and annoying to me in G3, but not to the extent of the awful inventory management in G2.

Equipping items isn't so great in G3 either, but, again, I can live with it as Piranha Bytes have apparently discovered the wonders of mouse pointers. Welcome to 1983 guys.

Story: meh. I always expect a cliched storyline in some fashion from fantasy RPGs, but it's better than Oblivious' poor excuse for a storyline, or at least as much of it as I've seen from the demo. Overall it's a decent storyline for a fantasy adventure/RPG, but it's no classic piece of fantasy literature...

Graphics: They look OK, but without tweaking the LOD G3 looks like crap when there are fairly distant views. All blurry, but I've found some tweaks that I'm going to try on the demo to reduce that horrid effect. Close up though, the villages(only seen the first and Redrock Redorrack or whatever the fuck it's called cave where the rebels are...) look fine to me and they're seamlessly(well mostly) integrated into the game world rather than the crap Oblivion had to do to get the damned game runnable on the crapbox.

I must admit that overall from a landscape visual standpoint, from what I can recall about Oblivion there doesn't really appear to be that much difference in landscapes to me, and it's been several months since I've bothered to look at Oblivion so that may just be mis-remembered.

(I can(and do) play on high details...)

Voice acting: Again, doesn't seem all that bad to me so far in the demo. From the credits it looks like they used MANY more actors than Oblivion did, and it already shows. And more so those actors seem to have at least a modicum of talent, which I found to be entirely missing from Oblivion's non big-name "actors". (Am I the only one who thought that the voice "acting" in Oblivion was just about the worst ever done in a game?)

Bugs: Have to admit that G3 has a HUGE leg up on Oblivion wrt bugs. Frankly, as it stands G3 will never be allowed onto a console unless Piranha Bytes spends the next year debugging. (They're also going to have to spend time in that year optimizing and reducing memory load as the crapbox or any other console for that matter has no where near the available memory that a PC meeting their specs does. Frankly, I don't think that they can do it on their own.)

Combat: Feels like it's worse in some respects than G2's. As to how it stacks up against Oblivion, I can't really say as I don't really recall exactly what Oblivion's combat was like as it's been months since I've played. I'm hoping that if I raise some combat skills in G3 some of the options/types of attacks will play out better and/or have more a differentiation as only the lunge attack seems to really be different from the others.

Misc. graphics: inventory icons aren't so hot, but neither were Oblivion's. Misc. object look nice and in many ways seem to have more detail than similar objects that I recall from Oblivion. Water & effects are crap. Haven't really seen much in the way of weather effects yet, so I can't comment there.

optional settings: First person camera sucks ass(slow) in G3(compared to G2's and intentionally 1st person games), but I haven't had a chance to track down any setting changes for this yet. (These type of games, to me, were just meant to be played in 1st person...)

G3: 7.5 (so far)

specs:
Biostar TForce4 U
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800+
2G Mushkin DDR-400 RAM 2-2-2-7
250G (mathematically deficient) WD Caviar 7200rpm, 16M cache, SATA2
eVGA 7600GT KO (clocked at CO speed out of the box) 256M
Realtek 850 onboard AC'97 sound

G3 settings: high @ 1024 x 768
haven't checked the exact fps but it plays, mainly, smoothly for me.

[EDIT]
Forgot the obligatory:
r00fles
[/EDIT]

 

[Claw]

Graphics: They look OK, but without tweaking the LOD G3 looks like crap when there are fairly distant views. All blurry, but I've found some tweaks that I'm going to try on the demo to reduce that horrid effect.

Yeah, turning it off works wonders for reducing the horrid effect, assuming you can figure out the menu option to do so.

Water & effects are crap.

WHAT? Oh wait. You've only seen the ocean of course. Do you plan on buying the game? Prepare for a surprise.

These type of games, to me, were just meant to be played in 1st person...

They obviously weren't to the developers.

 

[elander_]

Talking about me? Because that's whom this line referred to.

I don't know who said Oblivion had a more Daggerfall feeling but if it does it's only very superficial. Maybe it's because the architecture. Some of the very few Oblivion cities look almost like one of the more than 10,000 Daggerfall small towns.

Just a couple a days ago for nostalgia sense i started a procedural quest from the commoners that are the best. A tavern keeper ex-lover was kidnaped and the guy wants the ransom to fail because he hated the bitch. Her uncle wants to pay the ransom so he asks me to either find the kidnaped girl and kill her, find the uncle and kill him or steal the ruby he is going to use to pay the thieves. The thieves guild send a note telling me the location of the kidnapers and ask me to get rid of all of them becuase they are too agressive. I did this but when i clicked the girl she started crying "assassin, assassin you want to kill me" and then a message popups and says "<her> died of histeria". LOL i wish there was at least one quest like this in Oblivion.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I don't know who said Oblivion had a more Daggerfall feeling but if it does it's only very superficial.

Not me, that's for sure.

Just a couple a days ago for nostalgia sense i started a procedural quest from the commoners that are the best. A tavern keeper ex-lover was kidnaped and the guy wants the ransom to fail because he hated the bitch. Her uncle wants to pay the ransom so he asks me to either find the kidnaped girl and kill her, find the uncle and kill him or steal the ruby he is going to use to pay the thieves. The thieves guild send a note telling me the location of the kidnapers and ask me to get rid of all of them becuase they are too agressive. I did this but when i clicked the girl she started crying "assassin, assassin you want to kill me" and then a message popups and says "<her> died of histeria". LOL i wish there was at least one quest like this in Oblivion.

Yep, Daggerfall had some very cool quests.

 

[octop8]

WTF is the reviewer going on about his mouse not working in the game....I've never heard of this bug on any of the G3 forums I've visited, of course I haven't visited all of them.

In addition to the inconsistencies in the way he scores despite his review of the bugs in G3 and Oblivion, he also says:

"This factional quest system is easily Gothic 3's greatest achievement. Oblivion tried something similar and ended up with a wide-open world that felt hazy and unfocussed. In terms of world and quest design, Gothic 3's system is far superior"

Therefore 1.5 vs 4. WTF.

 

[cutterjohn]

Graphics: They look OK, but without tweaking the LOD G3 looks like crap when there are fairly distant views. All blurry, but I've found some tweaks that I'm going to try on the demo to reduce that horrid effect.

Yeah, turning it off works wonders for reducing the horrid effect, assuming you can figure out the menu option to do so.

Hmmm... the ones that I've found links to on the Jowood forum look like ini file or something tweaks...

Water & effects are crap.

WHAT? Oh wait. You've only seen the ocean of course. Do you plan on buying the game? Prepare for a surprise.

I'll buy it when I can get a good deal on it, although I was tempted when I was at WorstBuy today(got NWN2) to pick it up as it's $40 there too... BTW it was the ocean, and I don't recall seeing any streams or anything yet, but I guess there are none in the demo. I only played for a few hours, mainly messing around trying different things out and getting the $^&*#&%&*@%!!!! dialogs to trigger, Goddamnit! (Mainly with Lester and Gorn and Diego in the 1st town, those dialogs seem kind of bugged for me at least...)

These type of games, to me, were just meant to be played in 1st person...

They obviously weren't to the developers.

That's funny, Gothic 2's ini file had an option to get the ENTIRE game to play in 1st person with a semi-amusing comment from a dev who said it was "fun" but untested/supported. Haven't gotten around to checking G3's ini or equivalent yet.

Hmmmmm... I had another comment, must remember what I was going to add... (I'll add it later if I remember what it was...)

Mouse not working: Mouse has worked fine for me in the demo, although I did on one occasion get the regular windows point PLUS the stylistic G3 pointer. I've seen it happen rarely in other games, so I think it's either a DX9 or GPU driver bug or a bug in the game UI code... Other than that it still functioned as a pointer, etc. (the other game ended up crashing shortly afterwards... IIRC)

 

[Claw]

Hmmm... the ones that I've found links to on the Jowood forum look like ini file or something tweaks...

Well, it's just possibe you weren't talking about the Depth of Field effect, in which case: My bad. Otherwise: You suck!

That's funny, Gothic 2's ini file had an option to get the ENTIRE game to play in 1st person with a semi-amusing comment from a dev who said it was "fun" but untested/supported.

Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's meant to be played like that. In fact, despite claiming to enable the FP view in all situations, it wouldn't work for dialogues. It effectively only made FP combat possible, and that wasn't great.

 

[cutterjohn]

Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's meant to be played like that. In fact, despite claiming to enable the FP view in all situations, it wouldn't work for dialogues. It effectively only made FP combat possible, and that wasn't great.

If they put it as an option to turn on in the .ini file, then that's good enough intent for me, although the untested bit, and the fact that dialogs are still 3rd person(forgot about that bit) would tend to cast doubt on that, but oh well.

I prefer to play SP, single char games in 1st person as it seems kind of silly to be in 3rd person when you have no other NPCs to run/position, of course, even games with parties now make that kind of moot as they're real time and have dropped the pausing, e.g. Aurora Engine and derived engine games. The real time w/pause sucked anyways, but all real time is no better...

Anyways sorry for resurrecting the thread, but I was searching for something else, and stumbled across this while also dealing with basement flooding, oh the fun never ends here.