By SirPaladin

How would you react as a prisoner in an unknown mining colony, surrounded by a magical barrier created by a party of mages (Fire- and Water-Mages) and controlled by an evil archdemon which will come to get you!

Hmpf! Maybe I spoiled a little, but you can`t come to know a good story without a minor spoiler.
Well, I played Gothic with great patience, knowing what a gaming masterpiece it is. This is the last review I write about Gothic series, for now, so I must go straight to the point as fast as I can,
although I meet a difficulty in this fact.

Gothic features a dark, depressive atmosphere, giving the player a deep feel of frustration, giving him the perfect sensation of flying time. The clock doesn`t seem so stubborn after stepping
through the portal between Gothic and reality, a barrier made simply of a PC.
So many twists aren`t specific for a Role-Playing Game experience, but Gothic manages to change my humble opinion. It has a rather annoying linearity from chapter II onto chapter VI (endgame). The story keeps you playing though.

“Oh, look at the clock! It`s 900! I`ll play till 10 o`clock…”
“Oh! It`s 10:00! Hm, I wonder who Gomez really is”…

It can go like this for ages. If you decide to stop playing, say:
“I`m a Gothic addict. Now I`m going to sleep”
This way you can stop playing. The problem is, you can mistake sleeping in Gothic for sleeping in real life, but the method above is the only possibility. I hope that what I wrote about this magnificent game is
appreciated by someone, but most important, it makes someone play it.

Do it your way, do it in Gothic style!

And my mark is: 9,30

By SirPaladin

The first time I heard of “Gothic” I didn`t know what a true RPG is. After I played it, though, I knew what a perfect RPG is…
I played it once, twice, and couldn`t pass chapter I. I couldn`t understand how to pass this, that…
… and finally, I passed chapter II. What a thrill!
A year later, I even passed chapter II! Wonderful!
And last but not least, I beat the game a month later! A truly extraordinary game, yes!

Well, this is a summary of my Gothic 2 experience, but alas, it doesn`t say anything yet.
I have to ask you, first, what does a perfect RPG look like for you? Is it open-ended, complex, challenging? Well, so far, that RPG is Gothic.
Well, the part with “challenging” is actually a bit extreme. Orcs, dragons, beasts that live in deep darkness, all of these, well, fill up your grave pretty fast.
The Nameless Hero goes to battle the dragons of Beliar and their leader. Luckily, the game has a “save” feature. That directly enables you to pass the game. Pros, well, the game has them, but I shouldn`t start with them.

Sadly, every Gothic walkthrough has a specific word that repeats itself: “bug”; I don`t think it means “insect” in this case. The game is glitchy, it gets stuck
in numerous places, when you are forced to type “marvin”. Marvin is the bug warrior`s best friend. It is the gate guard to the cheat console!
And finally, I`ll get started with the pros!

The first thing I, myself, request from a PC game is: replay value! Gothic has loads of it. Guilds are very well concepted, too. Mercenaries, paladins and mages are perfectly designed, as mercenaries specialize in cold combat, paladins are a mix of magic and steel and mages are exclusively magic-specialised.
The quests vary from turnip-pulling to destroying the Temple of Beliar. That is the main thing that keeps you playing for hours, days, weeks, months, years… Oops!
Another thing: You can do it your way! Whatever you feel! You can choose not to report the thieves, maybe become one of them! You can choose anything
you like. The game isn`t structured Good – Evil like other games, it`s just… more natural.

Are you an archer, pikeman, swordsman, crossbowman, maceman, axeman, or do you simply use what you lay your hands on? Well, buy Gothic to stop destroying things in real life!
Happy playing… addiction, erm…

Gothic 2
9,3
“Addictive”
RPG

By SirPaladin

When I first got my hands on Night of the Raven, I was so excited, I opened the package so quick, that I dropped it from my hand, and I thought it broke; fortunately I was wrong…
Well, I inserted it into my CD-ROM so excited, it nearly cracked, but fortunately it didn`t…
…and finally I played it the first time, I thought the game had crashed, but fortunately, it didn`t!
So, tNotR was in my hands, finally, after a millennium of wating! BUHAHAHAHA!
Well, I exaggerated on the last part… So nevermind! I was very anxious to say the least, after all the good things I had heard about it, it`d seem ridiculous for the game to be a failure.
So I played the game, in the same manner I did to G2, only considering that the difficulty level was considerably raised.

The High Council of Gaming, formed by me, myself and I decided that the game isn`t so difficult, but it isn`t a walk in the park (metaphorical meaning) although it is literally “a walk in the park”, considering the addon features a pretty large “park”. It holds the ruins of an ancient Adanos-worshipping civilization (which will turn to resemble the Aztecs, judging by architecture).
So I was playing Notr, trying to find the ancient portal to that mysterious park. I had to fulfill some jobs for a group of mages. Interesting, challenging, and last but not least, rewarding quests engrave the path to the large park, the addon-world.
You meet many friends from G1, from different perspectives. Most important is the former ore-baron Raven. Raven is the main villain of the addon-world, his objectives I won`t spoil for now are pretty insane, but possible, thinking that all of Raven`s opposition is made from wimps. All except the Hero.

I simply didn`t notice why the game is called Night of the Raven, judging by the fact that I killed the final boss during the day.
Well, there are many things we seek a reasonable explanation for, like life, death, the Universe, Gothic 2: Notr etc. But I won`t bother you with my nonsense.

Straight to the point: NotR is a great game, for which I won`t bother typing two digits: “1” and “0”.

So my mark is: 10, 00