You know, lots of people do themselves a disfavour (is there such a word??) by skipping past G1 because of the clunky controls. That makes me sad, because to me G1 had the most compact and clearest "story" of the Gothics, and it really set the background for the whole world. If one just perserveres a little, and play it exclusively, the controls quickly grow on you and become second nature. I cannot recommend enough, that you try to discipline yourself to give Gothic 1 a go first.
I had personally started off my own Gothic experience, with Gothic 3, just when it was released, but had to stop after a while because of the bugs. Then I went on to Gothic 2, but found there were a lot of references to G1, that i didn't have a clue who these guys were, or what they were talking about.
So I tackled Gothic 1, and after about 20 minutes with it, I had a brief fit of venting my rage on some website about the abysmal idiotic controls. Someone there patiently pointed me to the manual (Which I didn't have, since I got my copy through Gothic Universe), I looked up the controls, wrestled with them for another hour or so , then got used to them, and I never looked back.
In the end, I patted myself on the back that I had perservered, since it really made me understand where the whole Gothic ethos and lore originated, and all the G1 references that had puzzled me in Gothic 2 before, fell into place for me.
Besides that, I had tons of pure fun playing Gothic 1. I look back to the gaming experience I had with it, with much fondness.
..and just btw - so far, Risen reminds me the most of G1 of all the Gothics, when it comes to the political setup of the gameworld, especially.