Gothic 3 - Review @ 1Up

[Dhruin]

1Up has posted their review (http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3155631) of Gothic 3 and this same review will apparently appear in the March edition of Games for Windows. Written by Matt Peckham (of NWN2 fame) the score is 5/10 and the short text has limited room for real gameplay discussion. Here's the intro:
Every RPG has its hook. Some are practically orbital, trading depth to trace the contours of entire continents. Others might as well be fantasy sports leagues for all their buckets of exotic info. Gothic 3 is the culmination of a third approach that renders midsized environments in painstaking detail while keeping its mechanics simple and unpretentious. I definitely heart the latter, so it's a pity to report that Gothic 3 was released too soon, with too many glitches to warrant a recommendation unless you're supremely patient and own a sturdy desk -- because when Gothic 3 chokes, you will pound it.
Look for the comment about having been patched 9 times already...presumably based on the current version number of 1.09.
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=3011)

[Gorath]

Typical 1Up quality - pure trash.
Matt Peckham must really be one of the worst reviewers out there. If he can´t even be bothered to verify the number of patches, I wonder how much effort he spent on the rest of the game.

[Corwin]

Probably about as much as he spent on NWN2!!

[space captain]

while i pretty much agree with the review, anyone who says "I heart..." needs to be shot in the face

[Dr. A]

while i pretty much agree with the review, anyone who says "I heart..." needs to be shot in the face

lol, i agree - similar to people ((excluding children and Japanese people) who like to type "kawaii!". GROW THE HELL UP! :biggrin:

OT: The review was kinda short. Neither sufficiently informative nor precise. I would rate the review a 4/10.

[curious]

while i don't say i heart anything, i do like the movie 'i heart huckabees'.

seriously, i think i am starting to miss viking beserker at least his comments were so ridiculous that no one really cared or took him seriously unlike all these posts with people advocating violence and ill will towards others.

'tis the season to watch your neighbors skull bleed i guess...

oh and i thought kawaii was a hawaiian island?

[Corwin]

I thought it was a brand of piano and keyboard!! :)

PS- You didn't have to 'clean up' after VB!!!!

[space captain]

so dont advocate violence, just play violent games instead - is that it?

[curious]

games are not reality, and you can still try to play games with as much morality as possible. i don't really any fps, war games, or such that is mostly just different methods of killing things.

conversing with real people, most with whom we know nothing about in agressive and unproductive ways, is the 'easy' way to deal with peoples own anger problems and anti-social issues, problems with their lives, etc. etc.

sorry corwin you're right, thanks for that by the way. buy yourself a six-pack for that one.

[Viking_Berserker_2]

Figures when i check out the comments i'm mentioned maybe i'll register again just for you curious.

We all got a little Viking_Berserker in us =) Just not the superior looks and greatness.


But really i checked out this site seen alot of reviews for Gothic 3 wich are disgusting i can agree with Gothic 3's rating in a range of 7-8 etc but 5? etc doesn't deserve anything that low.

I blame America.

[Jabberwocky]

Maybe his name should be Cockroach_Berserker. Apparently he's that hard to exterminate. :rolleyes:

[Viking_Berserker_2]

You can't kill greatness =)

[txa1265]

"I heart" ... "fugly" ... "road to hoe" ... what a poorly written piece - where's Jeff Green to talk about why *this* review is crap?!?!

[Acleacius]

"Jeff Green"
Cracks me up!
You know what I would like him to do a story on is Weird Al's "Too White and Nerdy" :D

[GothicGothicness]

I doubt this will be pulled duo to protesting fanboys like the NWN2 review.

[BillSeurer]

I think that reviewers have been in general too lenient on games that are released with numerous flaws and it is nice to see them finally starting to take that into account. Release-before-ready has been going on FAR too long.

[doctor_kaz]

Why does this guy feel a need to demonstrate how much smarter he is than everybody else by writing stuff like "Some are practically orbital, trading depth to trace the contours of entire continents. Others might as well be fantasy sports leagues for all their buckets of exotic info. Gothic 3 is the culmination of a third approach that renders midsized environments in painstaking detail while keeping its mechanics simple and unpretentious." Is all of 1up.com's PC stuff so unprofessional like this? If so, then maybe they should drop PC coverage altogether.

[txa1265]

I dunno kaz, but Matt - who I've seen in forums elsewhere and didn't get the impression of him as an idiot - has had a couple of really bad articles in a row here.

[SpecialGuest]

"I heart" ... "fugly" ... "road to hoe" ... what a poorly written piece - where's Jeff Green to talk about why *this* review is crap?!?!

This review is fugly!

[doctor_kaz]

I dunno kaz, but Matt - who I've seen in forums elsewhere and didn't get the impression of him as an idiot - has had a couple of really bad articles in a row here.

There seems to be a recent trend of PC game coverage being somewhat half-assed and half-hearted all over the industry right now. Console launches diverting all the resources away, perhaps? Gamespot's PC coverage has pretty much tanked, although their reviews are still okay. I hardly ever hear PC coverage that's not World of Warcraft anymore. Neverwinter Nights 2 has been badly neglected by the gaming media, especially compared to the first one. I listen to the Games For Windows podcast and they spend almost as much time talking about consoles as PC!

[RatavuK]

I didn't read the review but the score is not my cup of tea !

[xSamhainx]

There seems to be a recent trend of PC game coverage being somewhat half-assed and half-hearted all over the industry right now. Console launches diverting all the resources away, perhaps? Gamespot's PC coverage has pretty much tanked, although their reviews are still okay. I hardly ever hear PC coverage that's not World of Warcraft anymore. Neverwinter Nights 2 has been badly neglected by the gaming media, especially compared to the first one. I listen to the Games For Windows podcast and they spend almost as much time talking about consoles as PC!

I agree!
I usually download Gamespot's weekly "on the spot" show, but lately it's almost exclusively console and handheld, it's a waste of time. I end up fast-forwarding 3/4 of the show. In their defense tho, the mega-buzz right now is PS3 and Wii, any look at the comments after the show will affirm that me and like two others are the only ones complaining about the scant pc coverage, while literally a hundred others are eating up the console-mania with big smiles on their faces.

Am I the only one who will never be excited by a first person shooter again? Starting to fast-forward the FPS coverage as well!

[Dhruin]

There's nothing wrong with the score or several of his points but it's poorly written, plain erroneous (9 patches?), is immediately biased to mainstreaming (because other stuff is "pretentious"), and frankly, doesn't actually tell me much about the gameplay.

I can accept that print mags have text limits (which just illustrates to me why they are anachronisms...if they don't have space a half decent review review, why bother? Where does the space actually go?) and Jeff's editorial oversight isn't good enough...there won't be an outcry over this one but is this the standard for his mag in general?

[Dr. A]

Badly written reviews from pretentious, misinformed reviewers such as this are just another reason why I'm anticipating a particular article from RPGCodex. One that can have potentially major effects in the gaming world.

Vault Dweller is in the process of writing an article on how mainstream gaming sites have biased attitutes and double-standards for major games.

Since many people know about this, this won't have the same impact as an exposé. Nonetheless, the importance of this article is immense. PROOF will be included - in the form of quotes from the reviews.

It's imperative that ALL gamers (casual or hardcore) realise how much a single biased review from a major gaming site can influence a game's financial success. And learn to take EVERY single review with a grain, nay... a friggin boulder, of salt.

I'm deeply saddened to think of how many gamers turned away from playing the Gothic series because of some idiot reviewer who couldn't figure out the controls or found the difficulty too challenging... *sigh*

[Corwin]

That's why we NEED sites like this and the Codex where unbiased and uninfluenced opinion is presented, even when that opinion can be contrary.

[Dr. A]

That's why we NEED sites like this and the Codex where unbiased and uninfluenced opinion is presented, even when that opinion can be contrary.

I concur. RPGWatch and RPGCodex are, for me, the best sites for RPG discussion :cool:

[Thaurin]

Actually, a while back there was a study that found that game reviews have little influence over sales, here:

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3837&Itemid=2

I'm not sure how true that is, but it's interesting and relevant nonetheless.

[Corwin]

Are you implying that all my reviews were a waste of time!! :biggrin: No wonder I don't get paid!!!!! lol :)

[Guest]

When visiting this site and reading news about another G3 review that scores the game "too bad" as some of you might think, I can be sure to have at least about 15 comments like: "what an idiot the reviewer is".

Beeing a (former?) fan of the Gothic-series myself, i have to admit: Everyone scoring this game more than 60% or maybe 70% is not as honest and as professional as a reviewer as I would like to have them.

I played the game for some hours, but I think finally deinstalled after a savegame was lost. I hadn't anymore desire to play it any longer anyway. If something can be labeled as "trash" here, it's not all the bad reviews on the game -even if some reviewers are really not know what they are doing and should better continue playing Mario in Dazaland or Diablo2- no it's the game itself, it's that simple, I mean the game looks extra-shitty with a very bad performance and the story and dialogues is pretty plain, there are unforgiving bugs, crashes, ... Just not finished, I'm even thinking of playing my (pirated, of course) version of Dungeon Lords (!) first before coming back to this "gem" G3, since it needs at least as much patches as DL needed to become a medicore game,

just want to say all the guys trying to defend G3 at all cost: fanboys! Try to see the reality! G3 isn't worth a 9/10 points rate, not even an 8/10! It's just unfinished crap, like The Fall, Brigade E5, Dungeon Lords, ...

[Dhruin]

And you're not being honest suggesting G3 is in the same realms as Dungeon Lords. As much as there are fanboys, there are anti-fanboys who have their own agenda. Same thing in the end.

[txa1265]

Actually, a while back there was a study that found that game reviews have little influence over sales, here:

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3837&Itemid=2

I'm not sure how true that is, but it's interesting and relevant nonetheless.

Crap ... browser crashed and I lost my post ... short version: half my job is statistician, so this stuff makes me cringe ...

The 'study' attempts to draw inferences by looking at raw correlations - but that is all just data without context. Most games get average scores (by definition) and do average sales. The interesting thing is when something gets great reviews but lousy sales (NOLF, PS:T) or lousy reviews and great sales (sports games, licensed stuff) - but most interesting of all is when something has been very high on the 'buzz' meter, gets a couple of lousy early reviews and tanks in terms of sales. Is it a causal relationship? Unclear - and that 'study' does *nothing* to address that most interesting of details.

And you're not being honest suggesting G3 is in the same realms as Dungeon Lords. As much as there are fanboys, there are anti-fanboys who have their own agenda. Same thing in the end.
That has become the common troll thread - compare it to Dungeon Lords. This game was buggy as heck in the EU release, and still problematic now - but there are few things in game history to compare to Dungeon Lords ... and while there is considerable depth behind the issues with G3, Dungeon Lords is like 'the Emperor has no clothes' (yes I know my review was relatively positive, and I did have fun, but it is also my 2nd most disappointing game ever).

[BillSeurer]

"but there are few things in game history to compare to Dungeon Lords"

I've never played DL but if you are talking about buggy releases think back to the release of Fallout 2. What a disaster! It was unplayable and it took them quite a while to get it in a workable state. Along the way they released buggy patches that screwed up save games and some that made things WORSE. A lot of people tend to forget that and hold up Fallout 2 as some sort of gold standard.

Another really good game (for its time) that was unplayable at release was Darklands. In its case it took so long for Microprose to fix it that the game with all its promise of sequels and such died.

[txa1265]

"but there are few things in game history to compare to Dungeon Lords"

I've never played DL but if you are talking about buggy releases think back to the release of Fallout 2. What a disaster! It was unplayable and it took them quite a while to get it in a workable state. Along the way they released buggy patches that screwed up save games and some that made things WORSE. A lot of people tend to forget that and hold up Fallout 2 as some sort of gold standard.

Another really good game (for its time) that was unplayable at release was Darklands. In its case it took so long for Microprose to fix it that the game with all its promise of sequels and such died.

Same with Daggerfall ...

Thing is - while the releases were all messy, the *core product was solid*. Dungeon Lords was a horrific mess, made worse by crappy dev / pub support, made worse still by an unforgivable decision to charge *another* $40 for the 'collectors edition' which was basically a patch with a few little extras, and the ultimate insult was that the game underneath all of that wasn't very good at all.

[kalniel]

What happened to that editorial art of saying 5 pages worth of content in a single, concised page?

Daggerfall was indeed a flawed gem, but you could see what they wanted to do and with a lot of imagination and patience it was a fantastic game.

Maybe the anonymous coward thinks I'm a fanboi as I'd rate G3 in the 70s for sure. It's certainly not crap, though it's not perfect.

[Corwin]

I agree, G3 is a very enjoyable flawed gem. Trolls should be ignored and especially annonymous cowards!!

[Dr. A]

Thanks for the link, Thaurin. It was interesting. And so was txa1265's reply.

As for our anonymous friend...
just want to say all the guys trying to defend G3 at all cost: fanboys! Try to see the reality! G3 isn't worth a 9/10 points rate, not even an 8/10! It's just unfinished crap, like The Fall, Brigade E5, Dungeon Lords, ...
not even 8? so maybe 7? Would that be still be unfinished crap? :rolleyes:

Unfinished? To a certain degree, yes. Crap? Hell, no. I only played the demo and while it certainly ran like crap on my rig, the game certainly is NOT crap. I played with an average of 15-20 fps but i found the game very enjoyable. I died several times but that did not stop me from playing. I decided to stop playing after an hour or two because I want to enjoy Gothic 3 the way it should be. After a system upgrade and another patch or two, what will we have? Smooth framerates, beautiful graphics and polished(somewhat) gameplay.

I will wait patiently without whining. I trust PB, they will do what they can to improve their magnum opus.

[Jabberwocky]

Yeah! What he said! (except for the "magnum opus" part, which I probably agree with as well, but I'm not sure what it means) ;)