Also I totally agree with JDR, Atmosphere was significantly inferior to #1(*) for me (and did not hold a candle to Gothic 1 imo).
For me it's the complete opposite. I liked the first game but the slow start on the outskirts of Vizima did put me off initially and I played the game in segments over a few months. It never really managed to grab me and pull me right in.
Number two does though. It started out great and is still really cool ~10 hours into the game and some way through chapter 1.
Also, as for the Gothic 1 reference, I'm not sure what they changed in the EE in Flotsam since I've only played some of the prologue of the non-EE version but I'm getting serious Gothic 1 old camp vibes from this game. More than any other game since the Gothics (including Risen) has given me.
Some quick brainstorming off the top of my head: The ambience is just plain awesome with the campfires, stray cats and dogs, dead people lying around in the woods giving an accurate impression of a warzone, ducks and geese in the villages, people having a drink and smoking a pipe at the campfire at night, guards getting drunk, vomiting and taking a piss when they've had a few too many, drunk people singing drunken songs in the street, the brothel with the prostitutes, merchants taking care of their stock during the day, carrying crates around and stuff, guards yelling at you to sheathe your weapon, guards falling asleep during their shift or realistically blocking your path if you're not supposed to trespass somewhere… and the list could go on and on.
I personally never got the console feeling. And I love the combat system, way better than in TW1 imo. I'm playing on hard and I love how chanllenging it is.
Same here as for the difficulty setting… though it makes me wonder what the other two higher options 'dark' and 'insane' are like. I mean I'm getting one-hit/shot sometimes, at the max I can take two hits usually so what's it like on 'dark' and 'insane'. Do enemies just have to look at you to kill you or what?
Anyway, what I meant with consolitis and interface issues was more the inventory and well, yes, the interface in general. One can tell in my opinion that this was made with controller compatibility in mind.
I actually like the combat system itself quite a lot. They've done a good job. PB (or other 3rd person RPG) developers should take a look at how it's done right and done well.
I've had this issue in dialogues if I have the Cinematic Depth of Field setting on. And turning it off seems to fix the issue for me. And personally I saw no difference with it on or off.
Thanks for the hint. I'll try that for a fix. The cinematic DoF adds some blur in the background for a more "artistic" look but it's certainly far from a "must have" feature so if turning this off fixes the lag I'll be more than happy to leave it off.