Gothic II Gold, now seemingly available

[fnddf2]

Sorry if this is old news, but I noticed recently that Amazon now carries Gothic II Gold.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BNJMIM/ref=pd_ys_ir_all_7/002-6706545-9478469?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=468642

I read somewhere that Schild was looking for it.  I played Gothic II non-gold, and I highly recommend it.  It's kind of like a Morrowind with less retarded quests.  I got used to all of its quirks after a while, and I actually liked the combat a lot.

[ahoythematey]

I have it, and the problem with Gothic II is that Oblivion is out now, and it also is a lot like Morrowind but with less retarded quests.

[schild]

So is Gothic II incredibly buggy?

[ahoythematey]

Probably.  The controls are pretty terrible, all things considered.  The game is quite neat though.  The question is if it's neater than Oblivion.  Right now I'd say no, but that could be the shiney talking.

[Sky]

Gothic II is a great game. But yeah...I'm playing Oblivion. Gothic II is old, but not busted....but Oblivion is definitely the New Hotness. It also raises the bar, so some portions of Gothic II will naturally be less satisfying.

As far as availability, my non-tech family was able to find it for me for xmas last year, it wasn't that scarce...

[Tebonas]

It would really be a surprise if a four year old game could compete with the newest shiney. I loved Gothic 2 to death, but the game I will compare Oblivion with will be Gothic 3 that is due this year.

That being said, Gothic 2 is worth playing if one didn't have the chance yet.

[fnddf2]

Oh right, I completely forgot about Gothic III.  That should be good.

Also, I just wanted to mention that Gothic II was completely bug-free for me.

[Ruskin]

Got this from Amazon last week and have enjoyed playing through the first few chapters.  In terms of bugs, I have come across a few encounters where mobs will get hung up on objects - making them easy to kill.  A save reload usually takes care of it. 

Controls are clunky and take some getting used to.  After a few hours I settled in.  The combat seems to be a case of feast or famine.   I am either the blender or the blended.  There is some strategy involved in terms of when to attack or parry, but I am all thumbs. 

The game can be difficult, particularly if you explore the hinterlands and come across tough mobs during your early levels, but I have learned to use the terrain to rain arrows of death on mobs and have been able to train some tough mobs, that were blocking my path, onto guards and npcs to soften them up for the kill.  You have to get the last blow in to get any experience and loot. 

The graphics are serviceable and get the job done.  I bought the game with middling expectations.  If you can work past the clunky UI, it is well worth the $20.

[Xilren's Twin]

Gothic II is a great game. But yeah...I'm playing Oblivion. Gothic II is old, but not busted....but Oblivion is definitely the New Hotness. It also raises the bar, so some portions of Gothic II will naturally be less satisfying.

As far as availability, my non-tech family was able to find it for me for xmas last year, it wasn't that scarce...

Heh, i picked this up as my current rig wont run Oblivion until I upgrade.  It's pretty good but the combat control scheme out of the box was awful two button timing mess.  A few INI tweak like switching to the alternate control scheme and activating health and mana potion buttons makes the game much nicer.
However, it is a slooow developing game.  You can basically go one of three paths (paladin, merc or fire mage) but it's like chapter 3 before you make the choice.  And it's a pack rats heaven.  Im skipping through the voice acting of every dialogue which gets old.

On the plus side, as part of my investigation of weed drug traffic I slept with a prostitute and was treating to a painfully bad cut scene of two ugly models making vague sexual motion to cheesy music.   :-D

Xilren

[fnddf2]

Heh heh, I remember that sex part.  The models were still clothed, too, seemingly fornicating through undetectable holes in their undies.

I think this was the first sex scene I had ever seen in a game.

[Sky]

RIIIISE!



Just got back to this game recently and forgot how awesome it is. I really enjoy the Gothic series more than the recent Elder Scrolls stuff (Morrowind and Oblivion). I just finished up the expansion area in the Gold version, pretty nifty stuff and my mage can now summon those cool Incan statue guys. Thanks, Beliar!

One thing I found makes the game a bit nicer is a cheat for draw-in. Activate the cheat console (Press 'C' for the character screen and type in 'marvin', hit 'C' again and you should see "MARVIN MODE" in the corner). Hit f2 to bring up the console and type in zh, which should autocomplete to zhighqualityrender, and hit enter, then close the console. This will draw in all the distance stuff, no more draw-in popup! It's a bit taxing on the system, but runs ok in most places on my clunker pc (though it crashes in the swamp, but you don't need it there anyway). You do need to reactivate it any time you teleport or even save the game (but it's not a big deal - f2, zh, enter).

So many cool little twists, like making mushroom weed...I forgot to 'test' it first, and gave some to a weed dealer to try. He floated in the air, asked me if I had tried it and then bitched me out for giving him such harsh stuff.

The game is a little buggy and quirky, but I love it. About 45 hours in now...

[Yegolev]

Sadly, I have not finished the first one.  Does Gothic II have the same control scheme?

[NiX]

Anyone play Gothic 3? Want to pick up a game to kill time while I'm at school.

[Lemming]

Anyone play Gothic 3? Want to pick up a game to kill time while I'm at school.

I'm enjoying it, but it's pretty buggy.  It's not as good as Gothic 2 Gold, imo.  Combat can be frustrating at times, especially if you're used to the ES4 strategy of just running up and beating the shit out of your enemies.  You'll get stunlocked with the quickness if you try to pull that stuff in Gothic 3.  Load times are pretty shitty on my p4 2.8Ghz with a gig of ram, but the world is seamless.  Still, you'll spend a good chunk of time loading save games if you die a lot.  You might want to wait for some more patches or the gold edition, but like I said, I'm enjoying it, bugs and all.

Edit - Oh yeah, it might require some ini optimizations if you're running a rig that's worse than mine.  Stuttering can be a problem at times.  This game is a serious resource hog.

[Sky]

Sadly, I have not finished the first one.  Does Gothic II have the same control scheme?

Yes, but they changed it for the third one.

I'm planning to play 3 on my Core 2 Duo (Quad?)/2GB/8800 rig, so hopefully there won't be any performance issues!

I'll let you in on a dirty secret, I play Gothic 2 in godmode. The combat just isn't all that interesting. I stick to what I could take on without godmode, I just spend less time dying and reloading, and I don't have to dick around with health potions. I mostly play to explore and unfold the story, it's more fun that way. I find Oblivion's combat pretty tedious as well. I guess I prefer more tactical combat like KotOR and whatnot.

[CaptainNapkin]

Anyone play Gothic 3? Want to pick up a game to kill time while I'm at school.

At first I nearly gave up because of the combat, but I stuck with it. After much frustration, I finally "got it" as far as the combat went. Then I realized that once you get the combat, you can crank the difficulty all the way and just rip through anything. That aside, I thoroughly enjoyed playing through this game. One of the few games I actually played and finished in '06, and considering how many I try, that says something. The ending was a letdown for me, but the journey to get there was so good that I didn't care. I didn't see many of the bugs or performance issues everyone screemed about personally, but apparently they could ruin your day if you do. As I said, the swordplay was my only real stickler, but I didn't play this one for the combat mechanics.

Check out the demo and see how it runs for you before plunking down your 40 bucks.