Aug 31, 2010
Review
The story in Gothic III continues with the series’ unnamed hero, who returns to the mainland from the island of Khorinis to discover that orcs have slaughtered and enslaved the population. Not originality at its best. This ‘plot’ is spun for the entirety of the game, filled and padded by an immense amount of tedious side quests such as ‘collect this item’ or ‘kill that orc’. This is not helped along at all by the very wooden voice acting and stale character animations, not to mention the fact that every orc looks identical and even the human models are not particularly varied. Gothic III is an orthodox RPG but a very abysmal and repetitive one. Cliché is not strong enough a word. The recent release of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion puts Gothic III to absolute shame; since the former is by far the superior of the two and much more worthy of both your time and money. This is not simply down to the multitude of bugs Gothic III is plagued with, as it would still be a very poor game even when running at its full potential.
Without question, Gothic III is the game with the most glitches and game mechanic cock-ups I have ever played. The list is endless and there was a point – practically at the very start – when I thought the copy I had received was preview and not review code. How this game was cleared through testing is beyond me. Pressure from both competitors and fan-base are no excuse for this, if either of these even were the case. The most worrying indicator of the developer themselves knowing of all these problems was the fact that a patch was released before the final retail version was even in the shops!
The reasons for this failure could be a number of various things, such as a small development team, lack of time, too big a project, etc. However, reasons – valid or not – could not begin to excuse this disaster.
The glitches themselves are too many to list, but for your pleasure include walking on water, disappearing during loading times, models becoming stuck in scenery, falling from 100ft drops and not dying, night and day flickering from one to the other in a matter of seconds, etc, etc, etc. The end result, if you are unfortunate enough to have bought the game already, is you either snapping the disc in pure fury or trading it in and agreeing to whatever daylight-robbery-price you are offered by your local game store.
So, does it have any redeeming features? The world of Gothic III is on a gigantic scale and although this can be laborious at times when having to walk from one place to another, it is a highly detailed and varied landscape. Along with the original art direction and graphics engine you can notice a slight difference that is fresh and appealing. The game environment, including computer controlled characters, is realistic compared to other similar titles and a lot of attention has been given to detail when it comes to even the smallest things, with actions that bring everything to life around you. People do not stand in one spot or just wander around aimlessly; they purposefully go from place to place, talking and interacting with other characters or doing tasks relative to who and where they are. Such things do make a difference and enhance the overall experience, but only when the basic experience is good to begin with. Seeing such time poured into meaningless actions will only frustrate players as they question why time was wasted in doing this, instead of spending it more wisely on the more fundamental aspects of the game.
An extreme high point to the game, one that overwhelms all others, is the fantastic soundtrack. No matter where you are, each track has been masterfully composed, with the use of acoustic guitar standing out especially. It is high up with many other game soundtracks in the hall of fame and it’s just a shame that such talent has been wasted here within a game where it will not be heard by many ears.
Getting into the mechanics of the game, the combat system is dire. All attacks are done with the left and right mouse buttons. The controls are simple and easy to get to grips with but this is not the problem, far from it, it is the actual actions themselves. Your attacks, no matter the weapon, are slow and cumbersome to say the least and you are only able to get in one or two swipes before an enemy strikes you hard and either knocks you backwards or completely off of your feet. To combat this is an even worse defensive block, that does no such thing; its timing and precision need to be perfect in order for it to actually work. When knocked to the floor, you drop whatever weapon you have in your hand at the time and, if this is not annoying enough, you cannot simply pick it up and start attacking again; you have to go into your inventory during combat and equip it, then draw it before you can attack again by which time you have been knocked back down to the floor. This is the same for most enemies, sadly worse for some.
In the hope of looking past this and getting into the quests, your spirit will finally be crushed. The main story revolves around being in factions for either the humans or orcs. You can switch between the two but will pay for your treachery. You will then be put to task by your faction leader to complete an endless stream of quests that lead onto more quests to achieve what you ultimately set out to do. As said, the quests are very tedious and have been done to death countless times in other games of the genre. Skills and leveling up are taken by the same simple approach. You kill things, you get rewards.
Rating this game has never been easier. Stay the hell away from Gothic III. The amount of glitches in this game instantly ruins whatever experience it aimed to achieve. There are not enough patches in PC gaming history to sort this one out.
Download
There’s two ways you can download Gothic 3:
Pirated (Free)
The Pirated version means that you get an unlicensed version of the game for free but without any help and support from the developer; you might also break the law in your country. GamesDownloadz.com is not responsible for any problems you might have by downloading or installing the software linked, and is not affiliated to the download sites. You are on your own.
Download from ThePirateBay (4.31 GiB):
- Directly to your computer – recommended for beginners.
- The .torrent file.
- Visit ThePirateBay’s Gothic download page.
The download contains the Gothic 3 Enhanced Edition v1.73 and 3 soundtrack CD’s within one ISO file. Windows only.
Note: We have scanned the game’s files downloaded via bittorrent with Nod32 Antivirus and it has not found any virus. However, we do not guarantee that it is virus free. Scan it yourself before installing!
Install instructions:
- Mount ISO file with daemon tool or similar. You can also burn a dvd and use it.
- Install game.*
- It’s highly recommended to uninstall other version of Gothic 3 before installing the community patch. I’s also strongly recommended to clean your windows registry with an utility like ccleaner.
- Install the patch from the dir “Gothic III Com patch 1.73 INT”
- You don’t need to install other patch or crack. Community patch v1.73 is a cumulative patch with other community and official patch (v.1.12)
- Play! Have fun…
Licensed
The Licensed version means that you pay for the game, receive customer support and contribute to the future of Piranha Bytes – the developer. GamesDownloadz.com is affiliated with Amazon.com and receives a small percentage of your payment. We appreciate and thank you for buying games using the Amazon link below.
- Buy from Steam for $15 and instantly download the game to your PC.
- Buy the Collector’s Edition from Amazon for $15. You will receive the most up-to-date version of Gothic 3, the complete version of the Forsaken Gods add-on, a “Making of Gothic” DVD, the Official Soundtrack CD written by Kai Rosenkranz and performed by the Bochumer Philharmoniker and a full-colour map! Additional shipping fees may apply.
