Gothic is a well-done, entertaining game which should be part of the gaming experience of all RPGers.
The story line is about as good as it gets in these kinds of games. The story is set in a medieval fantasy world and unfolds inside a penal colony that is cut off from the outside world by a magical barrier. This rather unique setting provides an interesting and immersive backdrop within which the story unfolds. The game proceeds in chapters, like a book, and it pulls you in and very convincingly makes you the major character in the plot as it unfolds. It is one of the more immersive games I’ve played.
A major strength of the game is the extensive and complex interaction with NPCs. The NPCs have convincing personalities and actually seem to have lives and daily schedules. You might find someone out working in a rice paddy during the day and then encounter that same character sitting around a campfire at a different location n the evening or even sleeping on a cot in a dilapidated shelter by night. Some characters in the game will join you and help you for a time, but these remain independent and are never under your direct control, which is another nice immersive element in the game. Now for the bad part: all of the NPCs in the game are voice-acted, which would have contributed enormously to the immersive quality of the game had the voice-acting been well done. However, my major gripe about Gothic is the extremely poor, often cheesy quality of the voice acting in the English version of the game. It’s so bad it’s laughable. Gothic takes place in a medieval fantasy setting, and you just can't have characters in such a setting speaking with exaggerated southern accents or talking like Mafia goons or hip black guys from the hood or grizzled old sidekicks from western movies. It’s almost like someone went to great pains to make sure the voices in Gothic cover the full range of American cultural stereotypes. It just doesn’t work, and in my judgment this is a serious distraction from the immersiveness and credibility of the game (sadly, the voice acting in the English version of Gothic II is even worse. One can only hope they do something about this before Gothic III comes out).
Combat in the game is nothing exceptional but is reasonably well done (though somewhat difficult, especially in the early stages). There has been much criticism of the Gothic interface, particularly with regard to combat, but I personally found this to be a non-issue. Sure, the interface is a little different from what most gamers are accustomed to. But before I had gotten very far into the game, I had easily adapted to the interface and it was in no way a distraction from the immersive experience of the game.
I found the gameplay balance in Gothic to be a little inconsistent. The game seems to get progressively (and almost exponentially) easier as you go along. For me, the most difficult and challenging part of the game was the early chapters, particularly Chapter 1. In fact, I almost quit a couple of times in the early going because everything and everybody in the game was handing me my arse on a regular basis. I had to load saved games so often I feared I was going to wear out my hard drive. But some of the later segments, particularly the search for the five focus stones, were almost ridiculously easy. I would have preferred a little less challenge in the beginning and more challenge in the later segments of the game.
The graphics in Gothic are not up to current standards, but they are still impressive, especially for a 2001-vintage game. The lighting effects, spell effects, and monster animations are well done (my favorite monster animation is the harpy ). Some of the objects in the game are not well presented, especially some of the tree models and some of the cave interiors. But overall, the graphics are fine. (By the way, the environments in Gothic look really great through a pair of stereo 3-D glasses such as the ones made by e-Dimensional).
The sound is reasonably good for a game this old. There are realistic ambient sounds, weather effect sounds, rushing water sounds, etc. When you are in the mines, the ambient sound conveys a totally convincing sense of being in a cave. Game music is appropriate and unobtrusive. The monster sounds (growls, grunts, roars, etc.) are okay, and there are some death cries (harpies and zombies in particular) that are almost too well done. I did, however, experience moderate problems with stuttering, clipping, and repeating during conversations with NPCs (my rig has a Soundblaster Live card). This occurred no matter which sound options I selected in the game.
The game was very stable on my machine. I played for over 60 hours and experienced no major bugs (version 1.08) and had only two crashes.
The game is ultimately linear, as most games are (otherwise games would never be finished). But there are enough choices and side quests and alternative paths to give it a reasonably open feel.
In summary, Gothic is a long, entertaining, well-done RPG which unfortunately has a couple of flaws that make it fall just short of being a truly great game. Don’t be put off because the game is getting a little long in the tooth. If you haven’t played it yet, do so (if you can find a copy). You'll enjoy it. Gothic should definitely be part of the gaming experience of all RPGers.