So, Arcania, Gothic 4

[Marthos]

Bought this the other day and after half an hour of playing it, I wish I hadn't.

 

A Gothic it is not.

 

It could have been great, all the ingredients were there but God knows what Jowood were thinking of with this one.

 

 

The good:

 

I was facinated when talking to NPC characters as the facial textures and animations were so realistic that I was gobsmacked.

The in game music and effects sounds were good too.

There's loads of high quality textures and the game world would have been beautiful.

 

 

Now the bad:

 

Its a complete and utter console port.

 

The game world would have been beautiful but there's no support ingame for Anti-Aliasing or Anistropic Filtering, even after enabling them in the ATI CCC neither showed in game, after a quick google I found loads of people were complaining about the same thing, I also found that loads of people were complaining about their threads about it being deleted on the Jowood forums, hmmmm.

 

Unfortunately without AA and AF, the games is a blurry flickering jagfest.

 

 

The plot, nap, nada, you really don't wanna know.

 

Open world as stated ? No, invisible walls everywhere and you can't go anywhere unless your progressing with the quest.

 

The voice acting, is rather not good and makes the Oblivion voice actors sound like Oscar winners, in fact I'd rather have a prolonged lust session with Bella Emburg than listen to it.

 

 

 

Result:

 

Uninstalled.

 

 

If you really want to buy it, go for the console version, least you might be able to flog it on afterwards.

[Maigrets]

I'm a huge fan of the Gothic series (except Forsaken Gods) and have played all of them multiple times. I was so looking forward to a fourth game, which was supposed to tie up the story and probably end the series. I even replayed Gothic 3 (Enhanced) again with the new Content Packs and German Questpacket, which is excellent. The best of them all though IMHO, is Gothic 2:Night of the Raven.

 

However, I am ashamed to admit that even after reading the Arcania forums and all the negative feedback I still bought it and it's the PC version, so I'm stuck with it. I guess I was somehow desperately hoping for a true Gothic game, not a (lacking adequate description for this total waste of money) watered down, very basic action adventure with questionable RPG elements.

 

It is a beautiful game, but the system requirements are very high, which is fine, IF there was any substance at all in the actual game. All the crafting, free roaming, immersive interaction with the game world and it's inhabitants, etc,etc just don't exist. It's all a facade, pretty but a pointless waste of time. Besides the voice acting being atrocious, the lip synch is terrible if non existent.

 

Everything Marthos says is true although I wouldn't have said the graphics were blurry or flickering. I did have to turn off a lot of settings though so I could actually run the game, even with the performance patch released on the same day as the Euro release, or very soon after. My system comes around halfway between Minimum and Recommended so it should have been better than it was. Not that it matters because it looks like another title that will be gathering dust.

 

There are a few mods for it, including one to stop the camera zooming way out in combat so you can actually see what it is you're fighting, and it works well. At the moment they are editing the .xml files due to having no editor.

 

Marthos, you played for half an hour, :laugh: , I persevered until I had to zap some bugs in an underground cave for a witch with the most irritating voice I've heard in a game for a long time. That was several hours, most of which was trying to get the game to run properly, but then I gave up. That's all still on the tutorial island, so the main game hasn't even started. :blink:

 

What's laughable is this game was supposed to be released on Oct 5, but was delayed here in Australia until the same week as Fallout New Vegas which I also have and am enjoying immensely. At least one of the two were worth it.

This week Divinity II:The Dragon Knight's Saga is out. I'm hoping it has the playability and longevity that was cut from Arcania. From what I've read it will be a worthy replacement...fingers crossed.

 

The original developers of the Gothic series, Piranha Bytes split from Jowood after, I think Gothic 3 due to irreconcilable business differences and went on to make Risen which was pretty good, if short.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranha_Bytes

At least it was in the same style, despite that it was banned here for implied drug use and adult themes, and still is. Thank goodness for online stores.

 

Maybe the community can do something with Arcania like they did for Gothic 3, but they have their work cut out. There are a couple of people already staring so maybe it can be redeemed somewhat, but that will only happen if JoWood releases an editor.

 

I look forward to Risen 2 with anticipation. Arcania:Gothic 4, what a disappointment. The worst thing of all is they called it Gothic 4. :pinch: JoWood should be ashamed of what they've done to the series.

[Marthos]

Hi Maigrets

 

I agree entirely, its a big disappointment, made much worse as by now, Jowood really should know much much bettr.

 

I did play for more than half an hour but had pretty much made up my mind in that first half hour and nothing happened to change my mind after that.

 

I wonder if the effects of the lack of AA & AF were worse for me as I'm running crossfired (tri - fired actually) dont see how as it doesn't effect other games.

 

I could have bought a brand new small car for what I've spent on my gaming rig and run a tight ship with it, everything kept updated and cleaned etc and latest drivers, (except for CCC 10.10 god they were bad, went back to 10.9), and while I could run the game maxed out it wasn't what I'd call a smooth experience.

 

I'd hang fire on the Dragon Knights Saga for while, Ego Draconis was pretty buggy when it came out, think the first patch for it was over 700 mb, might be better to see how it does before handing over your money.

 

I think the next "good un" is going to be The Witcher 2, or at least I hope so, its time we had another truly good game to get lost in.

 

If your bored, give Nehrim a shot, I truly enjoyed it and its free, but I would recommend a clean install of Oblivion before you install Nehrim, makes things a bit easier.

[Maigrets]

Well, I'm hoping Divinity II does well. I never had the original and I did read it was very buggy. It used the Gamebyro engine which speaks volumes, but this time they've overhauled the game and used a new engine so I'll wait and see. For the price which is a third less than Arcania, it's a bargain since the pack we're getting here includes the first addon and the new Dragon Knights Saga so that increases the game play by a huge amount.

 

I have played Nehrim actually. I was part of the English translation team, but I didn't get far with that because I had system issues which thankfully have been resolved. Nehrim is excellent and runs perfectly even though it has higher requirements than vanilla Oblivion. I installed it with no problems even though I use FCOM and a ton of other mods. They had no effect anyway since Nehrim has it's own install directory. I've converted my own and other mods to use with it as well. Trouble is I'm bored with Oblivion itself and even though Nehrim tries to emulate the best of Gothic style play it still has the Oblivion feel to it and they are a bit limited in what they can do with the engine. What they did though was astounding and a credit to them.

 

I'm looking forward to Dues Ex 3 next year. That's as long as they stay true to the first game and don't do what they did with Dues Ex 2. I've read that a lot game developers are turning to "casual" style of play these days which is a sad thing for serious gamers.

[Marthos]

I'll keep an eye on the Dragon Knights Saga, see how it does.

 

Your right about Nehrim (nice one on the translation thing btw), I put about 80 hours into it and completed the quests (main quest was a beaut though, think it beats Oblivion hands down) and then it started feel a bit rinse and repeat, basically because I've played Oblivion so much, but I do think the SureAI team did a fantastic job on it and I'll run through it again sometime in the future, theres more stuff in the offing for it anyway. I thought the gameworld was truly beautiful and the whole game was much more atmospheric, I'd have happily payed full price for it in a shop.

 

Barring a couple of hours on a mates rig I haven't played Fallout NV, (me & Steam don't mix) but New Vegas has me slightly worried about Tes V if its ever going to happen, I hope they don't just take Oblivion and tweak and polish it a bit and give it a new storyline as they seem to have done with NV, it needs to be a "new game or its going to feel tired from the start.

 

Never played the Dues Ex's, might see if I can find the 2nd one somewhere and give it a run through, Fear 3 is supposed to be out in March and I did enjoy Fear 2 so I'll be giving that a blast.

 

Dammit, the bulb in my lamps just gone with a bang and scared the wabs off me, second one in a week so its heading for the bin.

 

Yeh, this casual gamer thing seems to be taking over, its been mentioned a fair bit in the reviews for "Not Gothic 4" and there seems to be more and more console to PC ports floating about, it wouldn't be too bad if they were ported well, but to leave out AA & AF like Jowood just have is really a bit pants, was thinking of picking up a PS3 and a couple of games to have a play with but I really can't see it getting close to the experience of a good game on PC, plus game controllers aren't my thing. I'd probably end up giving it away like I did with my Xbox 360.

 

Plus if you walk into a games shop these days theres usually next to nothing for PC, though the big Game.co.uk store at a local retail park has had a shufty round and theres now three small aisle's for PC games whereas there was only one before, but their prices are heading skyward though and the staff have no knowledge of the PC stuff yet they could talk all day about the Wii doo daa and that break yer neck what is it, a fit board ?

 

I'm struggling to find anything to buy game wise tbh, I like being able to switch from first to third person and having totally open world space but they're getting very few and far between, I tried LOTRO but the combat system had me shaking my fist at the screen and I find WOW too cartoony looking to settle into it. I've got all three of the Stalker series and thoroughly enjoyed them, modded and vanilla. Crysis and Crysis Warhead were good but far too short so they're gathering dust along with a few others, can you think of anything else I can have a go at, online or single player ?

 

Any suggestions will be gratefully recieved.

 

Regards, M

[_frost_]

The best of them all though IMHO, is Gothic 2:Night of the Raven.

my words :D.

Nice to see other Gothic-players, I thought I'm the only one hehe.

Part 4 seem to be a real bad step in the wrong direction.

Bad reviews everywhere and I'm not sure if it makes sense to dl the demo..

 

 

_frost_

[Maigrets]

The best of them all though IMHO, is Gothic 2:Night of the Raven.

my words :D.

Nice to see other Gothic-players, I thought I'm the only one hehe.

Part 4 seem to be a real bad step in the wrong direction.

Bad reviews everywhere and I'm not sure if it makes sense to dl the demo..

 

 

_frost_

 

 

The Gothic series is a genre of it's own I think. There aren't many games, very few in fact, that I play again and again but this is one of them. I nearly always find a different way to play and since there are several paths and styles of play it's well worth the money I paid over many times. But, whenever I mention it either to friends who are RPG gamers or on forums I can see their eyes glaze over and their attention wandering. :biggrin:

 

It's too hard, there are no quest markers, the world is too big, too much talking and reading, and on and on. Some people don't like that it has no gender selection, but I'm female and and an "older" gamer and it doesn't bother me. Besides, the story is set around Nameless, a male hero and it just wouldn't work as a female IMO.

It's a harsh, dark and dangerous world where every move could be your last and I can understand I suppose, why many can't get into it. I could talk about the Gothic games and how great they are ad nauseum, but I'd better stop here... :whistling:

 

If I were you I wouldn't even bother downloading the Arcania demo unless you have some bandwidth to spare, but I guess it would give you an idea of how bad it is. On the Arcania forums, before the actual game was released players were hoping that the demo was an unfinished preview of the full game, but alas not.

 

@ Marthos

 

Despite that I relented and bought Arcania against all odds, I'm usually picky when it comes to games. In the distant past I used to buy anything that came out, which is why I have a large collection, some of which were installed, played for an hour or so and then abandoned. I don't do that anymore.

 

Even though Two Worlds got bad reviews I like it for a number of reasons and after it was patched it turned out better than expected. Those patches amounted to a GB or more as well. I was waiting for TW2, but it's been put back until next year and I'll try and hold off until I see actual player reviews before I buy it.

 

It's hard to recommend anything recent. I have a friend who raves about Dragon Age and how it has a great story and music, but turn based combat isn't my thing and I really don't get how it can be better than real time combat. I told him I could get a good story from a novel and listen to a CD if I wanted to listen to good music without the frustration. :laugh:

 

I do have the first Stalker game but I didn't play it much. Maybe I'll give it another go and look for the sequels. I'm not interested in online games either. I have another friend who was almost addicted to WOW to the point where it affected his personal life, and like you I don't like the cartoony graphics (or the colour purple.)

 

I thought the gameworld was truly beautiful and the whole game was much more atmospheric, I'd have happily payed full price for it in a shop.

I agree. The time it must have taken to hand place every object in Nehrim down to the trees and rocks etc shows they love and care about what they do and they deserve much respect. If I didn't know I would have thought it was a commercial game.

 

I know a lot of people have issues with STEAM and there are many having problems with Fallout:New Vegas, but I must be one of the lucky ones. In over 55 hours I've had 3 crashes and one freeze and no bugs or glitched quests which I think is pretty good. I feel for the players having issues and there are a ton of threads about the game so I wont go into details except to say I prefer it over FO3 for a lot of reasons.

 

If you can get hold of Dues Ex I'd highly recommend it. Even though it's getting a bit old now and the graphics are dated, it still has a big following. It's a very big game with many hours of play, multiple endings and very good story and there was a huge total conversion released earlier this year or late last year. Plus there are a number of other great mods for it.

 

My favourite game of all time, for it's genre, is Half Life 2 which since I have STEAM installed again now, I might reinstall and play again. I was surprised actually that STEAM still had my details from back then so I didn't need to make a new account.

 

Other than that, I've been digging around among my old games and I would recommend Thief 3:Deadly Shadows, Vampire The Masquerade:Bloodlines, Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and The Chronicles of Riddick to name a few for replay value. Most of those should still be available except maybe Arx Fatalis, but this site has a lot of older games that are worth a look and for a nice price. They even have Gothic 1.

http://www.gog.com/en/frontpage/

 

It looks like I'll be going back to some of these older games since there isn't much around now or coming that interests me.

 

Plus if you walk into a games shop these days theres usually next to nothing for PC, though the big Game.co.uk store at a local retail park has had a shufty round and theres now three small aisle's for PC games whereas there was only one before, but their prices are heading skyward though and the staff have no knowledge of the PC stuff yet they could talk all day about the Wii doo daa and that break yer neck what is it, a fit board ?

 

;D True. Our local EB Games has a small area for PC games and the rest is for the consoles. Admittedly there are several consoles to cater to, but if you want a PC game you have to order it in unless it a latest release or conversions of those Pop Cap games like Jewel Quest and some other bargain bin titles.

 

Oh and I nearly forgot. I mentioned Risen before. I would recommend that as well for a Gothic style experience. It's a lot shorter, and it had a couple of quest bugs that were patched, but it's a pretty good game for all that.

[Marthos]

Funny you should mention it, but I've just been and bought Risen today, just waiting for the house to go quiet and the dogs to go to kip and I'll slap it in the drive and if its any good, probably surface sometime in the morning.

 

If the bumf about Two Worlds is to be believed, it "should" be good so will be keeping an eye on that one and lets face it, they would have try hard to make it as bad as the first one.

 

I did buy Dragon Age but (watch me get shouted at here) thought it was a completely over hyped and mediocre offering, this guy nails it in some rather colourful terms. Put this in your address bar without the quotes, it contains bad language so I won't direct link it.

 

"

 

 

 

I had Arx Fatalis in my hands last week and put it back on the shelf, damn, it was only £4 aswell, I'll go back tomorrow and see if its still there but I doubt it. I'll do some googling on the others you mention and have a look at them.

 

Arcania would probably be ok with a good community patch but hey, those voices, it would be better to buy a foreign language version and read the subtitles, in a different language it may not sound so bad, no two ways about it though, Jowood deserves a slap down for that one.

 

Another thing, all this "the gaming community sorting problems" seems to be getting more and more depended upon by the game companies, can you imagine any other industry where this would be acceptable ?

 

"Yes we aren't very sorry that your car is mising a wing, a radiator and parts of the braking system Mr Jones, but you can finish what we started can't you ? You can, oh wonderful, right knock of now lads, the pillocks going to finish it himself".

 

Well I mean, really !

 

Have had and still have issues with Steam but we won't talk about that or somebody will be bound to post something like "you can't call yourself a serious gamer if you don't have Steam installed" or words to that effect. I don't call myself anything, I game for me, achievments mean Jack, patches get installed when I install them and the software on my pc does as I say.

 

Thanks for the suggestions Maigrets, I'm gonna have a quick scan of the forums and then go install Risen.

 

 

Regards, M.

[Maigrets]

Actually looking through that site linked GOG.com it has Arx Fatalis and Gothic 2 . The graphics of Arx Fatalis are pretty good for the time it was made and still look OK. It's the game play that makes it though and it's hard. I nearly always go with a mage character and you have to learn magic anyway in this game. You can get by without magic but it's not easy. The way you learn spells is actually very different and I did say hard..lol. The stealth system is very good as well.

 

That Dragon Age video... Thanks for the first good laugh of the day. I get the impression he didn't like it much. :laugh:

Have a look at this though. The guy in the DA video refers to this game, but it's a PS3 exclusive unfortunately for PC gamers. This is what a game should be. It's an IGN review, but I've looked it up on other sources and it gets the thumbs up. 9/10 and you don't see that much these days.

Demon Souls.

 

"Yes we aren't very sorry that your car is mising a wing, a radiator and parts of the braking system Mr Jones, but you can finish what we started can't you ? You can, oh wonderful, right knock of now lads, the pillocks going to finish it himself".

 

ROFL. Not much else to say is there. It's a sign of the times and not just in games.

 

BTW I see that Divinity II release has been delayed to an unknown time. It was supposed to be yesterday, but maybe that's a good thing. If there are problems hopefully they will be fixed for release.

 

Here's hoping for Risen. :yes: Make sure you get the patch. It fixes some graphic and quest issues.

[Marthos]

Ha ha, get yourself to the Divinity website, its been released, I've disregarded my own advice about waiting and bought it direct from their online shop and mines downloading as I type, gonna be long night if this one lives up to my expectations of it.

 

I've been watching that Demon Souls for a while now as there were rumours floating about that Sony were going to do a PC version but I don't think its going to happen, shame because that game looks really very good, bit of a PITA that what looks like being one of the best RPG's for quite a while is only available on a console.

 

That guy that did the Dragon Age review has done quite a few for other games aswell, some of the comments left by people who got upset because he dissed their fave games are hilarious.

 

Arx Fatalis was gone, bummer but will find it somewhere else, I'll download things I can't get anywhere else but I much prefer a disc in my paw and a box to put on the shelf so I'll see if I come across it again somewhere.

 

Risen seems not bad, played a few hours last night, have applied the patch but a couple of things are jerking my chain, it wont remember my settings for a few of the options, keep having to set them again each time I run the game. The other one is that while there's Anistropic Filtering, there's no Anti Aliasing and when I force it in the ATI CCC all the vegetation and body textures are invisible, you've got a head & a pair of feet trotting round a baren landscape :wallbash:

 

Apparently, the devs were having problems getting AA to work in game so instead of fixing it they just left it out, its a bit of a biggy for me as I play on a 60" plasma, at that screen size you really notice the jaggies so I really miss AA when its not there. The good thing is that its running completely maxed out and gameplay is as smooth as chocolate so I'll forgive it that foible for now. Oh yeah, those Death Moths creep me out, that little screech of theirs is horrible.

 

If you can't get your paws on the Divinity 2 I'll post tommorrow and let you know whether its thumbs up or poo all over.

 

Regards, M.