Nope, though I've heard of it. Based on the praise, maybe I'll have to give Gothic another chance. :)

The Gothic controls are the standard WASD while using the mouse to pan your perspective/direction -- pretty much the same as all modern games of the genre (even WoW). The only unusual part is the melee combat. I really don't see how left clicking on the mouse button to pick stuff up/use stuff is horrid. Granted, in Gothic 1 you have to use mouse button and a directional key dependent on the action you have to do but it isn't nearly as awkward as people are saying in terms of reaching across the keyboard... unless you're missing a couple of limbs.

As far as Gothic 3 (with fan patch), it was okay but ultimately I could never finish it. Got about 2/3rds of the way through (somewhere in Nordmar) and the combat just got tedious with the never ending amount of orcs. Good God. How many do I have to slaughter? On the one hand the 'liberating town' function is pretty cool, on the other it is an absolute nightmare of tedium for the larger ones.

IMO: 2 > 1 > 3

Just found another reason to why gothic is fun, it makes you do stuff that you would like to in real life! On my latest gaming session I sold weed to my whole camp gaining a lot of money, which I bought a great weapon with to kill my already sworn enemies: Lefty and the rise master in new camp and later on the guy (cant remember his name..) who punched you in the face right in the beginnig, from old camp. What a feeling! Small things like this really makes me going forward! Anyway, what is your favourite camp in gothic one and gotic 2 respectively?

Bullit :P

Ah, the mention of Bullit made me remember this. Warning: dumb, but funny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOZQrozBqjw

Gothic 3 isn't a bad game, but I'd say it's definitely the weakest of the Gothic games (and before anyone mentions Forsaken Gods or Gothic 4, we don't talk about those). I'd say the biggest issue with Gothic 3 was that it tried to be too ambitious, and as a result lost a lot of the focus that was present in the previous two Gothic games. Basically it will be enjoyable at first, but about half-way through you start feeling like you're just doing the same things over and over again, and after that it gets old pretty quick. If you want something very similar to the first two Gothics then my recommendation would be Risen. It's made by Piranha Bytes as basically a continuation of the Gothic series after they lost the Gothic franchise to JoWood, and it's pretty much the same formula as Gothic 1&2, just prettier and more polished.

Gothic 1 & 2 are one of my favorites game ever!

I'v put 60+ hours in both of them. An interesting thing is that I first played Gothic 2 and then Gothic 1. Made the story more interesting in a strage way.

The thing is that Gothic, as with A LOT of "gog", you have to play them back then. When they had something new and not when you got spoiled by phicics, insanely high production value of other comercial games, etc.

Gothic is the type of game that has a terrible first impression. For me it was hard. I remember I easily got killed by the 3 goblins in the first 5 mins. Then I got to a guy on a bench and I remember how bad was the voice acting.

A friend of mine told me to "you really have to play it" so I gave it one more chance... and damn I don't regret it.

It's the type of game that makes you think. I really was the "unnamed hero". I really was there. I really TRIED to get into the town. I really tried to become an apprentice so I can gain access to the higher town to talk with a dude and so on.

It really gave me a lot of freedom. I was also not told where to go or what to expect. Sometimes I just explored only to get killed by some strange skeleton I never encountered.

It wasn't like on another VERY overated RPG that people like to kiss in the ass... you go to a new zone you see "level 7-12". No. The whole WORLD was at your disposal.

I feld that whatevar I did ment something. I feld that whatever I did I gained something and I wasn't forced on doing it... like in this new crappy "Arcania" game.

I really liked that when I walked into someones house, they ran at me telling me to leave. if I stoled something they knew about it and they would hit me. It really feld like something. I feld like I was there.

And in town when you got beaten, they stole your sword..
It is hard and inventory blows.
I liked gothic 2, never completely finished. Propably same old thing. Too much watching porn and then eventually had to format. And It's those things.. I hardly never remember make backup saves. Gothic 3. Too many crashes and such And there was that weird drawing distance even when I maxed everything.. looked like a blue bubble.
Tried the Arcania demo. Sometime ago. I did not like it. So that's that.
Best rpg for me is Planescape torment, witcher 1 (don't own W2 yet), final fantasy VII or Dragon age: origins. I fondly still remember gothic 2 and maybe sometime i'll start over.
I don't really count mass effect as a rpg. Even the first one. Still, those are awesome games.

And I have to mention that zelda ocarina of time was great game. =)
It's not always getting levels or complex skilltrees and experience points. Gaming is made for having fun and to escape our crappy lives.

Yea the inventory had problems and money became useless after some time but the story and the world was the key.

Name one open-world RPG where money doesn’t become obsolete at some point ô_o

It seems I'm not quite ready to move on to chapter 3 of Gothic II. While I can outrun the seekers, the two wargs that spawn on the path to Xardas's tower can tear my bellend off with a snort in my general direction. Only two more dexterity points until I can upgrade to a composite bow, so I guess it shouldn't be too grind-y.

Getting futher and further into gothic and just cant get enough! If there is one thing that bothers me is that it is too easy! way to easy! already on lvl 6, which was about 2-3 hours into the game I felt like I could kill anything. Anyway, amazing game! So therefor I wonder, what other games are there that are similar to this one? Divinity? Two worlds? Something else and older? Tell me:D

Try Risen (and soon Risen 2) from the same developer. I also think Outcast and The Witcher are rather similar in atmosphere -- they certainly are closer to Gothic than Two Worlds or any of the TES games.

Risen is too childish to be entertaining imho. Gothic was borderline but Risen overdid it.

Risen gets tossed around a lot. And it does feel a lot like the bits of Gothic I've gotten around to playing. But someone really ought to throw in the caveat to avoid the XBox360 version if possible, as the graphics are really really bland compared to the PC.

I got it on XBox and they're not horrible, but a lot of the time I find myself thinking that apart from lighting it looks an awful lot graphics quality wise like Gothic 2, maybe slightly less impressive if you remove the lighting (which is sub-par on the XBox version)