In this review, I wanted to stress that the stability issues reported by professional reviewers have been largely remedied by the latest set of patches (1.09). I've been playing for 5 hours now without a single error. One thing to keep in mind -- have a book or magazine handy, because when you die or another other time you need to reload, you'll be waiting in front of your computer screen for a while. On to performance -- I have a fairly high end computer (AMD X2 4400, 2GB ram, 7800GT), but the high end textures used at the highest detail level are way too much for my machine to handle. It runs rather well at medium detail. In game fighting isn't the best - it's basically a clickfest. However, it's not as frustrating as the previous gothics (at least to me -- I get killed about 1/10 as often during battles). There are 3 places where Gothic 3 shines - storytelling, graphics, and the infinite number of things to find and do. Secret nooks with hidden treasure can be found anywhere. And collecting reagents for spellcasting is fun and provides you with something to do during the trek from city to city. Upon reaching a city, stones are available that allow you to warp from place to place, which removes a lot of walking frustration. I also enjoy the simplified character leveling scheme. The world is living and breathing, too. Bunny rabbits, snakes, deer, and all sorts of other woodland creatures that just want to avoid you litter the landscape. And knowledge of the previous games in the series is unnecessary - it's easy to jump right in. Despite the flaws in performance and the fighting system, this is a great game that no one should miss.
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