Gothic is half of
a brilliant game. This single-player RPG from Germany makes a brave
attempt to create a world in which your actions and interactions with
other characters have true, story-affecting consequences.

The
setting of the game is a fairly traditional medieval-fantasy world
with an interesting twist. The local king (evidently not at all a
nice guy) is so focused on his war with the pesky local orcs that
he’ll stop at nothing to create weapons and armor for the effort.
To this end he has a group of sorcerers create a huge magic barrier
around the richest area of ore mines. Into this perimeter he begins
exiling criminals, political prisoners and all manner of undesirables.
Once through the barrier, there is no way out. And unless the prisoners
produce ore in sufficient quantities, no food or materials are supplied
from the outside world.

It’s into this grim and
rough world that your character is abruptly thrust. Nameless, utterly
anonymous, and seemingly without background of any kind (what was
your crime, anyway?), you have to find a way to survive in this prison
colony.

As soon as you come through
the barrier, you get accosted by a reasonably friendly man named Diego.
He tells you the bare minimum of what’s going on, and then high-tails
it back to camp.

That’s pretty much it.
Except for a letter you’re supposed to deliver, you really have no
idea of what you are supposed to do next. Yeah, just like it might
really be like in real life to be in this situation. You stumble your
way toward camp, trying your best to avoid some rather nasty ostrich-looking
birds, and find your way to the first camp.

I say first, because it
turns out the colony has split into three distinct (and mutually hostile)
camps. The first one you visit (The Old Camp) is where most of the
miners live, and it’s run by a very well-organized self-appointed
militia. Then there’s the New Camp, which is much rougher and tougher
and less organized. Finally, there’s the Swamp Camp, which is populated
by a bunch of drug-crazed religious zealots.

As you begin gingerly making
your way around this hostile new world, you gather information, talk
to everyone you can, and think about which of the three camps you’d
like to join. Things are never easy even after you’ve made up your
mind. First of all, even finding the other two camps is a tricky (and
dangerous) business. Also, this being an RPG and all, you of course
have to prove yourself worthy of getting any group to let you join.

Gothic
is at its best during this early part of the game. I can’t remember
a role-playing game that gave me a more vivid feeling of actually
having to make my own way in a populated, complicated world. In this
world, your choices have consequences, and sucking up to one boss
can make you dog meat to another.

There are no official character
categories in the game. You develop your character by accumulating
experience points and finding teachers to instruct you in various
skills. By picking and choosing you can create a thief, a warrior,
a sniper, or various categories of mage.

My colleague Cindy KM and
I agreed to join different camps and compare our experiences. Never
having had any drug experiences in my actual life, I decided to join
the weed-smoking lunatics in the swamp camp.

At first I was a little
stunned at the frankness with which the drug use is presented in the
story. The Swamp Camp worship a mysterious god called The Sleeper,
and smoke “swamp weed” in order to “commune” with
this deity. Even more outrageous is the fact that the camp’s very
economy is based on selling the weed to the other camps! I had various
quests that dealt with the harvesting and delivery of the weed. And
believe it or not, I even got experience points for helping develop
the market in another camp (passing out free samples)!

At first I was a bit concerned.
This was immoral, after all, sniff sniff!! Then I reminded myself,
“Uh, it’s also immoral to, like, KILL people, and you do that
in games all the time.” Comforted by the knowledge that I was
actually able to tell the difference between a game and real life,
I cheerfully continued my virtual drug pushing.

The story of Gothic
is rich, long and complicated. As you become more skilled and powerful,
you’re able to take on an increasingly deadly variety of wolves, killer
ostriches (okay, they’re called “scavengers” in the game,
but trust me, they’re killer ostriches), skeletons, giant bugs, trolls,
orcs, and many more baddies.

Another strength Gothic
has going for it is the reality of the world it creates. The camps
are all alive with people, conversation, and action. The wilderness
in between feels very three-dimensional and real. This is greatly
aided by the fact that, except for about five dungeon areas, the entire
game world loads at the same time. So you can sprint from one side
of the map to the other without any pauses for loading.

The
game is presented in over-the-shoulder third person, and the graphics
are quite good (but not great). Luckily, video performance of the
game is quite customizable, which is a good thing. About halfway through
the game, I swapped having extra-detailed close-up graphics for extremely
long-ranged vision. In a game that has you spending so much time outdoors,
it’s very important to be able to see what’s in the distance.

I do have a problem with
the fact that I had to turn any settings down. I have a 1.7Ghz machine
with a serious graphics card and more RAM than you can shake a dongle
at. I should be able to play any current game with every setting up
to eleven. The way I figure it, if Max Payne can be played
on full throttle on my computer, so should Gothic.

The second half of the
game, while still entertaining, is not nearly as rewarding as the
first half. You can almost feel your character getting funneled into
a particular path, and after a while you begin to wonder why you went
to all the trouble to pick a camp and a particular set of skills if
you’re going to end up in the very same Tomb-Raider jumping hackfest
at the game’s finale.

Gothic
has a much more serious problem, however, and only my affection for
the game had kept me from burying it this deep in the review. I’m
talking about the game’s interface. It’s just the worst I think I’ve
ever seen. Early in the game it got so frustrating I almost gave up,
and I imagine many other gamers won’t make it over that hump. How
many times do I have to say it, INTERFACE IS NOT THE PLACE TO BE CREATIVE.
You’re not going to believe the cumbersome nightmare that is the Gothic
user interface. To perform the simplest of tasks, such as picking
something up, or shooting, you have to use some arcane key combination,
like Alt-Arrow Up. Inventory management is a frustrating mess. The
capper is the fact that the game menus have a screen that allows you
to customize the keystroke commands – but only the default keystrokes
work! A very cruel joke to play on innocent players.

However, I’ve played a
lot of games, and I’ve struggled with a lot of bad interface systems,
so even this glaring fault didn’t ruin the game for me. Gothic is
an innovative effort from a team that will get my serious attention
in the future.

Grade: B

System Requirements:
Pentium II 400 MHz
128 MB RAM
3D Video card with 16 MB RAM
DirectX compatible sound card
DirectX 7 or higher

See: No Escape
Play: Outcast
Read: Escape from Colditz