Gothic III Review @ IGN

Iria

Review: IGN // Be sure to check out GH's review Over Here
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November 28, 2006 - What are you really looking for when you boot up a game? Twitch controls? Something to laugh at? Something to play with friends? As most would answer, it depends on the genre of the game. Nobody would expect 4X strategic warfare from a Mario Party game, or so we hope. Gothic III is an open-ended action-RPG setting players loose on a huge tract of land littered with population centers. What you do on your travels is for you to decide. You still get side quests with specific goals, but there's no prescribed order to them and sometimes multiple ways to complete them. For many gamers, this type of design is a liberating, progressive one, even if it has been around for a while. It offers a fresh alternative to the droves of linear titles churned out every year that require you to rescind free will for strict progression. The Gothic series has always been about letting you decide, giving you the power. With such a promising, alluring premise, it's a disappointment to see how crippled Piranha Bytes' Gothic III turned out to be.