To be honest, after Gothic 3: Forsaken Bugs it'll take much more than a dumbed down demo to convince me to buy into Gothic series again. I'll most likely wait for lots of reviews before purchasing the game.
I'll get it eventually, but not right away. Fallout: NV looks like it will take most of my time.
As for the zombie TV series, I've been shouting about that from the rooftops for a few weeks. The TV series is based off the graphic novel of the same name. Robert Kirkman has injected me with a new enthusiasm for everything "zombie". The comics are just beautifully written and delves much deeper into character development and interaction within this zompocolypse.
If you're interested in the TV show then you will definitely love the novels. I haven't bought any comics in at least over 10 years now(I never really was into comics), but I wanted to try this out. Everyone was singing it's praises in the comments section of some Dead State info article (can't remember which site). I'll warn you now, once you read the first one you'll spend every cent you have to get the rest of them. They are just that good.
The best part about the is the fact they stay true to the original type of zombies. Gone are the runner, mutant beasts, talking and intelligent zombies. In their place is something more deadly than any "special" type of zombie. A slow creeping horror that never rests and is always hungry.
After reading some of these novels (I still don't have them all yet) I can't wait for Dead State to get released. I think they are trying to make a game very similar to The Walking Dead. Zombies are in the background, but it's how man deals with man that is the main focus of the game and comics.
Ok, enough praising The Walking Dead. If you want to know more check out their website, here.
Please, please, please Double Bear don't screw the game up or give up on this. I haven't anticipated a game this much since the Quest for Glory series.
Oh, one last zombie game that took me by surprise. Dead Rising 2 isn't that bad. It's an all action game, but they got the zombies right at least. They have the slow shambling hordes of zombies that you whack your way through. They are nothing by themselves, but get a large crowd and you're in trouble. The character interaction leaves a lot to be desired and the timed quests are annoying, but it's a fun game if you're into action games.
Yes, that's the reason why I'm never there. These people are kind of fanatic in my view.
Plus, it's too much of other things for me there … machismo, for example. It's as if people there would say : "Gothic is a game for REAL men !"
I think I've already posted it here, but once I decided to analyse the social structure of Gothic 1 and wrote in the JoWood forums that I would like to see a Gothic game with the social structure reversed.
My, was I flamed ! This was the point when I decided not to meddle with any Gothic fans on the internet at all, and therefore I stayed clear of WOG.
And you are not even a little bit fanatic about Drakensang?
And i bet that analys was trying to be entirely objective. What did you expect really? You just went telling the loyal fans of Gothic series that their beloved game sucks and you would like to see the whole setting reversed because of you fancy lighter themes. I bet you even mentioned the unicorns . Look, i'm not trying to put you down. I just wonder your motives.
Its like the films I enjoy. For instance I love the darkness and sense of despair in Apocalypse now as much as i enjoy the naivety and romanticism in Amelie.
I'd be truly intrested in to know though, what you mean by reversing the social structure? Do you mean that the game should have been less realistic and more fairytale-like? or the prison colony should have never been overrun by convicts?
To those who have animosity towards it: then you must like games with awful combat systems b/c the difference between Gothic 3 and Gothic 4 in that regard are astaounding.!
I haven't. If the combat in Gothic 1 & 2 are good what happened with the 3rd. I was so hyped when I started playing that game. Then the more I got into it, the more it was pissing me off.
PB got bashed for the combat in the first two Gothics. Then they tried to make something more mainstream and failed. In Risen they got it right, although there many people complain that it's not just click, click … dead.
The thing about the combat in Gothic and G2 is:
At first your char is very weak and uneducated. He holds his sword like a stick, and he fights like that. Of course a lot of people were frustrated when they tried to attack something serious early on and got the realistic result.
Furthermore the combat was more complex than usual, although the controls weren't that different. Instead of two options (LMB -> attack, RMB -> defend) you had 4, but to use them you had to keep either CTRL or the LMB pressed (L, R, forward -> attacking option, backward -> defend). This simple change in the controls was intellectually too challenging for the majority of the international reviewers.
The good thing about the old controls is that you can really "feel" the progression. Yes, your char sucks at first and you nearly break your thumb trying to control his actions. But when he learns how to make combos or gets better gear you can really feel the difference. The feedback is direct, and the amount of control unmatched in an RPG.
On the negative side the controls are not intuitive. You have to spend 5 minutes to learn them, and another 5 minutes each for trading and general game controls. PB found out the hard way that "unintuitive" costs at least 10% in the reviews. Fast, simple, efficient doesn't count. Only intuitive and conformity to standard are important.
Remember how good it felt when you finally took down your first orc?
I was c- naturally - playing an archer. Usually, the archer is the "natural" form of character/class I play in games.
But being used to playing an archer also evokes heavy problems when you try to beat an animal within the Gothic world in close combat. And I never really got used to *that*.
Playing an archer and a "swordsman" are two imho entirely different playing styles. Close-to-close combat needs a *lot* more of manoeuvres of the character, around the orc, hitting him, running around, hitting him from the other side etc. … That's tedious to me.
I preferred hit & run tactics. Hitting with an arrow, moving away from that one, quickly, hitting again, running a bit more … Or climbing onto a rock and shooting from relative savety.
I don't consider any combat style as "better" or "worse", only "different". With the necessity of different approaches.