Arcania - Review Flood #4

This time with a small bonus: Two sites benchmarked Arcania on several graphics cards, including the brand new ATI 6850 & 6870.

• GameShard says Arcania deserves 7/10, and their conclusion sounds like that: "If you're a fan of the series, there's every chance Arcania: Gothic 4 is not for you. It's simple, streamlined, and linear to a fault, and the later parts of the game degenerate to a bit of a grind with little payoff. But the combat is fun, the visuals are stunning, and exploring the landscape is a compelling draw. There's certainly enjoyment to be had here, but Arcania won't satisfy those craving a more open RPG experience."
• OXM Online has a quite positive review: "Easily the largest part of the game, combat initially seems to be a typical hack-and-slash borefest. However, it quickly evolves into one of the smoothest balances of magic, archery, and melee fighting that we’ve seen." They also see a couple of issues. - 7.5/10 (XBox 360)
• GameFocus thinks the game is quite okay: "Arcania isn’t a bad game. [...] Fortunately, the combat is solid and in games like this, that’s usually not the case. Overall, Gothic 4 won’t stand out on any scale, but it does hold it’s own int he [sic!] middle of the pack. You won’t pick this up before grabbing Dragon Age, but if you’ve already moved past the RPGs released over the last few years, Gothic 4 is an easy going and serviceable runner up." - 7.0/10
• CVG posted a slightly edited GamesRadar/XBoxWorld 360 review. The new score is a little higher - 6.7 instead of 6.0. New conclusion: "Decent but hackneyed hack-and-slashery, and still a way off feeling comfortable on Xbox."
• ingame.de - "average" (transl.) - 6.5/10
• huscarl.at, an Austrian site for everything medieval, posted a rather delicate review. The article was written by JoWooD's former all-purpose weapon Johann Ertl. He was their long-time community manipulator and the producer for Arcania for a ca. 6 months. His work for JoWooD ended in September 2009. It's an interesting piece. The verdict is that Arcania is a fun game but "no RPG per se and unfortunately no top class game". He's also not very fond of the ending. My dictionary says he calls it an "unbounded cheek".
• Eurogamer - 4/10
• ByteMe.gr - No idea what the rating means, but I like their name.
• Polish site nvision.pl benchmarked Arcania on 22 graphics cards.
• Techgage.com tested the new AMD Radeon HD 6870 & HD 6850 cards against many games, including Arcania and Fallout: New Vegas.