Gothic 3 - Review @ PC Gameplay

Belgian print mag PC Gameplay had a very detailed review of Piranha Bytes´ RPG in their november issue. Unfortunately we can´t post the whole thing. Especially the comparisons to Oblivion are an interesting read.
Here are a few translated excerpts:

The game world is full of life, something Gothic always had. The inhabitants have a job which can vary: woodcutter, blacksmith, shop owner. In the evening they are eating wild boar around a campfire and at night the all go to sleep. Even the animals have a daily routine: searching for a prey during day, sleeping at night. There is a lot of interaction with the surroundings, you can use a smith’s anvil, an alchemist bench or a pan at a campfire which gives a bonus to the food you carry in your inventory (which by the way is limitless). You do have tight behaviour rules you have to follow. Walking around with a unsheathed sword is considered hostile, walking into another man’s house is rude and stealing is out of the question. If you get caught, guards will be alerted and the person in question will never talk to you again. If you decide to give a human or orc the finishing blow you’d better make sure there are no witnesses [...]. In Gothic 3 you have a reputation which differs in each city and town. To get a better reputation you’ll need to get on the good side of a lot of important people by doing quests. If you address a person you’ll notice all dialogs are spoken, which is in contrast to Oblivion. Unfortunately the quests are often the same as the previous one (slit this throat, get that item). Oblivion preformed better on this part. Every quest had a short story, remember the painting, dream world or Dark Brotherhood quests? The quests in Gothic 3 are more of the same.

[...] This makes Gothic 3 a difficult game to rate. It’s the most accessible in the series, and performs in some areas better than Oblivion. Oblivion is what you get when you further develop Morrowind for the mainstream audience, and Gothic 3 is what you get when you further develop Morrowind for the RPG fanatic. Unfortunately, the Gothic 3 apple has a dirty worm in it. So what to do, I feel like beating up the publisher because they released the game to early, and give the developer a bonus because the gameplay is good. Ultimately we decided to deduct six point from the gameplay because of the bugs. If an all-solving-patch is ever released, the final score will get another six points. With those extra point Gothic 3 will ascend into the excellence regions beside Oblivion, were it actually belongs.