Risen - Review @ RPG Codex

RPG Codex has penned a positive review of Risen  stating  that it is a fine and 'worthy successor to to the Gothic series.'  The review covers the story, the exploration, the plot and the combat.

Here's a bit about the dangers you'll meet in Risen:

And dangers are common in Risen. I already mentioned the traps, now it's time for monsters. There are quite a few of them that you'll HATE, and I mean HATE with a passion, mostly three of them: gnomes, ghouls and brontoks. Gnomes are not particularly deadly, but they're annoying as hell, because the whole island is swarming with them, and they always attack in groups of four or more (the largest I remember had about twelve). Ghouls, now they are a pain in the ass. Not only are they very fast, but I think they also have a high resistance to magic and piercing damage. They hit hard and have a special attack - if you block their attacks, they cast a kind of ice burst that breaks your block and takes down a lot of HP. And brontoks... they look a bit like armoured buffalos, and these are especially annoying to melee fighters, because they're the only monsters in game that can cause ‘stunlocks', since each of their attacks breaks your block/knocks you back, and they can chain up to 4 such attacks. Moreover, they can parry your hits.