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Gothic Universe | 
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| From: Dreamcatcher Interactive
Category: Video Games
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $24.54
You Save: $5.45 (18%)
New (10) Used (2) from $21.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 2171
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Windows Xp
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows 2000
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 1.3
MPN: PCO55841MB
Model: DVD55841MB
UPC: 625904558411
EAN: 0625904558411
ASIN: B000VPRAFM
Release Date: October 16, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: DVD CASE EDITION - ONLY $3.99 FOR FIRST CLASS MAIL SHIPPING, 24/7 customer service, shipping/tracking email notification, shipped direct - not drop shipped
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| Features:
| • | Follow an incredible story over the course of three intense games | | • | 3D action adventure with over 300 hours of exciting gameplay | | • | Immerse yourself in the most realistic and fascinating game world possible | | • | Liberation or annihilation - the fate of the world of Gothic lies in your hands! | | • | Huge living and breathing environment reacting to the player's actions and creating endless choices of interaction |
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Product Description
Three critically acclaimed RPG games create the whole epic story of Gothic, now in one amazing package. Begin your journey as a prisoner of the King, who must find enough magic ore to forge weapons for his army in defense against the Orcs. The mines are set in a large magical sphere and inside this sphere you will start exploring Myrtana's mysteries. Once you've managed to burst the bonds of imprisonment, you will need to explore the island of Khorinis. Willing to do whatever is necessary to banish evil once and for all, defend the people against the Orcish threat and venture deep into subterranean temples. After your escape from the island you didn't find safety: The Orcs have finally conquered Myrtana and enslaved the humans. Barbarians of the icy north and a few fearless rebels are the only resistance. You can either support their efforts or join the Orcish occupation forces - but whatever you do - the destiny of Myrtana is yours to forge! Hundreds of weapons, items, spells and artifacts to equip and use ESRB Rated T-M ( Teen to Mature )
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Another 'Flawed CRPG Masterpiece' from European Developers September 23, 2008
CRPG is not exactly prospering at the time buried amongst overflowing amount of console action games and MMORPGs. Even Japanese RPG and console RPG, although have fared better so far, are not looking so optimistic right now. Such fate is not all too unfamiliar in the world of RPG. CRPG has never been fully accepted as a mainstream video game genre for its obscure in-game mechanics and time consuming level-building. 'Final Fantasy' series put Japanese RPG on the map, 'Oblivion' saved face for CRPG but also critisized for selling out to console counterparts. While the current trend in American game developers leans toward selling out or making MMORPGs, it's ironic European developers are picking up the slack and making old-fashioned CRPG out of passion for the genre. 'Two Worlds', 'The Witcher', and 'Gothic' Trilogy are all created by fellow CRPG lovers across the Atlantic. Too bad none of them have received the critical and commercial success they achieved in Europe here in the United States. Although negative reviews and poor sales are not totally unwarranted, things have been overly critical for these games I think because people these days are not too fond of CRPG in the States. People want Diablo-esque action RPG or Diablo's biggest legacy, MMORPG.
'Gothic Universe' is a collection of all three 'Gothic' games, and the second one 'Gothic 2' is the extended cut called 'Nights of the Raven' that contains more quests and expanded storyline. Each game in the series all have multiple endings. Each game is all non-linear, free-formed game that you can go just about anywhere, talk to just about anyone, and take any quest in any order except main quest. Each game offers about 100 hours of gameplay if you decide to do absolutely everything there is to do.
What is unique about the game is how each NPC acts and reacts in the dynamic game world. They have their own schedules and they spend their days according to their schedules. They go to work, they eat, they rest, they drink, they hunt, and they sleep. The animation of their daily routine is very detail too. You, as a avatar in the game, can also perform these routine. You approach any of them with your weapon drawn, or if you enter their private property without permission, or if you touch their private possessions, you will be emphatically warned with deadly force of their own. If they don't like you, they won't talk to you. They remember your action. These simulation of the living, breathing dynamics of the world is specifically scripted, unlike 'Radiant A.I.' used in 'Oblivion'. And this is one thing the series do much better than 'Oblivion'. Although random events and interaction among NPCs are not possible like the one by 'Radiant A.I.', this is indeed very impressive achievement. No other game has given you this much illusion of the living gaming world yet.
The gaming world in the first one was big, the second one was very big, and the third one is huge. All three of them are very well detailed and well drawn.
Magic, weapons, armors, and items are plenty and you can learn new techniques to make potion, cook meal, upgrade your own weapons and armors, do trade, and even harvest plants. There are plenty of things to do beside taking on quests and fight enemies.
What stops 'Gothic' series from being excellent game overall is in-game technical shortcomings. First of all, character design is ugly, very jaggy and unpolished. Next, there are plenty of bugs even after multiple official patches and several unofficial community patches. But worst of all is how the games handle combat.
The combat control in first two games are handle exclusively with keyboard. And the way they implemented the buttons are so clunky, you will have arthritis. The third one doesn't fare much better either even with mouse. It would have been forgiveable if combat mechanics are better, but they are not. Enemies in all three games are mighty and strong enough already, but put you in this situation with clunky control design is downright mean-spirited. Only thing you can do beside getting squashed in the early stages is drawing them to the nearest allies for they seem to be all expert fighters and mages except you. Combat mechanics are very uneven and awkward even when you level enough. You are constantly struggling with enemy not because they overpower you but because you are not expertly able to handle yourself in combat.
In the end, 'Gothic Universe' is a terrific package that offers you obscene amount of open-ended RPG gameplay with tons of quests to take and things to do in this wonderfully vivid living world at a bargain price of $30. If you are CRPG lovers or who is interested in getting into old-fashioned single player CRPG, get 'Gothic Universe' along with 'Oblivion: GOTY' ($50), 'Two Worlds: Epic Edition' ($20), and 'The Witcher: Enhanced Edition' ($40). That's $140 you spend and your social life is finished. We're looking at 300 hours for 'Gothic Universe', another 100 hours each for 'Two worlds' and 'The Witcher', and minimum 150 hours before all the free downloadable contents for 'Oblivion'. Add 'Morrowind: GOTY' ($20) for minimum 200 hours and you are officially *$#@%^!&. You have been emphatically warned.
Gothic rules September 15, 2008
Game has a few glitches but nothing that cannot be fixed. The game has a logical progression to the game play and I find the game very entertaining. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys RPG's.
Tedious rpg universe July 21, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Gothic is a true rpg game, although if you like constant action, then you'll probably find gothic boring. As most of the people that enjoy this type of game are quest/story driven. The monsters also tend to be mundane, and so are the weapons (you'll tend to find a lot fewer types of weapons - mostly non magical, then you would other rpg games in general). The upside of gothic is that the world is expansive and someone really spent a lot of time in gothic 1 and gothic 2 fleshing out the world so that almost every detail/monster/object in the world has its relevance and place within the game. The story isn't also all that bad.
gothic is also a dangerous place to quest. Unlike many rpg games where you generally encounter monsters and quests of increasing difficulty. Gothic is a game, where you will encounter monsters that are both way too powerful for you to engage in as well as monsters that you can fight on your level.
gothic 1 - an okay game. The big issue with this is that the first chapter, you are so weak, that a fly could sneeze on you, you would die. So you're mostly running around doing chores and quests (you'll have to get used to running around a lot in this world, which is actually semi-large). But after chapter one, the action picks up . An okay game with an unintuitive action interface. And almost no documentation on how to only sell 1 item at a time (you'll have to search through the internet to find that out).
gothic 2 - There is a big different between the "night of the raven" version and the ordinary version in terms of gameplay. Mainly that it is much harder to up your stats in the former. Although gothic 2 improves a lot of the problems found in gothic 1 (it still has a uninituitive interface, but it is still much better). Story is much better, and play and quests are better, imo. You could almost consider this game "great" perhaps if you didn't mind these minor issues. I've only played through part of this. There are also some things are not quite right in the walkthrough/FAQ's online. It appears that you can get multiple strength bonuses for ever x number of apples, and multiple mana bonuses for each y number of dark mushrooms (every 25 mushrooms gives you +5 mana? I don't know.. I just know that as a mercenary, I had like 141 max mana in chapter 5 without spending any points for mana). The game also seems to have closed some exploits where you could use magic items (like the orc ring that reduces your strength) to better use your skill points.
In any event, Some areas are also not explained that well.. like Jandihar in chapter 5 gets repopulated with monsters. As a mercenary, I also found it relatively easy to kill multiple monsters just by using my bow at high levels. Don't even have to wear good armor most of the time as you can kill them before they reach you.
gothic 3 - haven't played this yet. Gothic is one of those games that will simply take a very long time to play. The world is expansive, and you probably will find yourself dying a whole lot, and doing a lot of running around.
This is not a game for everyone. If you like oblivion, and those types of games, you will probably enjoy gothic. If you like constant action, then gothic will test your patience.
Great with few drawbacks... June 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this trilogy on a hunch. After having a fallout with DAoC, I started playing Baldur's Gate again; planning to import as much into BG2 as I could, for fun. I often go on hiatus from new games to play retro. Anyway, I was knee deep in ogre's in BG and decided that the games I had could only last me so long. To expand my selection I looked for Baldur's on Amazon to find "like" games for purchase and found Gothic.
I thought long about this purchase due to some neo-primative reviews that were made about the ease of playing this game. I am of average intelligence AT LEAST and I was able to equip a sword within 15 minutes of playing COUNTING the time it took me to attain that sword. With the aid of some internet searching and trial-and-error game play I was able to figure out enough of the game in a few hours to make it more than enough fun. SO, kids, don't give to much attention to the reviews... buy it and give it a run... what is 25 bucks?
The game evironment of Gothic is immense for its time. The player encounters different types of creature AI including some that attack when you get close enough(which often times seems not that close at all), and some that will warn you that you are too close and attack if you don't back off. The NPC's in the game will react to you based on how you treat them. For instance, in the Old Camp you will be asked to pay "protection money" to some "district officials" or he will hire thugs to visit you. Graphics for its time are also VERY nice, the models in the game move their mouths and bodys very persuasively. I got lost in this game for an entire Sunday once I learned enough to play it with purpose.
Mind you, I have owned this trilogy for 2 days and haven't even tried Gothic 2 and 3 yet. I don't think I will have any reservations with the way Gothic is playing. It is staying in my software library for present and future play.
OH! I did gimp it a star on the overall since it doesn't offer much in the configuration menus and the storyline and character paths are not very clear. But, it is still very good gaming material!
 3 favorite rpgs in one June 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I love the Gothic series. Each has a few bugs easily handled with a patch download but other than that unequaled gaming delight.
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