Did you ever play Gothic games from JoWooD and Piranha Bytes, Gothic or Gothic II? It's a German singleplayer RP game (there is an English translation of course), one of the first RPGs that had a NPC daily shedules and advanced physics right from the 1st part. It has 1st/3rd person view, like Elder Scrolls games, and great graphics. What makes it even closer to what Oblivion will be is a real-time combat system without rolls. And - Gothic III is scheduled for release in Q4 2005 (no exact date for now), so this game will be a direct competitor of Oblivion. As for graphics, it's different from Oblivion, but not actually worse...
(If you find any mistake in my English, please let me know via a PM)
(Really, I speak terrible English, so please, tell me if I make mistakes. I'd like to improve it a bit )
In the game, u have 3 possible classes Magician of Fire, Paladin or Dragon Hunter.
I've played most with the Paladin Class, that u can see below, wearin a Knight's Armor and a Blessed Ore Blade (One Handed).
[attachmentid=108]
The paladin has balanced skills, bein good at physical fight and arcane wisdom. He may wear the best armor in the game (The Paladin Armor).
P.S.: Sorry, I don't have anymore screenshots. I'll restart the game and get more, if someone wish.
"When a man lies
He murders some part of the world
These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives
All this I cannot bear to witness any longer
Cannot the kingdom of salvation take me home?"
HETFIELD, James; ULRICH, Lars; & HAMMETT, Kirk
METALLICA - To Live is To Die
Well... The controls are kind o tricky... U have to hold ctrl to atack and release it to move again for evadin atacks... But, when u get used to it, bringin down an Orcish Elite Fighter (The worst enemy u can fight, in my opinion) becomes the most fun thing in the game... U can even do it in low-low levels... :P Just don't try to fight more than one of those things if u're not REALLY good... :crazy:
The weird controls system makes the game much more player-dependant, makin the skills somethin secondary... I liked that... (Of course that, this only aplies to close combat. Ranged is worthless whitout high skill levels :( ).
One more thing: this is the first game I've played where enemy human NPCs and Monsters have a great difference. Humans are like the main char, parryin atacks (somethin that makes the target suffer no damage :( ), evadin and even counter-atackin u just the way u can do. Monster can't be bloqued (unless they are Orcs) and don't block atacks (cause they are unarmed; once again, Orcs CAN block atacks), they just evade it gettin out of the way.
"When a man lies
He murders some part of the world
These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives
All this I cannot bear to witness any longer
Cannot the kingdom of salvation take me home?"
HETFIELD, James; ULRICH, Lars; & HAMMETT, Kirk
METALLICA - To Live is To Die
Never played it, though I've been hearing about it more and more. Looks interresting and seems to be a good deal diffrent from Oblivion... I nice change of pace maybe but not exactly competition since I didn't notice anything about it's being modable.
"When you can't run any more, crawl.
And when you can't crawl, find someone to carry you."
I played the Gothic I demo a couple of years ago, but I choose in favor of Morrowind then.
"I must admit it takes balls to pull something like that on lil' old me"
"Heh... well, I..."
"No, I'm serious. Try that again and I will take your balls"
- Faye Whitaker, Questionable Content -
When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.
The race for quality has no finish line- so technically, it's more like a death march.
![[Image: 3cfefe54.jpg]](http://lordkorrd.dynalias.org/docs/misc/3cfefe54.jpg)
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