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One more thing: where are the WOMEN in this game?! Are all the convicts men or something? Someone tell me there's a hot babe somewhere in this game aside from the Saving screen. I mean I got this group picture and there's a red-head in it. There has to be a girl here somewhere right?

The music on the other hand is nothing special. The music changes to fit the mood of whatever's happening. During morning the music is different from nighttime, and when you're in combat the music becomes a stirring action piece. But the music actually reminds me for some reason of the new music from Ultima 9 (I'm not so sure why, but they sound similar).
This is NOT good, since the new music in U9 was very boring (the classic tunes remixed in U9 were good, but the new music was mostly terrible).


GAMEPLAY

This is the good part of the game. The game is non-linear, in that you can go anywhere and do whatever you want. There are a bunch of quests for you to do, and you can accomplish them more or less in whatever order. However, each quest has a set outcome, I don't think you can take multiple paths to solving a problem like in Fallout 2.
Still, there's a lot to do and it's more or less fun doing it.

Many of the quests, though, still fall into the "FedEx Style" which turn you into an errand boy running around the map fetching this and that for whom and whomever. Although you will be running around a lot in the game over the vast, lush world, it is still quite fun assuming you're the nature-lover type who loves to stroll around the woods with lots of wild monsters waiting to eat you.

Oh yeah, speaking of monsters, this game has a pathetic combat system.
It's the biggest complaint I have actually. First of all, it is very hard to get a foot hold in this game, at the start you will likely be mauled left and right by all the monsters. As you grow stronger and learn better techniques this will abate, but it can be very frustrating at the start. I suggest getting the Bone Bow in the mines (it's quite easy to get if you know how, and it's a very good bow which will put you away from danger's path. Hmm maybe I will write here how to get the bow in a future update).

Basically to fight, you have to press the combat key to enter combat mode, and hold the "USE" button down while pressing a direction key to attack. Very awkward, to say the least, and sidestepping is also not very smooth in this game. End result, it's quite hard to fight.
Better than the U9 system, I think, but still a bad system.

Morever, all your weapons are practically the same, there is no difference from a sword, a mace, a scepter, or whatever. You all use them the exact same way. So much for variety. There are only basically two weapons in the game -- sword and bow. Each with many different stats for damage and strength/dexterity requirements, but in the end they're all the same weapons. Boring.

Speaking of strength and dexterity, the character system is very bland and primitive. You cannot create your character, you start off with this wimpy looking blond guy, and you just bulid him up however which way you want (much like Planescape: Torment).

However you only have two stats: Strength and Dexterity. After that you, have I think 8 skills: One-handed weapons, Two-handed weapons, Bows, Crossbows, Sneak, Acrobatics, Pick Locks, and
Pickpockets. And also magic "on" skill. That's it. That's ALL!
That SUCKS! Talk about lack of variety. Even the AD&D system, primitive as it is, was more advanced than this!

To make this game closer to perfect I would have liked to see something at least like the Fallout perk system, better yet the best RPG system ever made, the Final Fantasy Tactics job system! Yeah. But unfortunately there's no such thing, I wish you at least had special attacks in this game but there is no such thing. Boring.

What else can I say... gameplay is more or less nice, though the combat is a real bummer. There also seem to be numerous bugs which can stop you from solving the game. Right now I closed the gate to the Old Mine, and when I tried to open it again it WON'T
OPEN! Gundam! I think I'm screwed and actually at this point I can't do anything more in the game. I think I might have to restart from scratch or find a walkthrough with cheats in it. Ah well. It sucks. Things like this should not happen in a game!


INTERFACE

The interface is primitive, to say the least. There is no mouse cursor, you have to use the Up and Down keys to cycle through menu options. The
Z and Y keys are interchanged, I have no idea why. Keys are remappable, but not all of them can be remapped. The left and right mouse keys are set to "Use" and "Jump" respectively, and as far as I can tell it is not possible to change these.

There is also no tutorial to ease you through the learning process. If you're a veteran gamer/RPG player you can pick up easily from experience,
I can see problems arising, especially in using items or distributing things during trade agreements. Well, good luck. When in doubt download a more complete FAQ detailing all these things.


BOTTOMLINE

All in all, despite its problems, Gothic is a good game, it's easily the best offering we've had since Arcanum. Hmm, wait, come to think of it, I don't think there were any other RPGs on the PC since Arcanum.
Damn. You can see how sad PC RPGs are these days. Ah well. This is a much needed game in a landscape that is devoid of its ilk. That alone should make you buy it if you are an RPG lover.

Action gamers and RTS gamers probably won't like this game, RTS gamers you are way out of your territory, action gamers will not appreciate the flaky combat system and squiggly movement. However an RPG gamer, especially the jaded Ultima fans who were expecting a lot from U9 but were let down miserably, will probably appreciate this game. So go get it now, Avatar!


NOTE: I will probably revise this review after I play the game more, after all I've barely played it for ten hours! Not enough time to really review a game, you know.