A truly satisfying RPG is a scarce commodity these days. Unlike many other genres in PC gaming such as the First Person Shooter, a quality RPG worthy of praise only comes along once every blue moon. This, perhaps, is due in part to a more critical and detail-conscious consumer base. Fewer developers are willing to take a stab at creating open-ended role playing games, but when they do the RPG community busts out the magnifying glasses in anticipation of what we hope to be the next great RPG. Lately, I’ve had my scope focused on Piranha Bytes’ Gothic II Gold, which includes the original Gothic II plus the Night of the Raven expansion pack. After giving the game a run, I can genuinely say it had potential to be something great, but with a few major design flaws it fails to be anything more than mediocre.

Gothic II starts off where the original Gothic ended. Having just defeated a beast known as the Sleeper, the nameless convict-turned-hero lays near death in the wake of destruction that was left behind from the battle. Fortunately, Xardas, an exiled necromancer and friend of this nameless hero was able save him, but not without consequence. The hero has lost much of his memory and is now left physically weak. Xardas explains to him that before the Sleeper died, it called forth a dark army to continue its path of destruction. Assuming the role of this reborn hero, Xardas tells you that you must continue to fulfill your destiny as savior to this world.

The game does a good job of giving players a true sense of immersion. After walking around for a while, the grandiose scale of the game becomes easily recognizable. The freedom you have is just short of being completely limitless. While completing the main quest is vital to progressing through the story line, you still have the option of doing whatever you want. There are tons of other interesting side quests to be discovered throughout the game. Also, every human NPC in the game can be interacted with in a variety of ways. Whether it be talking to an NPC, attempting to murder it (which doesn’t always work out the way you hope), or stealing from it, there is always fun to be had with fooling around with an NPC. A particularly neat feature that adds more depth to the game is that NPCs recognize when it is either night or day. In town at night, most people are asleep in their houses making it an opportune time to sneak inside and steal their belongings. During the day, the city is bustling and lively.

A major drawback to the game is the fact that it takes a tremendous amount of time to progress your character through quests and leveling. After several hours of playtime, I was suddenly hit with the realization that I really hadn’t gotten anything done yet. The game moves at a crippling slow pace. The sluggish pace can become very disappointing for those that only have an hour or two to play at a time. If you’re expecting to load up the game, and hop into some large intense battles: don’t. A large portion of the game consists of nothing but dialogue. The dialogue, for the most part, is interesting enough to keep your attention -- especially since you have the choice to respond in different ways that affect the overall outcome of the situation. The foundation of most of the selectable responses range from the “go screw yourself” type of response to the “sure, I’ll help you” response. After a while, much of the witty dialogue grows old.

The most unusual part of Gothic II is its perplexing interface design. I’m unsure how the development team came to the conclusion that not having a mouse cursor in the game was a good idea, but somehow they did. You use the mouse to face the direction you want, so it works basically like a permanent mouse look mode. Finding and using items in your inventory grows increasingly aggravating throughout the game, since you have to use arrow keys to scroll through and select items. Later on, after accumulating countless amounts of items, the frustration only grows. It becomes nearly impossible to use items or potions in a battle due mainly to the fact that you can’t set them to hotkeys.

Fighting in the game is surprisingly difficult early on. It’s difficult to the point where it is more of an annoyance than anything else. The fighting controls are almost as perplexing as the interface set up. To attack, you have to hold down the alt key (by default) and press the forward and side arrows to swing your weapon or shoot your bow. Every time your character levels up he gains an insignificant bonus to his health, without any boost to stat points. Instead you are given learning points (LPs) which are used to increase stats such as strength and dexterity to name a few. Also, finding good weapons and armor that can be equipped early on is about as likely as George W. Bush pronouncing the word “terrorist” correctly. It simply isn’t going happen. About half way through the game things begin to get easier, but prepare to be dismembered by dragon flies and mole rats early on.

The game is decent from a graphical standpoint, but it demands a lot from your computer to run smoothly – even on medium settings. The lighting and changes from nighttime to daytime were done very well. As far as sound goes, the music in the background is often aesthetically pleasing. In the city, you can hear people talking and having full conversations with each other which adds a lot to the immersion.

Unfortunately, the cons of Gothic II Gold outweigh the pros. It’s a definite possibility that something great could be made from the underlying foundation of this game, but with a bountiful amount of problems such as slow game-play and a horrid interface system, it doesn’t quite hit the mark.