Gothic II

The Good
Graphics are really nice, especially if you can afford to set viewing distance to 300%. This setting is actually necessary if there's any atmosphere and sense of realism to be found during your wanderings. It's still never superior than the earlier released Morrowind but at least it's equal which is something.

Music, though repetitive, is quite enchanting; in particular, the track you hear during the countryside scenes is good enough to add a feeling of unreality to your travels. But again, even this track is pretty short and keeps repeating itself.

The Bad
All the audiovisual sorcery this game offers comes off as unworthy when you realize how utterly lame the ingame dialogs are -- by the point you reach Khorinis, the first town.

Granted, I'm the old school RPG fan, seemingly unlike the previous reviewers of this game. When playing a role-playing game, I still look for conversations that are actually worth reading because they are colorful, realistic and makes the NPCs feel closer to the player. Think Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld, Bloodnet etc. What I get in Gothic 2 instead are simplistic, superficial and uninspired one-liners, two-liners, three-liners (complete with mostly horrible, overacted voiceovers); reading and/or listening to these you can picture their writer yawning about while making them up.

The Bottom Line
What a shame. Could have been an overall classic if only their creators were either inspired or gifted enough to add conversation texts that are not an insult to the players' intelligence/attention span/imagination.