Gothic II is a fantasy game where you have to save the world -- again.

So much has been done in certain genres that only the window dressing is left. Nowadays, what's important is how you disguise it and what color drapes you use to distract the player's attention from "the story behind the curtain."

Despite the glut of fantasy CRPGs, Gothic II managed to capture my attention. People gave it rave reviews, and I just had to have it. I heard it was going to be hard, but fun, and I wasn't disappointed.

IN THE BEGINNING
A three-disk install gave me the time to read the 70+ page rulebook enclosed with the game. The game took 5 minutes to load after install. I managed to correct that flaw with judicious application of Ctrl+Alt+Delete, and terminate the top application. The menu/options screen comes right up after that.

The game picks up where the first Gothic left off. In Gothic I you are an ex-convict who has to escape from a mining colony and beat back a demon. You were successful, but died in the process, and are resurrected for Gothic II by a necromancer, who has evidence that an army of evil is heading your way and you have to save the land again. You could argue that the necromancer is evil too, but this guy just wants to be left alone. So off you go, to die, and die some more, until you learn the best way to survive. Save often.

COMBAT
You likely won't die in your first encounter, but your second one, you probably will, or you'll be at death's door, knocking loudly. They have an interesting combat engine, that has quite a learning curve. You press an action key, and then you press another key to swing in that direction. So, depending on your key bindings, you press ACTION + LEFT ARROW to slash left. Press ACTION + UP to chop, or do an overhead smash. There's a percentage for 1 and 2 handed weapons on your character sheet, as well as bow and crossbow. For ranged weapons, this is your chance of hitting. For melee weapons, this is the chance that your next strike will add your strength to your weapon damage. The main thing you have to worry about in melee combat is that you're close enough. Still, your foe may parry or dodge. So can you.

As you go up in levels, if you bring up your melee skills, you have more combos available to you. This is not the button-mashing of Street Fighter or Tekken part 5,761. This is timed, and planned, and quite possibly foiled by your foe's own attacks or defenses. You'll have to swish your weapon around a few times, in a few ways, alone, to get the hang of it. To me, it's fun.

SKILLS
Going up in levels means learning points, which can be spent on increasing basic stats like Strength or Dexterity, increasing your skill with a bow or a melee weapon, or you can learn a new skill. Increasing any of these requires a teacher, teachers have ceilings on how much they know and may teach you. You also may have to do something for the teacher first, anything from raising enough gold to going on a quest to prove you're worth it.

THE WORLD
This is where Gothic II shines, in my opinion. Taking a cue from Neverwinter Nights, you get experience for not only beating monsters, but also doing things for people. Now, that in and of itself isn't new, but the same people show up again and again and again, with different problems. The area teems with people who seem real enough...it's very immersive, I felt guilty picking the pockets of various NPCs. It's almost like a living, breathing world, and rather than feeling claustrophobic, it feels real. A farmer might have a problem with monsters on his farm, or a weapons dealer may be dealing with bandits, and some guy might offer you a job that requires less-than-stellar morals. Doing these things nets you a diary entry, and most likely some experience, and benefits like lower prices, or getting that job you really wanted because you did someone a favor.

Also, the game depends on what jobs you choose to do, what abilities and skills you select to train, and who you ally yourself with. These choices determine what quests you get, and in some cases what you get as a reward. This will also choose how people react to you. This is not divided among racial lines, it's divided among factions. If you become a member of the militia, then no one in the scummy Harbor district will tell you much. If you are part of the mercenary band, the Militia and some townsfolk won't like you. Choices, choices.

You can nearly make the game a new experience by following a different career. I know, because I joined the militia the first time around, and I started a new game as a mercenary. It's practically a different game. I'm sure the path of magic has its own twists to add, but I'm waiting til I beat it this time to try.

SNAGS
Gothic has one other annoying feature -- the inventory. On the plus side, you can carry as much as you want. I never had to dump something, or pick and choose between this and that because of encumbrance, but it really needs a better interface. If you access your inventory, you sheathe your weapon, and your foes keeping beating on you till you select what you need. With something like that, I would have preferred a method of organization, at least. Ideally, a paused game would have been better, as there is a monstrous amount of stuff to sort through.

SOUND
Each person to talk to has a voice actor, and the accents are strange until you get used to it. Gone are the British, cockney, and Irish accents you may hear in a traditional game. Instead you have everything from Midwestern, to Northwestern, to Southern, to Maine Yankee accents, with voices that range from cool to a little silly. It's a bit off-putting at first, but at least they bothered to get voice actors, and the vast majority isn't that bad. You can hear people talking to each other too, as you cruise around populated areas.

The sounds are a bit strange too. Giant flying insects make rattling sounds like a snake, and at other times sound like rubber bands being thrummed. Goblins sound like flies buzzing. Other monsters sound like roosters, and others like stuck pigs. It's not a major flaw, and you get used to it over time. The big monsters, like orcs and trolls and lizardmen, sound genuinely menacing.

GRAPHICS
The graphics are excellent. You can see day, night, weather patterns, and the nature scenes are beautiful. I can see clouds moving by, and the infrequent falling star. You have mountain passes, swamps, forests, tundra, and snowfields to cross. Not to mention swimming in the water. The water texture pales a bit in comparison to games like Enclave and Morrowind, but I can't ask for perfection.

PERFORMANCE
The game chunks quite a bit. I believe the specs listed are way below what it actually needs to run. For one thing, leave about 4+ gig free on your drive when you play. The thing creates its own swap file, as well as eating up the Windows swap file and all of your RAM. Once I disabled the music, I was able to enjoy the rest of the game relatively chunk-free. On a side-note, I would love to see how the game Enclave was developed. While there was almost zero plot, and no character development other than trying to buy better weapons and armor, it still looked and played the best. It was gorgeous, textures, environmental effects, the sky, the water, the sound, everything -- and no chunk. IMHO, more designers should pay attention to what works on a PC, instead of making you buy bigger and better hardware, and still leave you scratching your head as to why a game bogs down. Don't get me wrong, I don't want my games dumbed down (and Enclave was really dumb), but I want 'em to play better without sacrificing eye candy.

CONCLUSION
In short, I'd say it's worth it. The triumphs that you feel can kind of outweigh the frustrations. You take it for what it's worth. The game is still going while you access your inventory? I'd expect a monster to maul me as I'm going through my backpack. No automap until you buy a map? Reasonable enough. Tough monsters until you get the hang of combat (and even then, they're still tough)? That's reason enough to keep playing. I prefer to see bigger and badder monsters as the game progresses, and I have. That and the sense of immersion I feel is huge. Hours can go by and you forget that you were playing a game. The designers sort of took the best of what has gone before and molded the elements into something uniquely their own. Now that I know what I'm doing, I enjoy the game more and more. My money's going toward the supplement they're working on. As long as they keep up the good work, the Gothic line will continue to see my hard-earned buck.

The ratings are despite the small flaws and strangeness, as they are, oddly enough, part of the experience. Pulling myself away from it long enough to write a review was a challenge in and of itself.