Arcania: Gothic 4

When a hapless hero swears vengeance on an evil king for the loss of his pregnant bride-to-be, you'd expect said hero to mention his shoulda-been wife, you know, at least once during the game's 25-hour campaign.

+ Stunning visuals; loot; sidequests; and crafting make for addictive exploration; + Balanced mixture of magic; archery; and melee combat

- Half-hearted story design; framerate issues; minor bugs, ? If Arcania sells well, can we get the earlier Gothic games in some sort of Xbox 360 bundle

Arcania: Gothic 4 Review

Of all the epic role-playing game franchises that have come and gone in the past decade, Gothic has always been one of the most distinct. The first three games in the series earned developer Piranha Bytes a lot of fans and a fair number of detractors for brutal difficulty, bleak storylines, and...

Straightforward; easy-to-play hack-and-slash RPG

Boring story and nondescript NPCs; Formulaic fetch quests; A few hitches with map graphics and overall visual quality; Generic game mechanics and limited character development; Poorly translated dialogue and voice-acting

Arcania: Gothic 4

Don't ask where the others are.