Gothic 3

While the previous games centered around the Valley of Mines and Khorinis, Gothic 3 moves away from those locations to a newer, larger environment. This story involves the continent of Myrtana, which is in the midst of war. Orcs have enslaved the human kingdom with only a few free humans living in the nearly uninhabitable icy northlands of Nordmar, the southern desert of Varrant, and the mountainous forests of the Middle Realm. Players can choose to join the rebellion and stay true to the deposed human king, serve the Orcish usurpers in their quest to topple the last remaining human stronghold, or choose a path that serves their own ends. Every decision made has an impact on the game world, and tips the in-game balance of power. Given the non-linear storyline, every game is theoretically unique, with the player ultimately deciding the fate of humankind. A number of NPCs accompany the player throughout the game.

Technically, the most notable feature is that there are no interruptions at all, once you are in the game. No loading screens when you walk into a house or step into another town, everything is one world without interruptions. On the other hand, this also means that you should not attempt to run the game with less than 1 GB of Ram, and to have a nice experience, you should have at least 1.5.

The game is full of bugs. However, various patches have addressed most of these. I recommend version 1.12, since the community patches 1.4 and 1.5 have no "No-DVD patch" counterparts so far, and these are necessary to run the game since it uses copyright protection (it checks on the CD) which CrossOver does not support yet.

Note: So far (2009), it is playable in CrossOver (tested on a mac) if you follow the guide for installing it under Tips & Tricks. There are some rendering and input issues.