Gothic II: The Full Gory

Even the bloodiest, most ferocious action titles over the years would turn pale when faced with the arsenal found in Gothic II. Publisher JoWooD has today released details of the 150 (that's 150) weapons found in this RPG epic. Each of them will require specific strength and dexterity prerequisites, and they all vary in effect - as you might expect though, they aren't all to be found in a big bundle behind a tree somewhere...

As players work hard to survive the rigours of the Gothic island setting, powerful and more dangerous adversaries will start to gang up on them, and it's only fair that the digital fresh meat be prepared with a little weaponry of their own. On the sword front, players can wield all manner of blades from a simple (and puny) dagger right up to a Dragon Slayer. Of course the biggest swords are so unwieldy that they require specialist training.

Axes are clearly the way forward though, and if you fancy cleaving instead of thrusting then they are perhaps the better option. As you might expect, everything from the humble sickle through pick axes and double-headed Lord of the Rings-style battle-axes are included, not to mention the flesh-partingly emphatic Torturing and Berserker axes.

And if you won't be content with that, rest assured that a number of other fearsome-sounding weapons lurk within Gothic II, including heavy spiked cudgels, bone crushers and even a heavy battle hammer, which sounds frankly terrifying. Then there are bows, crossbows of all sorts and other ranged weapons. What more could you want?

JoWooD has also released a few screenshots to illustrate their point. We suggest that fans of Western RPGs pay close attention to this one, when it emerges in Q1 2003 it stands to be every bit as good as its predecessor, which we loved openly.