What if someone made Gothic without half of the jank?
It'd be something like Arcania: Gothic 4. I've spent all day playing it. It looks better than any other Gothic. It has normal game controls, unlike Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 (I haven't played Gothic 3 yet). The combat is fluid. It has only crashed twice in 5 hours. The voice acting isn't god awful. It's almost an enjoyable game.
I also played the Risen demo, which is basically exactly like Arcania. They're so similar that I got a bit of the Risen storyline confused with the Arcania storyline and spent some amount of time wondering why I wasn't running into any Warriors of Order or the Inquisition. And both of these games are unreasonably similar to Two Worlds, except they're both a lot less awful.
I'm going to keep playing Arcania until I get bored or find something better. Which will definitely end on May 17th, when The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings is released OH MY GOD I CAN'T WAIT
Fallout 3
When I was building Xerxes 3, I told myself that the first game I'd play on it would be Fallout 3 and I wouldn't touch it until Xerxes 3 was finished. Almost a grand and two nights of my favorite kind of work later, Xerxes 3 was fully operational. For the last three days all I've played is Fallout 3.
To put it lightly, it's amazing. I'm a huge fan of Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series to begin with and no amount of "Oblivion with guns" cynicism can dampen this experience. They really hit the nail on the head. It's a sequel that's not completely derivative of it's predecessors and it's different without being alien. I've sank around 14 hours into it already and I've barely explored the whole map. I don't think I've even really started the main storyline. I'm having too much fun doing sidequests and finding little hidden secrets.
Like I told Katie, Fallout 3 is one of those game where I know I should come up for air, I just don't want to. It's one of those games worth holding a trip to bathroom to pee for an hour just because I don't want to stop playing. Even though I've turned it off, I can still hear the songs on Galaxy News Radio over the blowing winds.
Amazing games
Disclaimer: I have not finished any of these. Two of them I just started. This entire entry could just be initial impression gushings.
Hellgate London This is Diablo with Guns. It's buggy and the part I've left off at gets frustratingly difficult but if you're into Diablo you can forgive these flaws pretty easily. I play as a marksman so I use nothing but guns and I play the game like it is Doom with randomly generated levels.