Risen 2: Dark Waters

humanji

Anyone else pick this up? Unfortunately, it came out on the same weekend as the Guild Wars 2 Beta, so I only got to give it a few hours.

It's a bit of an oddity. If Skyrim had been released in this state there'd be uproar, but for some reason I tend to forgive low(-ish) budget games for their problems. Visually, it's grand for the most part, and some of the jungle settings look great, especially at night. But the animation is fairly awful.

The framerate is also pretty bad for me, despite having a fairly powerful PC. Even turning everything down to it's lowest settings, it's still jumpy at times. But it's not enough to make it unplayable, or even unpleasant to play. You kind of forget about it after a while.

Like Risen and the Gothic games before it, combat is horrific until you're able to pump up your stats. You'll rarely get through a fight without your health being right down, but thankfully it's easy enough to replenish it with herbs and provisions.

I'm not too far into it, so don't know the full ins and outs of gameplay, but I'm loving it so far. The story is simple enough at the moment, but makes references to game world events which you just have to assume are bad and move on from.

Levelling well done and makes more sense than you see in most RPG's. You gain Glory Points for completing tasks and then can buy an upgrady for your stats (things like Cunning or toughness etc). Then, depending on these stats, you can find people who will train you in certain skills. So, for example, if you boost your cunning enough, you'll be able to find someone and pay them to train you to pick locks.

It may seem a bit too much effort to have to have to find these people but, to me, it's more engrossing than looking up to the sky and deciding what random skill you now have.

And these skills are quite varied. Things from being able to fight with certain weapons, to new attacks with these weapons and even some strange ones like being able to end a conversation by shooting the person in the head.

As I said, I haven't played too much of it, but it is quite an enjoyable game at the moment. If you're a fan of the previous games, you'll love it. If you're expecting a refined masterpiece, you'd best back away from the thread.

Kiith

Was looking at it a few days ago. Looks interesting enough, and i like the setting, but the combat looks atrocious. I just can't justify paying for this right now when there are so many other games out this month that are definite buys.

Maybe in a few months once they've fixed some of the problems, and it's cheaper.

calex71

Was delayed for consoles but if it's anything like the 1st game it will need the extra time.

I really enjoyed the 1st game despite massive flaws all round, and am looking forward to this but unless this has 99% less flaws I'll be thinking long and hard about getting it.

humanji

I doubt most of the problems would be patched, tbh. Fans will enjoy it, otherwise it might be best to wait for a Steam sale or something.

Potential-Monke

After only recently playing and finishing the first one, i've an interest in this, but i think i'll wait until it goes budget.

calex71

Out yesterday for consoles, did any one pick it up? HMV have it for 42.99 only played an hour of it so far and....... a lot of the problems the 1st game had are still there.

Avoid like the plague if you didn't like/could put up with the first one

I'm saying that after 2 hours and only 3 monster battles, as I can't see things changing regards combat later on.

Grasshopper89

I'm a HUGE pirate fan, and always wanted a skyrim/gta open world Pirate game, I discovered this and thought my prayers were answered..

HOWEVER!! No, it's not for me. The trailer looked great but I got it for PC and it's pretty terrible. There's some games that grip you straight from the get go. This is not one of them. Sadly.

I have a super gaming PC and this game was jumpy to insult me!
Every Game I have is capable of Ultra graphics/perfect performance. So this ticked me off.

Audio Sucks! At all the sliders default, silly music plays while your trying to hear characters speak. ALL characters lips and audio are far from synced (it's 2012, come on games are €50 - this stuff should be bread and butter)

I stopped playing after less than 2 hours, Such a disappointment. So so so disappointed. Saying that I didn't play the first one.

Performance 4/10
Audio 3/10
Graphics 6/10
Gameplay 7/10


This is just my Opinion but I'm a big gamer. Without sounding like most PC gamer douche-bag's..

All I can say is thank the heavens for the Pirate Bay!! I've downloaded games in the past and Have actually gone to buy the ones I liked, no problem.. But this piece of ****! If I payed €50 for this, I would of got more joy burning the note..

DO NOT BUY, if you like good games!!!

Helix

its dire

don't let the technical problems fool you into anything. patch or not, they'll never be able to fix the fact that it's the dullest, most repetitive, least interesting game of it's ilk this year

Potential-Monke

That's disappointing to say the least. Will certainly wait until it's chips cheap so.

calex71

There is no saving this, the worst is the camera in battle if you are locked on to an enemy and they go off screen. You have a choice to disengage and move the camera and likely get hit or bash the button and hope you hit them , doing away with any use for the parry etc as you can't see to time it :mad:

They should be ashamed of themselves for how bad the game looks, I've seen better on ps2 ..... I'm not kidding , I know they might not have a huge budget but still no excuse for the poo on my screen.

Grasshopper89

Why is it that this game was allowed to be made?

Its not even just the graphics, but its so bad.. How do I get to make a game??! (I promise you'll all like it! haha)

calex71

I meant to post ages ago about the game breaking bug on one of the islands later in the game where the game would freeze and lock up if you brought up the map / quest log, I'm not alone in that one. Took me 2 hours to get off that island, luckily I had all the quests done in that area so had no reason to return to it.

Not sure if it was ever patched for xbox.