Two Worlds Reviews

[GameBanshee News]

Another pair of reviews for Reality Pump's Two Worlds hit the internet over the weekend. The first is at IGN with an overall score of 6.8/10:

The designers had a good handle on what they wanted and they've created a game with a ton of depth. Unfortunately, the execution is flawed. On both Xbox 360 and PC this game is buggy and unpolished, and these quirks will prevent it from duplicating the real key to Oblivion's success: mainstream appeal. The game has some very real issues that should not be overlooked.

And the other is at Netjak with an overall score of 2.5/10:

This game doesn't feel rushed. It feels like it was done by amateurs AND rushed. People were trying to hype this up as an Oblivion killer, but that's overstatement in the extreme. This game doesn't even deserve to be in the same sentence as Oblivion. It is easily the worst game I've played on the 360, and that includes Rumble Roses XX and Enchanted Arms.

[fable]

I'd give a lot more credence to these reviews if they didn't mention Oblivion, as though it were the ne plus ultra of third-person action RPGs--instead of being a kiddie action RPG with specs way over-the-top. In fact, I know people who have tried both Oblivion and Two Worlds, and while the latter is buggy, they find the former runs as slowly on their systems.

[Siberys]

Notice the reviewer at netjak didn't actually give any sort of commentary as to why things were bad in two world. "The writing is bad, the dialog is bad, the audio is bad, everybody who voice acted in two worlds is to blame, the graphics are bad, the gameplay is bad, the controls are bad" and yet never anything as to why these examples are bad.

And people who say they aren't going to bother mentioning oblivion and comparing this game to it are worse than people who just compare it. They pride themselves on not doing what is conformist, gaining the holier than thou attitude that makes them better than you for not mentioning oblivion, yet they DID mention oblivion. Comparing EVERYTHING to oblivion, that's wrong. But comparing a game like two worlds, an open ended non-linear world exploration game much like oblivion, sure, it's not at all wrong to compare.

[Crolug]

I was playing Oblivion, Gothic III and Two Worlds, well, you can accuse me of being local patriot (TW was developed by Polish studio) but as far as my over 20 years cRPG gaming experience tells me, the latter is the best of them, not perfect of course, but the best of the three. Besides, when someone is comparing any cRPG to, excuse me, OBLIVION, which in his/her eyes is an cRPG icon, well... is not even worthy of mentioning his/her name under the review. Who is writing those reviews nowadays, come on! And since I am PCRPG freak, I won't even tell what I think about RPGs on consoles, I could be banned

Brother None in his review of Fallout 3 on No Mutants Allowed told about two guys from very well known gaming portals, cheering and clapping mindless during F3 demo presentation... After all those negative TW reviews we know one thing for sure - Reality Pump/Topware/Zuxxez don't have too good press relations, looks like that's what counts the most nowadays...

[Faust]

Originally Posted by Crolug

I was playing Oblivion, Gothic III and Two Worlds, well, you can accuse me of being local patriot (TW was developed by Polish studio) but as far as my over 20 years cRPG gaming experience tells me, the latter is the best of them, not perfect of course, but the best of the three. .

I've heard and read so many negative reviews of Two World by now, I'm actually relieved to hear some positive comments. What did you like about the game?

[Siberys]

Originally Posted by Faust

I've heard and read so many negative reviews of Two World by now, I'm actually relieved to hear some positive comments. What did you like about the game?

Some of the good qualities I found-

-Though mediocre voice acting, the story and writing for the dialog is rather well done. It actually has a series of different paths you can go down in some of the quests, not to mention it gives you an incentive to complete the main quest other than "the world is going to be destroyed."

-The Alchemy system is just frickin cool. There's virtually no limit to what you make. It's a little like oblivion, you'll need a duplicate of some effect to make a full fledge potion. Yet, unlike oblivion, the effects located on the herbs (such as healing 50 for example) don't have to equal each other (so if you have one herb that says healing 50, you can have another one that says healing 25 or something). Also, this applies to negative effects, so if you have cure poison 70 and poison 60, not only will you not be effected by the poison, but you might actually resist poison for a few seconds of time.

-No more annoying useless loot. Whenever you get a lot of loot in game and can only hold so much, you can actually combine the same exact item you might pick up together and make said item much more powerful. Though unrealistic, it eleminates much frustration.

-Creatures aren't just easily killable. You might see a pack of goblin like creatures fifty feet to your left and a huge brown bear fifty feet to your right, and you might choose the goblins as the brown bear can destroy you in less than three hits on most occasions.

-Waypoints, instead of fast travel, you have waypoints which get you close to your destination but not completely there. Even better, you have to find the waypoints first to activate them, so it's not like you can just find one and go anywhere.

-Most skills are passive effects. Many think that this is a bad thing, but it eleminates the frustration of multitasking. Like if you fire a bow while sneaking but failed to coup de grace, now you have to summon a monster of your choice, and then equip fireball or something. Or if you're going melee, you don't need to press all sorts of buttons to perform fancy attacks. This is all gone, it's much simpler, much easier to understand.

Just a few things of why two worlds is a pretty cool game. not the best as said, but still good.

[Crolug]

Siberys just said most . I was trying to write something down all day, but was distracted by all possible things.

I will add my two cents though. I've started playing the game fairly not long ago, mostly due to lack of time but also I knew from certain sources that the game still needs polishing after release, because, as usual, it was published a bit too early. So my experience is solely based on patch 1.5, further enhanced by TW Control Panel ver. 1.0. That combination gave the game incredible boost, both in performance and looks, and imo it looks better than Gothic III. It's hard to compare it to Oblivion though, in terms of visual fireworks that is, because both engines are quite different, especially in terms of textures. NPCs in TW look, since patch 1.5, where they got some redraws, far more better than in Oblivion, but as we know, NPCs in TESIV suck. Also, TW was made to be TPP game, where TESIV was made to be primarily FPP game, and it shows - character movements, fighting animations, horseback riding, etc. in TW are much better than in Oblivion. And the last thing about technology - on my hi-end rig, with everything maximized and FSAA maximized, TW beats Oblivion with ease. Furthermore, it is possible to have turned on both HDR and FSAA in TW, in Oblivion it is not possible.
But enough of this techtalk, we're talking RPG, not FPS after all! Please remember that I play TW on 'hard' difficulty level, fighting is even far more challenging but far more rewarding as well, because since patch 1.5 loot system is connected with difficulty levels!

My pros:
- alchemy
- horseback riding and horseback fighting
- fights
- interesting character development, you get new skill and abilities points by leveling, questing and using, nice abilities, that are not "click&forget" type, most of them have percentage chances bound to them, which can be raised of course through character development, but it is not like that you click ability and you're sure that you will knockback your opponent or blind him with ground dust
- questing, lots of quests since the beginning of the game, very differentiate both in terms of hardness and type, most of those quests are sidequests btw, and are not so boring like those in Oblivion
- gear upgrading
- not another "save the world" story but far more personal ("what did you do with my sister!"), at least at the beginning, I am still playing there

My cons:
- graphics lowering dramatically quality in some small areas
- close combat fighting with tendency for clickfest, but minimized on hard by the need of healing, laying traps, hit&run and running away tactics Or maybe I just overreacting after playing over three hours The Witcher during GC Leipzing this august?
- voice acting could be better but still it is much better than the one in TESIV imo!
- no speech skills ;( I'm a Fallout geek, so I feel more comfortable where I can finish the game without fighting at all . But let's be serious, TW is not that type of girl, main character is a mercenary, in medieval setting, it would look strange if he WOULD NOT fight, if I'd like to talk things over, I can always install Fallout 2, wouldn't I?
- and that's it for now actually! That guy that writes in the review that everything in TW is just bad 'because I say so' seems to have some serious issues with himself, or far more possible - he didn't even bother to actually PLAY the game. Besides, as I always repeat this - cRPGs on consoles suck!