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Risen 2: Dark Waters
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Graphics & Sound:
I just finished Risen 2: Dark Waters this week, and left with a better impression than I would have when I first began playing it. There are still some issues Piranha Bytes is working out (at least in the PC version), but the strengths of this piratical adventure through Risen's fantasy world outweighed them.
One thing Risen 2 got absolutely right was the sights and sounds of the Southern Seas, particularly the voice-acting. Pirates curse and complain with gusto and imagination, leading to some hilarious conversations that are worth sticking around to listen to. At one point, Captain Gregorius Emanuel Steelbeard, the father of the hero's companion Patty, gets into a shouting match with a brewmaster as they negotiate over crates of rum. After a few "pox-ridden old whore hound"s and "cabin boy fancying bilge bag"s, they settle on a price, and you walk away with a VASTLY expanded pirate vocabulary.
It's too bad the character models in Risen 2 don't do as good a job expressing themselves in conversations. All the characters use the same two or three stilted motions over and over again, making you want to skip the conversations as quickly as possible. Piranha Bytes did do a good job creating a wide variety of pirate duds and nautical clothes to turn your Nameless Hero into a dashing captain or scurvy scalliwag, and some of the monster models like the cave bats and tomb spiders are downright freaky-looking. The background music helps alert you when these creepy-crawlies take an interest in you, fading in to warn you combat is getting underway. Otherwise, the music is easily forgettable: there's only one tack each for generic background music and combat music. |
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Gameplay:
Players spend most of their time in Risen 2 exploring the various islands of the Southern Seas. They begin in Caldera's Crystal Fortress, a bastion from the previous Risen title that's now stuck between two warring Titans in the north and a new threat, a giant Kraken that's begun sinking any ships that try to reach Caldera. The Nameless Hero is sent with Patty to find her father, Captain Steelbeard, who is rumored to know how to kill the Titan lord who controls the Kraken, Mara. Once the players reach Steelbeard and join his crew, they begin traveling along the Southern Seas to find the other pirate captains who turned against him and sided with Mara to save their own skins. If they defeat them, Steelbeard and the Hero can use the Titan artifacts they have to stop Mara.
Exploration is a big part of Risen 2, with several sprawling islands that act like small sandboxes for the player to get lost in. There are sometimes multiple ways to complete the Hero's quests: on the first island of Tacarigua, for instance, I skipped the Inquisition town you land in and set off into the jungle with nothing but a saber, a pair of ragged pants, and a torch to find the pirate stronghold. I came across a cave filled with gems and a giant tomb spider, which quickly made mincemeat of me. After reloading, I set off in a different direction and found an old pirate in a tower who needed help fighting off a nest of termites, and in return he would give me what I needed to join Steelbeard's crew. |
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Difficulty:
The freedom to explore different paths in Risen 2, however, may seem overly-harsh to some players more used to games guiding them along the "right" path. Taking off into the jungle felt like a bold choice at the time I made it, but it also left me without a lot of gold or other supplies I could have earned by doing missions in the Inquisition's port first. I was nearly finished with Tacarigua's missions when I found out I could have purchased a map in the port town that would have given me the ability to fast-travel between landmarks. The game seems designed with the assumption that players will talk with everyone they get the chance to, thus finding a number of different quests and bits of lore or information which more-impatient players would miss out on entirely.
Combat in Risen 2 can be similarly difficult, but at the same time simplistic. As players earn "Glory" (experience points) and spend them on attributes like Blades, Firearms and Voodoo, they have the option to buy abilities from trainers such as Parry for Blades, or Critical Strikes for Firearms. Learning these abilities gives players additional moves in combat, but figuring out exactly how to use them effectively is largely left up to the player. The Blade abilities Parry and Riposte were particularly annoying to me because they required such precise timing to execute, timing I didn't have when surrounded by two or three pirates or natives all attacking at once. I found it much easier to simply button-mash my way through fights, swinging wildly with high-damage weapons to overpower opponents. |
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Game Mechanics:
Risen 2's character advancement system will also leave players constantly wishing they had more gold. Each attribute like Cunning or Toughness has several specialized Skills attached to it, such as Thievery or Bulletproof respectively. Players improve the attribute with Glory, but have to spend gold (and lots of it) to acquire and improve the different skills that go with that attribute. While the choice to specialize is easy in some cases, like focusing on Slashing Weapons under the Blades attribute, others provide so many different uses it's hard not to want to buy them all. Voodoo is one of these attributes: players can learn to make a number of different items to use or sell and learn how to curse monsters with voodoo dolls or turn them against their allies. However, it requires players to buy a host of different skills for each item they want to learn to make, and improve their skills with each different branch of the tree.
Another odd decision from Risen 2's developers is making players wait to learn how to really use Voodoo until several hours into the game. Even then, the only way to do so is to side with the native Shaganumbi tribe and turn down the chance of learning how to use muskets, a very powerful firearm and melee weapon, from members of the Inquisition. Since most adventure games with a magic system give the player the option to use it from the beginning of the game, putting it so deep into the game that players are likely committed to another set of attributes seems like a very strange choice.
While these issues can make the journey through Risen 2 a frustrating one at times, the game's other strengths keep you coming back for more, forging on to find your way to treasure, destiny, and a place as the most famous pirate in the Southern Seas.
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-Dark Lantern, GameVortex Communications AKA Russell Jones |
Minimum System Requirements:
OS: Windows XP (with Servicepack 2), Processor: Dual Core with 2.1 GHz, Memory: 2 GB System RAM, Hard Disk Space: 5.5 GB, Video Card: 512 MB Radeon 3870 / GeForce 8800 GTX, DirectX(r): 9.1c, Sound: DirectX compatible soundcard, Additional: Keyboard/mouse or gamepad required Internet Connection required for online activation |
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Test System:
OS: Windows 7, Processor: Intel dual-core 2.13 GHZ, Memory: 4GB, Graphics: NVidia GeForce 9400 GT, DirextX(r): 11, Sound: SoundBlaster XFi Xtreme Audio |
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