Customer Reviews

Two Worlds

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Hey everyone, this game is an awesome game that any true fantasy RPG fan would love. If you're an Oblivion fanatic, then don't get this game because you'll never be satisfied with anything else. I am so sick of all the negative reviews because all these people have to say is that it isn't as good as Oblivion. Stop comparing it to Oblivion! Hey, here's an idea. Why not review this game based on its own merits and the fantasy RPG genre as a whole rather than telling us why it's not as good as Oblivion. Personally, I haven't played Oblivion. But I have been playing fantasy RPG games on computer now for about 15 years, so I know what I am talking about. So here is my review which I originally posted on Amazon.com on the 24th when the game first came out (with a few revisions). I also want to say that I bought this game because I am waiting for the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion pack Mask of the Betrayer to come out, so I wanted something to keep me busy in the meantime (and I don't want to pay $15 a month to play World of Warcraft). I am also happy that this game looks good and runs well on my computer.

This is one of the best role-laying games that I have played in a long time. And the graphics and sound are great too! If you like fantasy RPG games such as Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, and Icewind Dale, then you're going to love this game. You can get the demo from the Two Worlds web site at www.2-Worlds.com. You should get the demo first to see if it will run on your computer and to make sure you like it. This game is made for dual-core processors with a modern graphics card, so if you have an old computer then you probably shouldn't get this game until you upgrade your system (or you can get it for Xbox 360 if you have one).

What I like most about this game is that it is an open-class system for developing your character. What this means is that unlike most RPGs, your character is not restricted to just one class. When you create your character, you don't choose a class. Your character is free to develop any skills from any class as you advance levels. So you can wield magic, be a powerful fighter, and be a skilled thief all at the same time. And there are no class restrictions. In Dungeons and Dragons games, you often have restrictions based on your chosen class. Such as wizards can't have full plate armor. And fighters can't cast magic. The only restrictions I have found are practical things like you can't swim or use a bow in heavy armor. You can also fight with two weapons once you learn that skill.

Two Worlds is a huge game, so traveling on foot is not the best way to get around. Therefore, you can travel in faster ways. You can either use the teleport system. Or you can ride on horses or other animals. The box says that you can have six different mounts in this game. You can also fight from your horse which does more damage. And as far as I understand, you can't fight from horseback in Oblivion. But in this game you can (except with 2-handed weapons).

There is a main storyline that you have to follow, but you can follow it at your own pace (and there may be different outcomes based on your choices). If you want, you can just explore the world talking to people, fighting monsters, leveling up your character, buying and selling equipment, and completing various optional side quests for different NPCs. And there is no good or evil in this game, so you can make your own choices however you want. But your choices will have consequences in the game world. For example, if you break into someone's house, the guards in town will be alerted and will attack you. Or if you steal someone's things in their home, they will attack you. This is very different from most RPG games as you usually have to choose an alignment such as good, evil, or neutral, and then you have to make choices based on your chosen alignment. In D&D games, you are even more restricted because your chosen class may force you into a certain alignment (paladins have to be lawful good, assassins have to be evil, druids have to be neutral, monks have to be lawful, etc.) So this is a very welcome change from what I am used to. Also, there are different organizations and guilds in the game that you can gain influence in as you complete tasks for them which can prove useful. For example, if you have gained influence in the Merchant's Guild, you will get a discount at their stores. And at one point in the game, you have to gain influence in a certain clan to be able to speak with their leader.

The graphics in this game totally blew me away! Much better than Neverwinter Nights 2. When I bought Neverwinter Nights 2 for my PC, I had to also buy a graphics card to play it. Then after installing the graphics card, I was expecting something amazing. But I was totally let down. The game barely ran on my HP a1600n with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core 2 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, and NVidia 7600 GS with 512 MB of RAM. The skies in that game totally suck. And I had to turn down many of the settings like the shadow quality to have an acceptable frame rate. But Two Worlds was a totally different experience. In Two Worlds, I had beautiful skies and landscapes, trees that blow in the wind, rain and lightning, glistening armor, moving shadows, night and day cycles, and rippling water with reflections.

The sound quality of this game was top notch too. The best part was the music which was done by Harold Faltermeyer who composed music to movies such as Top Gun and "Axel F" from Beverly Hills Cop. For a video game to have a movie composer is pretty remarkable. One thing I didn't like, though, is the music can get repetitive. In one part of the game there is a rock/Gothic/Celtic song with a beautiful female singer. The first time I heard the song, I thought "Wow! I really like this song." But after 10 times in a row I started to get a headache and went to the settings and turned the music off. Once I turned the music off, I was able to better hear the sound effects such as the leaves rustling in the wind when outdoors and water dripping and echoing when underground.

I love the magic system in this game too. Unlike D&D games where you have to memorize a spell and then it is used up once you cast it, this game has a much more flexible magic system. There are five realms of magic: earth, air, fire, water, and necromancy. And you have so many points of mana that you can use to cast your magic. Each spell costs a certain amount of mana when cast. This way, you can keep casting fireball as many times as you want until you run out of mana. I had my right mouse button mapped to my fireball spell, so I could left-click to attack with my sword and right-click to cast my fireball. There are a total of 100 spells in game, and don't forget that any character can learn any spell. This system of magic casting I found to be far more flexible and fun than D&D based games. There is also an extensive alchemy system for creating potions, gems, and traps, but I haven't tried it yet.

Another really cool feature of this game is what is called stacking. If you find more than one sword of the same type, then instead of selling the ones you don't need, you can stack them. What this means is that if you stack one sword on top of the other, it merges into one sword that is suddenly more powerful and can do more damage. You can also stack armor and spells. I have never played a RPG game that let you do this before, and I just love this feature. This way you can create really powerful items from a very simple item. I ended up stacking my bow to create a super powerful bow. I bought over 30 of the same bow and stacked them all to create a bow that could cause over 300 points of damage!

Finally, there is a multiplayer mode to this game. The box says that you can play online with others in a MMO setting with arena duels and cooperative play all for free. But I wouldn't buy this game for the multiplayer mode. If you really want a multiplayer game, then I would recommend World of Warcraft, Star Wars Battlefront 2, or Halo 3 (for the 360). But if you are a fan of single player fantasy RPGs, then get this game.

Two Worlds is an excellent fantasy RPG game, but it is not perfect. Like any game, there are some things that could be better. In the multiplayer mode you have more choices when starting out with your main character. You can choose male or female humans as well as other races and classes. But in the single player mode, your only choice is a human male. I think a lot of girls out there will be upset that they can't create a female character. Neverwinter Nights 2 has this game beat in that respect with a huge amount of choices for races and classes with male and female versions of every one. In NWN2, you could spend hours just creating your character. But in this game, your only choices are appearance such as eye color, hair color, and a few other things.

The interactions with NPCs were kind of limited. When you talked with someone, it locks you in to a cut-scene like interaction where your character can have a conversation. But your choices for conversation were kind of limited. Also, a lot of the NPCs looked the same. And where were all the women? The few women I found didn't even want to talk to me. They just told me to go away. The only woman I could talk to was the main character's sister, who is the hot chick on the front of the box.

Probably the thing that most needs improvement in this game is the voice acting. Unlike Oblivion where they used professional actors like Patrick Stewart to do the voices, this game's voice acting is really bad. I should have given this game a four star rating instead because of the bad voice acting. Many of the characters all sound (and look) the same, and the main character has a monotone voice (in Neverwinter Nights you can choose what kind of voice you want your character to have). This makes you just want to skip through the dialogue and then check your journal to see what your new quests are. The good thing is that you can skip through the dialogue. You only need to press escape or the space bar. Also, I am so sick of hearing the words, "methinks," "mayhap," "perchance," and other archaic Old English words.

Finally, there is one other thing that is really annoying me about this game. Even though my character has really high strength, my inventory quickly fills up and I end up having to drop many items because I can't carry them all. This has forced me to put more and more points in strength every time I advance in levels just so I can carry more equipment even though I wanted to put points in my other attributes. What good is it to find really awesome armor and weapons if I can't even carry them without having to drop other things in my inventory? As it turns out, the multiplayer version lets your horse carry an unlimited amount of items. But this feature is not available in the single player game.

When I first heard about this game, I thought "Okay, here's another RPG game with orcs, elves, and dwarfs. This has all been done before. Nothing new here." But after trying the demo, this game far surpassed my expectations. I feel like this is the RPG game that I have always wanted to play on my computer. So hopefully this review will convince you to buy this game. Despite the few things that I didn't like, Two Worlds is an excellent RPG game that is worth playing.

After buying this game, I still love it and think it is an excellent RPG game for the PC. My thanks to the people at Reality Pump for making a really good game. But the game clearly loses points for the bad voice acting and the lack of character creation choices in the single player game. Other than that, this game will keep you entertained for a long time with the open character development system, great magic system, great graphics and sound, and a huge expansive world to explore. It is definitely worth your 50 bucks. And unlike World of Warcraft and some other games, you don't have to pay an extra $15 a month to play it.

In the future, I hope that Reality Pump comes out with some updates to this game to fix the limitations and an expansion pack to add more content. I would like to see all the multiplayer options in the single player game (more character creation choices and mounts that can carry your stuff), and I would love to see flying mounts that can be ridden on. Can you imagine having a flying dragon as your mount? And to be able to fight from your dragon with a lance like in Dragonlance? One of the spells you cast is "summon wyvern," but unfortunately you can't ride on it.

PROS:
- open-class character advancement system (you can learn any skill from any class)
- huge world to explore with an open-ended non-linear quest
- great magic system with an extensive alchemy system
- the best graphics I have seen in a RPG game yet
- the best sound I have heard in a RPG game yet
- weapons, armor, and spells can be stacked to create more powerful versions
- 6 different mounts to ride and fight from
- free online multiplayer

CONS:
- limited character creation options in the single player mode (human male only)
- horse can carry unlimited items, but this feature is only in the multiplayer version
- limited choices when interacting with NPCs and bad voice acting
- most NPCs were men, hardly any women! (more hot chicks please)

Seriously, this game is loads of fun. First let me say I love Morrowind, and have put over 200 hours into Morrowind. Oblivion is like a super polished Morrowind and so after 10 hours of Oblivion I bailed, just can't do a repeat of essentially Morrowind on steroids. Now after 14 hours of Two Worlds, PC version, I'm having so much fun. It's a different feel from Morrowind and Oblivion. A somewhat more complex and interative adventure. I love how all the creatures have rather unique attacking methods. You do have to work on differing strategies. I love the magic system based on cards you find all over the world or purchase at select merchants. Cards offering you various spell casting abilities. Air, Water, Earth, Fire & Necromancy. Casting spells is easily handled with hot keys. So yes, you can hack and slash with a wide assortment of weapons via the left mouse button and cast your main spell with the right mouse button or various hotkeys. And you can rotate up to 3 weapons with the R key. The alchemy system is intuitive and darn near all ingredients can be mixed into a potion. This is loads of fun. The travel system is great, you can go by foot, by horse (buy or steal one) or by portal. You can even battle while on horseback if you level up correctly. Plus of course the horse can hold inventory. I currently have 3 horses. Horse riding is quite realistic. The map on the game is huge, but not as huge as Morrowind. In Morrowind you could take 20 minutes real time to walk from town to town. In this game no more than 4-8 minutes. Hey if that's too long, get a darn horse. The game world is inhabited by various wild animals like wolves (which attack in packs) and bears (which attack solo). That for the first 6-7 hours are pretty hard to defeat. They even respawn at night in limited numbers as ghosts (if you killed them) which is an interesting twist. The characters you meet all speak in their own voices, which is cool. Of course there are varied quests and different guilds you can join. But really the fun is in the fighting which is spaced out just enough to keep it lively and never a bore. But never overwhelming (so far no more than 8 opponents at a time.) And the terrain is very hilly, which has a nice effect. No just flat plains. And instead of just swords, arrows, knives, clubs and magic, you can learn to set various traps for your enemy like fire bombs which is a blast. Another thing I like about combat is that your opponent can knock your weapon out of your hand. This happened to me while fighting a group of skelton warriors. And caught me totally by surpise. Fighting is best handled in 3rd person, as you can easily be surrounded by enemy. But you can play the game in first person too. Overall the world has a realness to it, and since when you die your character will respawn at the nearest health temple, you don't have to play the game saving just before all major battles. Even though you can save anywhere and the autosave happens automatically before any major event takes place. Also it's cool how you can upgrade your equipment by finding the exact same equipment and putting them together as one. Works with everyting including the magic cards. Anyway, this game is lots of fun. I admit I do have a top of the line system with a Geforce 7800, and have no problems playing at 1280x960 all effects on max. I can't speak for lesser systems, but, I'm done... and expect to be having fun for another 50 hours!

This game had a lot of hype attached to it when I was first told about it in gamestop. The clerk there had asked if I liked Oblivion or any other RPGs. I had said yes. He told me it would be a little bit like Oblivion but 3rd person. I won't be discussing the similarities and differences based on Oblivion. I am just letting everyone know how I came to hear of this game.
My girlfriend had pre-ordered this for me as a gift. When I got it, I played it for hours until I beat it. Even if I do not enjoy a game, I still try my best to play it to the end, to have the full experience and full opinion. I have played a variety of games. Anything from Hitman, to Diablo, to STALKER, to Startopia, Warhammer, Fallout, all sorts of games and I enjoy every variety.
I wasn't too impressed with this. The official site had promised a change in the world of the game, based on whether you are good or evil. It talked about necromancy not being available until you discover it, along with no zombies until you "activate" the necromancy branch.
I was led on to believe many things about this game before I played it. And I would actually point out that the official site lied a LOT.
There were many pros and cons to this game.
Pros:
1. You start off weak, you really need to work on your character to fight the numerous creatures throughout the game.
2. Many different types of enemies, up to the end of the game.
3. You can kill anything. If a villager tells you about a reward and wants you to do a quest, you can actually just kill them and take it. Or anyone else for that matter.
4. You can stack weapons and armor to create stronger versions. This is great when you enjoy the look of an armor or if you want to keep a specific weapon style.
5. Very large map to play in
6. Beautiful HDR lighting to the point of realism to sun sensitivity

Cons:
1. You have a predefined character as a human male, warrior. To be anything else takes quite a few hours to actually be much of anything.
2. Bows were practically useless, as was most magic. The hack and slash way of fighting was most effective.
3. Misleading info on the actual SITE. When you end the game, whether you choose good or bad, only determines the end cutscene, after that, you are done playing.
4. Phone activation
5. So so voice acting
6. Not much to the fighting style, you swing, you swing, you swing. No combos, no variety to fighting moves.
7. Blood is horribly rendered, just a small red splotch on the screen.
8. Horse riding is very inefficent, not worth fighting on the horse itself. Hard to control while riding
9. At times the missions tended to be confusing.

Conclusion:
In the end, if I had not payed the $50 and payed around $10, I would had been happy with it. You get what you pay for. It isn't the best game out there, but it isn't the worse. I give it 4/10 overall. Not for me, even though I have played huge varieties of games, and have played many RPGs even.

Okay, i was getting told by a lot of my friends that this game was awesome, so i downloaded the demo and then got the game. The reason is very simple. I dont know why these reviewers are saying what they say about oblivion, but on my pc, its simply not true. Two Worlds' graphics blows Oblivion's out of the water. Other reasons why Two Worlds is better than Oblivion, and worth more to play:

1. The effects of the magic are so much better than oblivion, stunning graphics, and an optional auto-aim system for those of you who cant really aim a fireball. (Be careful about having it on in a town though, if you shoot magic around for fun, you can accidentally hit the town mayor as he rides past, which is generally NOT a good idea.

2. The enemies are darn smart. Besides the animals always hannging out in packs, (the ones who are supposed to, like the wolves), and coming for you 3 and 4 at a time, enemies that dont stand a chance against you realize they dont and they run away. (You should be doing a LOT of running away at first, too.)

3. YOU CAN CREATE YOUR OWN MAGIC SPELLS!!! Geez, thats enough for me.

4. I can run Two Worlds at high graphics with no problem, whereas oblivion ran at low graphics and was still very choppy in certain areas or with many enemies. In fact, the only computer ive seen that can run Oblivion with full AA and highest graphics was one that was set up with dual GeForce 8800's and 4GB of RAM. And quite frankly, Oblivion isnt worth me spending over $1000 on video cards and memory just to play with prettier graphics. O, and for those considering buying Two Worlds or Oblivion, here are my system specs to compare against:

Pentium D 2.8 Ghz Dual Core
Nvidia GeForce 7600GT
1GB DDR3 RAM, (I will have 2GB in about a month. With 2 GB you could probably turn up the AA to full, i have it at 2x currently).

5. No more hopping like a bunny rabbit! Oblivion jumping was a mockery, Two Worlds is much more realistic.

6. Awesome real world skills. My favorite one so far is kicking dust at an enemy to blind them for a crucial few seconds.

Overall, id have to give Two Worlds a 4.8 out of 5 in both the fun rating and the overall rating. There are a couple of bugs, which is inevitable when it is first released, but these should be fixed, and the game runs so much more smoothly than Oblivion. Not to mention the fact that Oblivion was notorious for its many and several times, plot ending, bugs, while in Two Worlds ive only found two so far: An unbeatable wolf, so i simply ran away, and a merchant one time where i could sell everything i had, get the money for it, and keep the items in question. I liked that bug. :)

There are a couple of cons that some people wont like. The character customization in single player, well, quite frankly, it doesnt exist.

And, as one other reviewer mentioned, you cant carry a lot of stuff in your inventory. However, this seems more realistic to me, rather than in Oblivion where you can carry like 600 pounds or something and still run. Yeah, right. The simple attempt of trying to fit the Holy Sword of Demon's Wit, The Shield of Angelic Might, Dragonslayer, and 100+ other items onto your back, well, thats just unrealistic. So you cant pick up every single item that drops. Big deal. However, this will bug some people, so i thought id mention it.

Very few games amaze me, but Two Worlds is definitely in the top 10 games ive ever played. My mouth literally dropped open when i started the demo for the first time, the graphics were so good. And when i first started it, the graphics were only at medium high with no AA. When i turned the settings up, things just got better. Ive seen Oblivion fully turned up at a friends house, and Two Worlds, on my computer, is nearly as good, and you can play it even without a supercomputer! Yea!

Before I start let me say I really wanted this game to be good, I really did. This is likely why I gave it so many chances to redeem itself, only to see it fall flat on its face.

To be fair, it does look good. On the highest quality it approaches Oblivion, almost but not quite. It does have a storyline and a plot, not good ones mind you but still more than Oblivion ever managed to offer. It offers lots of open ended play, and will keep you entertained for many hours.

Sadly, this game is completely undone by the gameplay itself. Let me elaborate. You start the game by customizing the level of ugliness you want your human male main character to have. No option for additional races or even for a female character. Just several slidebars to adjust things like hair style, lip size and whatnot. If this sounds like Oblivion, it should, this game merely uses a badly constructed, shameless ripoff of the creation system Oblivion used.

After giving up on ever making a character you can stand to look at, you may start the game. The game start off with some battle fundamentals, thus introducing you to the horribly broken system of combat. Essentially, you use the same three hit combo over and over. After finishing the combo, you will stand there uselessly for a second or two and allow the enemy to pummel you senseless, at which point you begin again. You cannot block or even fight while moving, the best you can do is hop backwards. This fancy little dodge is more of an insult than anything. Many times I attempted to jump back to avoid being hit only to be nailed anyway and stand there uselessly for a second. At times, combat is so slow and jerky you feel like you are playing a turned based game.

After seeing combat, you are then introduced to the amazing world of voice acting, or rather the lack of it. The acting is terrible and completely drags you out of the game. The use of "Thees" and "Thous" gets annoying very fast and brings you to reply "Forsooth, you all sound like morons." Shakespeare never wielded a sword, casted a fireball or met even a single troll, please don't make characters sound like him. The main characters voice is terrible. I have no idea why they casted such a terrible person for the part. After hearing him speak for more than three seconds I would have scratched the voice portion of the game altogether.

The world of the game is rather large, so horses are provided for your use. Sadly, I don't think the game designers have ever been near a horse. They handle terribly, react slowly, and get stuck on nearly every object you encounter. They even come to a full stop when you try to run downhill. The horrible bugginess of the horses in the game finally caused me to swear the things off and walk from that point on.

While the list of things I hated about the game can go on for hours, I think I will bring up one last killing fact then call it good. Game balance. I really dislike the fact that I could wade through an entire melee against countless enemies completely unscathed only to catch one arrow in my plate-armored back and be killed instantly. Or worse, to be attacked by enemies that can kill you in one hit. These two events happen about five to ten minutes into the game by the way.

Wrapping up, Two Worlds had the potential to become the next Oblivion. The addition of a plot and storyline was exactly what Oblivion needed, and I had hopes that this game would do it. The complete failure of creating a sensible battle system or even balancing the weapons and monsters makes this game gut-wrenching to sit through. Add the last blow to the head known as terrible scripts and voice acting, and you get one amazing pile of salty garbage which we may now call Two Worlds.

I was all hyped by this game after reading about it on the net. I foolishly pre-ordered it thinking it might be a fun hack'n'slash like Diablo or Sacred.

I was wrong.

For an RPG, you have one choice and one choice only in the singleplayer game. Male. Human. That's it.

There are no classes. No races. You can allocate points to different skills but your combat will come down to this for every fight, I'm not kidding. Right click (fireball), rclick, rclick, rclick. Out of mana. Sword/staff L click, L click, L click.

You can't target mobs. You can't change targets. The game targets for you. You cant click a body to loot it. You have to walk up to it, an 'eye' appears and you hit the spacebar to interact with it. There is no mouse pointer on the screen at all. I hate not having control over what I want to do in a game. Let me choose my target, please.

The mobs, and boy the variety you'll see (wolves, bears, and boars), all come in packs of 5 or more. You won't find a single mob in this game it seems. The graphics are subpar. I read somewhere this graphics engine was being developed in 1998. Believe me, it shows.

The sound..I could go on and on about the sound. Suffice it to say, if you have a Creative card, GOOD LUCK getting it to work. I finally manged to, don't ask me how. The FAQ suggests (get this), removing your Creative driver and going back and using the ol' MS generic drivers as a fix. I guess they really are thinking in 1998, eh?

The quests aren't fun, the voiceovers are horrid, and fighting from mounts? Good luck controlling your mount or steering it. You'll dismount for ALL of your combat you'll get so fed up with it.

I'm not trusting any new SOUTHPEAK for any games again. No more eastern european game designers for me. I'm done with them. They've always dissapointed me (Beyond Divinity anyone?)

Trust me..pass this one by.

As one of the reviewers recommended, I tried out the demo version. Based on the demo, I purchased the game and have not regretted it. Incidentally, the game is better than the demo. Although reviews for Two Worlds tend to reflect two extremes, it seems that most of those people who don't like the game have either played the game on a console or not read the game manual. If the reader can avoid falling into either of those categories, this game is definitely worth considering. This review is based on the PC version, release 1.6. I've played it about 10 hours at this point.

Environment: The game environment is very realistic. Clothing, weapons, buildings, roads, and plant life all show that someone put a lot of time into the design. This is one of those games that you enjoy just walking around and looking at the scenery.

Unfortunately, you will not do much looking at scenery in the beginning, since you are almost constantly being attacked by something or someone. Although the towns appear to be populated at realistic levels, the wilderness is filled with wolves, boars, bears, bandits, and a variety of other hostiles. There always seems to be something nipping at your heels. As you travel further from the game's starting point, this seems to become less of a problem.

The game provides regular day/night cycles along with frequent weather changes. Some of the weather, such as thunderstorms, is very realistic. The only minor issue here is that the weather tends to change too fast. In Two Worlds you may have several different types of weather each day.

The game world is large--not Morrowind large, but it will take you a long time to travel from one end to the other on foot. Fortunately, there are portals that allow you to teleport between places you have already been.

There are a lot of items in this game world. The plethora of minerals, plants, objects, weapons, and other items will have you making constant decisions regarding what to do with them. This adds a lot of depth to the game, so if you like experimenting with alchemy, magic, or weapon power-ups Two Worlds is a great sandbox to play in.

Control: Character control is excellent. If you do not have a weapon readied, you can play in a first or third person perspective. When you ready a weapon, the game will switch you to third person perspective. You can zoom the camera in third person mode to select a view you prefer. In this respect the game is nearly perfect. I cannot recall an instance where I could not see and control the character exactly as I wanted to.

I rode several horses and fought from them as well. I have read that the horse control is bad, but it does not seem to be the case with the 1.6 version. I would be more critical if this was a horse racing game or something, but as an interesting diversion in a fantasy-based RPG, the horses are OK.

The game controls character stats, inventory, magic, maps and quest logs, etc. in its own way. As I mentioned before, this is one game where you really should take the time to read the manual. Although the manual is large (130 pages), it is easy reading and the information it contains will clear up a lot of potential confusion.

Game mechanics: Unlike some RPGs, this one is not a click fest. Your character needs to move and deliver combinations of blows and magic spells to survive. In this sense, Two Worlds is a "fighting game." There are a lot of possible combination moves and fighting techniques, but the player does not have many of them at the beginning. You have to meet "trainers" to unlock these skills. Those who find themselves getting killed a lot in the beginning are probably trying to "mouse click" their way to victory and only use ¼ of their character's fighting capabilities. I had some practice by playing the demo, so by the time I started playing the full game, I had little difficulty keeping my character alive. I would guess it will take most people anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours of game play to get proficient with the combat system.

The magic system is excellent and flexible. The player starts out having basic training in two of the five schools of magic. The player can then level up in a school of magic rather than leveling up a particular spell so whole groups of spells can be enhanced. Incidentally, there is a lot of "overlap" in the spells used by the different schools, so in practical terms the 5 schools are more like 2 schools. Using a card system, the spells in the same school can be combined in various ways to form different spells. Further, "booster" spells, which can apply to spells of all schools, can be added to gain enhanced effects.

Storyline: I have spent very little time playing the main quest as yet, but most of the side quests seem to tie into events that spin off of the main quest.

There are many factions in the game. As a generalization, everyone claims that their group is the good guys. The game employs a "political intrigue" sub-plot, so it is difficult to know who you should trust.

Sound: The music is great, although there is not enough of it to keep from repeating quite a bit. If you get tired of it, the solution is easy: turn down the music volume.

Some critics have complained about the dialog, but it is no worse than many dubbed movies. If anything is lacking, it is the character animation during the dialog, and it was good enough to advance the plot.

So how good is the game overall? I rate it 5 out of 5 even though the game has a mildly steep learning curve and some unconventional ways of doing things. If you have a reasonably strong PC and read the game manual, you should enjoy the experience.

TWO WORLDS REVIEW October 4, 2007

PROS: Really cool visuals such as monsters, terrain, buildings, people, etc. Nice sounds, decent armor and neat weapons with upgrades. This game has many side missions with treasures and magical special effects.

CONS: The dialog could have more variety, authentic medieval armor is lacking, angelic (good) spirits are missing from the magic world, more modesty for Kira, the horse riding has some quirks.

This is the first RPG I've played and I love it. The character can be played as an upright guy or as a scoundrel or somewhere in between in every mission. The game has gorgeous landscape, buildings, caves, water, flora and fauna. Lots of bad guys and monsters to kill and loot to claim! The character's abilities noticeably get better, such as how he uses his weapons or magic, as he upgrades his skills. Different types of bad guys and creatures need to be taken down with different types of weapons (by piercing, slashing or bludgeoning) which means you need to acquire various weapons to succeed.

The armor and weapons can be changed and upgrade as money and/or chance loot allows. Most of the characters in the game have more Roman style armor than medieval. While the weapons have a great variety, the same cannot be said about the clothing/armor. The game does offer the leather, chain mail, partial armor and full armor types of clothing, but the choices within each of these four basic categories look very similar in style. I wish they could have included within each category a variety of more authentic looking middle to late European medieval clothing/armor. It would have been nice also to have a color choice button that one could change at any time whatever color (solid or two-tone) one wanted (within reason) for one's own style of clothing/armor. After all the Black Knight wants black leather clothing (when he is traveling around) and black armor (when he is fighting)! Also why can't the cool medieval Japanese-style gold armor of Ashos be purchased in Ashos?

Another suggestion would be that the storage compartment where one stores loot and goods should be divided into two sections: one for those items that you want keep and use and the other where you just store those items that you intend to sell.

The missions are many and at times a bit confusing, but so is real life. I like the way people react to you. A much larger repertoire of dialogue however is needed. Also the game ought to add children and women with babies and sounds that go along with kids and parents even as a background sound which would be a nice added touch in the larger towns, villages and castles.

I've had this game two weeks and I found myself playing 5-6 hours in a snap, going to bed way after midnight. It is so fun and engaging with new adventures everywhere! The visuals are great with stars filling a moonlit night sky. At times I just stop and look at the scenery from a mountain top - truly beautiful!

Thanks South Peaks for Two Worlds! Aside from cons above, I'm looking forward to having many adventures in this terrific game and hope for a future expansion pack or two!

Ok, I have read some of the horrible reviews for this game. One even said that Southpeak should be sued. How ridiculous. Of course people are comparing it to Oblivion. There is no comparison because they are not the same game.

Ok, here goes:

Character Creation: Not so good. There aren't enough choices, only one sex(so females won't be interested), and the tweaks don't seem to make much of a difference.

Graphics: Pretty damned good, although the NPCs are pretty cheesy. The terrain is awesome. The weather effects are nice, too.

Sound: Pretty good, but the acting is kind of lame. There is a bit too much Olde English chatter, like, "Well met, Aye.", and "prithee" and all that stuff.

Quests: Not too bad, they are pretty easy, and quick. You can get a lot done in a short amount of time.

Combat: I love the combat system. it's easy, fast, reactive, and just plain fun. You have games like WoW that you have to press "buttons" on the screen to do stuff, whereas here you just mouse your opponents to death. It has a more realistic feel, like you are really killing things, rather than the game taking care of the killing. Left click for melee and right click for magic. Nice, very nice.

The story: The story is pretty good, though way too short, and the ending is TERRIBLY simplistic. There are two outcomes. The ending cut scenes are cheesy, and short. I would say that the ending is quite a disappointment. I have noticed that with many games, of late. Final Fantasy usually had good endings. You would think that other game companies would take lessons.

The World: The world is HUGE. I finished the game and didn't even see an 8th of it. I saved just before the end, and now I am traveling the whole map. I like the fact that you can kill whole villages, and not get in too much trouble from the local cops. Oblivion always has one recurring cop. It pisses me off.

Weapons and Armor: There are tons of different weapons to use. I love the fact that the weapons and armor are stackable. If you find a good strong sword you can make it more and more powerful by stacking the same sword over it every time you find another one. You can get create REALLY powerful stuff by killing off towns and looting everything in site. It's fun. You finish whatever quests need finishing, then kill everyone!!

All in all it is a fun game, especially if you like to run around killing things. I can't wait for Two Worlds 2 to hit the stores.

BTW, I happen to be very picky about my games, so for me to enjoy this one means a lot.

I really liked this game from the start. If I had done a review after just a few hours of game play, I'd be tempted to give it 4 stars, but the AI is too week to make it compelling over time. I want to love it, but the initial 'this is a blast' feeling wears off about 7 hours into the game. I think its because the AI enemies have little variety in there attacks. So one tactic fits all.

It basically comes down to if the enemy swarms you with 3 or 4 units, you have to run away, until only 1 is chasing you. Then take out the 1st unit, go back to the camp and repeat. Taking out one at a time. This is the game tactic throughout for the most part, whether you play archer, mage,melee, or combo.

I do like the fact the monsters don't regenerate. About 5 hours in, it gets old facing packs of wolves. Some groups of 4 will chase for about a scale mile of map. There isn't enough variety of monsters really. Technically, there are wolves, grey wolves, silver wolves, but in the end there all wolves. Just some are tougher than others. Same with grom and so on.

I like how you can stack multiple similar weapons to upgrade them and the magic system is nice. Tons of loot, but upgrading only works well if the AI is strong enough that you need upgrading. You really don't need to use the alchemy or too many skills to beat the AI. The AI is sluggish, a monster will often chase after you and then pause without striking. Allowing you to draw a bow right in its face and just keep doing quick draws and it will never hit you that way. The only thing that makes the AI tough at times, is by swarming you with 3 or 4 units. But a good AI has compelling one vs one engagements. That is what this game lacks most.

HORSES: I have yet to find a way to attack while on a horse, other than by bow and then only the first shot works, once the enemy swarms, being on foot is best. The horse is nice though just to relax and go for a ride on trails that have been cleared of monsters. It is also faster than foot. I believe it has 3 speeds, Just hit the W key once for slow, 2 for medium, 3 times for fast. Hitting the S key will drop the speed down 1 notch or stop the horse. The horse is also good for just blowing by wolves you don't want to fight. They cant catch you, and at some point you will get tired of seeing wolves in this game.

GRAPHICS: Decent and on par for 2007. The game is pretty, nice terrain, good models, not so good faces or animation.


PLUSES: -Amount of loot is impressive.
-Spell system, simple and easy to manage boosters
-Huge 32sq km game scale map is about 95% accessible. Only one town and some mountain ranges can't be navigated.
-Fun hack and slash combat
-No monster regen, so you get some quiet time to just hang out of ride a horse on cleared trails.
-Lots of conveniant teleports


CONS: -All the different classes/builds don't really matter because except for very early, the AI is too easy.
-Only 1 character type (Human Male)
-While quests determine which factions you become popular with, has no real impact on main plot.
-Managing all the loot is cumbersome. Plan on using several chests to store items.
-While the map is huge, the terrain is almost identical most anywhere you travel.
-You have to train before you can even add skill level 1 to certain spell branches, and finding the trainer is a pain.
-Simple combat gets repetitive and old.