Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

"Inferior to the original in almost every category."

Inferior.

Introduction:
Sacred 2 is a Hack'N'Slash Adventure Game with RPG elements in the vain of Diablo 2 or Titan Quest. However, it is also attempts to artificially emulate the gameplay of MMORPG's like Worlds of Warcraft. As Sacred 2 is not faithful to either formula it fails in both categories. The setting is a mid-evil world full of mythical creatures like the ones in the 'Lord of the Rings'. The game boasts a gigantic map, but is very difficult to navigate through. This game is very demanding on hardware requirements and was poorly programmed. Having used both a GTX280 and a GTX295 to play this game, I can safely say that as of early 2009, you aren't going to find a video card to play this game smoothly on the higher settings (if it that is even possible).

Story: 3/10
The presentation of the story toward the beginning of the game is very good. However, there is no discernable plot and the quest scripts are almost impossible to follow. For instance, there is a quest in which you are assigned to kill highwaymen (bandits) but after you kill them you are not told who to report to in order to complete the quest, making it impossible to complete the quest. That is pretty much how the rest of the game unfolds. Not a lot of fun. Worse, the location on the map that seems to indicate where many quests are resolved often does not seem to correlate with any real location in the game. It appears that there was originally going to be a fairly complex plot, but that the game was rushed together. No matter what character you pick, you will have very little idea what you are doing.

Graphics & Effects: 6/10
A major selling point of the game is the graphics. Unfortunately, as of the latest patch, the graphics represent the most poorly optimized engine I have ever experienced. The engine is similar to that of Titan Quest, but with choppy frame rates and washed-out textures. It has inferior graphics to games of this genre released three years ago, and yet requires the most advanced hardware imaginable to run on the high settings. I tried playing it on a GTX280 and a GTX295, which are among the most powerful graphics cards on the market; the game was choppy on both of them. It isn't even optimized for SLI or Crossfire. The graphics in the game simply do not match the graphics on the back of the box, even on the highest settings. I felt very cheated after paying $50 for this poor game.

Game-play : 4/10
It's a point and click adventure like Diablo 2, but the controls are haphazard and awkward. The game maps are very large and there are plenty of quests. Unfortunately, most of the quests are a tedious waste of time and detract from the flow of the game. The structure of the quests is arbitrary and pretty soon you wind up wondering around aimlessly killing things. After playing the game for a few hours, the most interesting enemies I happened upon were smurf-like kobolds. As with Diablo, you adorn your character with armor and weapons that you buy in the game or loot from characters. You also have a typical weapons stash. You can choose several different races and character classes. This was one of the high points of the game as the different character classes were very unique and appealing. However, the dwarf from Sacred was removed and I do not approve of that decision. There is a multiplayer option to the game, which I did not experiment with, but I have read in several forums that it is poor at best.

Overall: 3/10
Overall Sacred 2 was a huge disappointment. Choppy graphics. Tedious game play. Unintelligible and pointless quests. It was just a bit too ambitious in its initial scope and was rushed though development in its final stages. It tries to be Diablo with a touch of Worlds of Warcraft, but is not faithful to either formula and falls flat on its face. It boasts what could have been an extraordinary graphics engine, but due to shoddy development, the graphics due to not run smoothly and look inferior to games released several years ago.

This game will not remotely be worth your money until you can find it in a bargain bin for ten dollars.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 05/04/09

Game Release: Sacred 2: Fallen Angel (US, 11/11/08)