Two Worlds

"lol, just....lol"

The Elder Scrolls faithful have long waited for a worthy competitor to Bethesda's epic open-ended RPG series. This is not because we seek a game better then the Elder Scrolls series but because the open ended RPG format is a flavor we have come to relish in video games and one that appears with all too much rarity – especially in the presence of the ever popular MMO genre. To this group of gamers, Two Worlds was kind of a big deal. Like Fable before it, Two Worlds made promises of being worthy competition for The Elder Scrolls. Like Fable before it, however, Two Worlds fails (considerably) at meeting expectations. Unfortunately for Two Worlds it is unlike Fable insofar as it simply isn't a very good game. Fable we could excuse for Molyneaux being a liar since it was excellent, albeit short. Two Worlds will brook no such excuse, at least not from this reviewer. Forsooth!

Almost everything (I say almost as there are one or two bright spots which I will mention later) about the game screams cheap knockoff. The graphics are a feeble attempt at next-gen styling at best. Oh, to be fair, the backgrounds do look better then something one might see on an original Xbox game…but not by much. The character models are laughable at best, hardly more detailed then what might have been found in the aforementioned Fable. The main engine, too, feels as though it is knocked off from Fable. Structures and such resemble that game closely and while some of the lighting effects are impressive (and a sign that yes, indeed, this is a next-gen game) they are hardly fair competition for any one first generation Xbox 360 game. There is simply no excuse for the fact that this game, which comes out well over a year after the release of Oblivion, should look WORSE than that game. Oh wait, there is one excuse – sloppiness. Really, one might criticize the mangled quest system or the ridiculous user interface (and I will, trust me, I will) but nothing is the more perfect representation of how sloppy Two Worlds is then it's so called next-gen visuals.

Now, as to the user interface. You know, Morrowind worked very well on the original Xbox. Sure, the interface was lifted almost exactly from it's PC counterpart and one could tell that it was meant more for a keyboard and mouse then an Xbox controller but hey, Bethesda made it work while at the same time creating a legion of console fans who want to play this type of RPG. Here's a tip for Reality Pump – we like the type of game you tried to make but don't insult us with a sloppy port. If you can't be bothered to make a decent one, don't make it at all. This extends to the laughable 360 multiplayer (at least something positive can be said about the PC multiplayer). The interface, as I more or less have stated, is clearly designed for the use of a mouse , right down to the way the mouse cursor appears in all the menus. Unfortunately you have little control over this cursor as instead of allowing you to move it dynamically with one of the control sticks, it stiffly moves between items (and usually doesn't respond very well) making it very troublesome to maneuver. The inventory screen isn't too bad but trying to work the map and quest log screen is something of a joke. It's already easy enough to get lost in a game of this scope, something about making the quest log hard to use just doesn't seem like a very good idea to this reviewer. In the game's defense, the map is somewhat helpful with clearly labeled waypoints – a much more useful feature then the cumbersome journal of Morrowind. The minimap on the main screen is somewhat helpful as well.

As Gamespot's Brett Todd pointed out in his official review of the game the 360's text is ridiculously small. Trying to play Dead Rising on a standard definition TV was less troublesome then this. Another hint to Reality Pump – know the console your port is going to be for. The 360 made most of us go out and buy HDTVs. Now having a game that frankly, looks a whole heck of a lot better on a PC monitor or smaller screen is just irritating. Still, perhaps its unfair to write this up as a drawback. Perhaps this game is the answer that SD 360 gamers have been waiting for. I'm not going to bother dragging an SDTV into my room just to see how this looks on an SDTV but who knows – it can't be any worse then on my HDTV. Again, to be completely fair, the text isn't completely unreadable (alright, so I clearly exaggerated with my Dead Rising comment) so you'll still be able to play the game…and considering how laughably bad most of the dialogue is you may want to do just that for the cheese factor.

And on that note, let's chat about the dialogue for a moment. Now, ordinarily I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to a video game plot. I mean, let's face it – the plot is usually just a paper thin excuse for why you're doing whatever it is the game is nudging you into doing. Games with truly great plots are rare gems. Not that I don't think more developers should strive towards writing great stories but I AM forgiving. Two Worlds presents the standard generic fantasy plot – which in and of itself isn't necessarily a pro or a con. Give a good excuse for exploring the world and I really wouldn't care what the premise was. Where the plot fails is in the dialogue. Now, when I say fails I mean to say that the dialogue is bad. However it isn't bad in a, “God, please kill me” kind of bad. No, no, that would make you turn the game off and at that point I wouldn't have much to say about it. Instead it is bad in the sense of ridiculously cheesy. Yes, the dialogue in Two Worlds is possibly the funniest voice acting I've heard since the glory days of Resident Evil – it is THAT bad. What I wouldn't give for Mike (or Joel, either way) and the bots to be sitting along side me as I play the game for a good natured riffing . One the other hand, since it's so hard to keep a straight face while the characters chat in their little pseudo medieval lingo that I at least know I'm having a great time.

Protip for Reality Pump, if you want to copy another developer's game then try at least to improve upon that formula. Saint's Row might have been a knock-off but at least it was a good knock off that answered to some of the frustrations that GTA fans had. The dialogue in Oblivion SIMPLY DID NOT WORK. It doesn't work here either, where you'll find the exact same thing. In fact, the half-witted dialogue choices are even worse in Two Worlds when you come to realize that the random NPCs have even less to say then the Oblivion NPCs did and, at the very least, Oblivion's supposed AI made those NPCs do something that might be described in some sense as interesting. Here the world is just flat and boring.

Now, in some sense I'm being disturbingly unfair to Two Worlds. It is a sloppy game but it isn't necessarily a dull game. Combat tends to fall to how quickly you can jam down the right trigger to swing your weapon but gameplay isn't so bad as to make you shut off the game. No, Two Worlds is very playable, if for no better reason then you'll keep laughing every time you hit a cut scene. It does deliver on one promise and that is there is an open-ended game world. If you're up for exploring then there is some exploring to do. I suspect that the fact that on some basic level it does deliver the type of game that RPG gamers have hungered for is the reason it has garnered reviews a bit better then it deserves. With Oblivion the only real competition to Two Worlds it becomes remarkably easy to become forgiving of the game's heavy flaws.

Now, there is one bright spot to the game. It has one of the best musical scores I have heard in a long time. Fantastic music seems to almost be a mandatory requirement for sweeping fantasy epics and in this category Two Worlds doesn't fail to deliver. From the opening menu screen, with it's great track, the music consistently sets the mood throughout the game and, at times, can make Two Worlds seem a whole lot better than it really easy. It's too bad the sound track wasn't made available with the game because it's a great one, certainly better then the average video game score. On this element at least I can say that Reality Pump is “with it”.

For the sake of brevity I'll draw this review to a close and try to summarize my feelings on Two Worlds as best as possibly, “incredibly sloppy, but playable”. I'm sorely tempted to give the game a five out of ten and be done with it but for the incredible music I would argue that Two Worlds manages to be just above mediocre and for that I give it a six out of ten.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/07

Game Release: Two Worlds (US, 08/23/07)