• Posted February 10th, 2011 at 07:02 EDT by Adam Dolge
• 6 Comments

Review Score

Two Worlds II

PSU Review Score

6.0

Avg. user review score:

7.8

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Summary

Two Worlds II is one of the most broken games that we actually enjoyed. There are heaps of problems, including shoddy controls, dreadful graphics, stiff animations, and atrocious voice acting, but RPG buffs will enjoy the addicting loot system and superb character development.

We like

• The ability to break down and modify loot
• The superb spell creation system
• The neat lock-picking mini-game

We dislike

• Lousy graphics, animations, and voice acting
• Unresponsive controls and poor button mapping
• The utterly pointless story

See PSU's review on Metacritic & GameRankings

Let me set the record straight right away. Reality Pump’s Two Worlds II is a fundamentally broken game. The controls are flawed, the story is virtually nonexistent, the graphics are a generation too old, and the game is riddled with bugs. Yet despite the in-your-face problems, the game is addicting. Of course, that could be because the market is thirsty for a good open-world action-RPG, or it may be so addicting because every once in a while we get the urge to spend countless hours leveling up a faceless character, crawling through dungeons, and looking for the most elite loot. After the addiction wears off, and you notice you’ve spent the last three hours questing, you may take a break and try and remember what you are doing this for. We don’t mean why you are playing the game, but what the heck your character is trying to accomplish; what was that big overall mission.

The game looks mildly sharp. There are some glitzy moments where you can really appreciate the detailed shadowing effects, but when that shine decays you’ll quickly notice the ugly graphics. Just because a game has poor graphics doesn’t make it a bad game, but in regards to Two Worlds II, the lame character models and lack of scenery details draws attention away from the action. That’s not to say the action is really intriguing, but it has its entertaining moments. Sadly, the animations are worse than the actual graphics. Nothing looks natural, especially in regards to combat. Enemies move so rigidly that you would think every opponent was a skeleton. All the characters look the same, and if you are expecting to see lips move during dialogue, it’s best you look elsewhere.

There is very little story to be found in Two Worlds II, for better or worse. Just like we said about the graphics, the lack of a decent narrative doesn’t necessarily make a game bad, but in a RPG, you sort of need to care about your character’s mission. What's present is basic: a big bad wizard has your sister, and you have to go get her. The Orcs rescue you, and luckily there is a nice bit of peace between humans and Orcs. It is a typical fantasy story, but it lacks interesting characters, compelling sub-plots, or just a general reason why we should care. After several hours into the game, we actually forgot our main objective.

The voice acting is pretty terrible, but what’s worse is that the game is so bugged that you’ll miss important conversations because the sound will just completely cut out. Sometimes your character will talk to someone, but the person you are speaking with decides not respond. Actually, that’s not true; the character will respond but you won’t get to hear what they said and the game moves on. There's a bit of good news in the sound department: the music is pretty good. It’s varied, lively, entertaining, and overall quite pleasant.

Controlling your would-be hero comes with its shares of difficulties. The biggest gripe we have in the controls department is that there are too many actions assigned to the same button. For some reason L2 controls about half of your actions — sprinting, blocking, making your horse run, aiming your bow, and moving stealthily. Your actions here depend on whether you have a weapon drawn, and if you are moving or standing still. The game probably controls well on a PC, but that doesn’t mean anything for the PlayStation 3 version. Your character also has a tendency to go a little beyond what you command. For instance, if you want to walk up to a shopkeeper, make sure you stop well short as to not walk into him and thus draw attention of the guards.

Maybe it’s because the controls are so poor, or maybe it’s because the game is just flawed, but ... (continued on next page)

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