Risen - Review Flood #6

Circa 20 links today. Not all are reviews though. Conclusions: (1) The early negative reviews are on the retreat, (2) the French love Risen and (3) Ninjas are weird.

PCGames.de has a detailed graphics shoot-out - Risen vs. Gothic 3. Other articles benchmark Risen with activated AA, explain the different resolutions & detail levels, and show graphics top & flops.

• gmx.net posted a licensed review we've seen before. The same as on magnus.de, among others.
• Gameplayer.se doesn't particularly like Risen. No quote because my Swedish is a bit rusty. - 6/10 (PC)
• Jeux Video Network gives Risen 16/20. "Risen, it should be liked such as it is: impassioning, realistic, envoutant, but often discouraging and frustrating. Piranha Bytes however succeeded in offering a rare and invaluable experiment to us: impression to evolve/move in an alive world, in which one wants to lose oneself during tens of hours." (Babelfish) - (PC)
• German Radio Station 1Live thinks the game is a "raving success". The rating is split into categories. It should translate to the high 80s to low 90s. (PC)
• ComputerAndVideoGames.com recycles the PC Zone UK / GamesRadar review. 8.5/10, as you might remember. (PC)
• GamersAgainstRejection.de enjoyed it. - 87% (PC)
• CheatHappens says "Risen isn’t a great game due to a few nagging issues, but it is a fun and deep roleplaying experience that is sure to surprise a few folks." - 8/10. (PC)
• EveryEye.it seems to think it's a hard game, rewards exploration and offers a little bit of humor. - 8/10 (PC)
• play.tm isn't overly enthusiastic: "Only the truly dedicated RPG player will persist through to the bitter end of Risen, as there's a great deal of perseverance required to even make it through the first section without tearing your hair out. The combat really lets the side down and the 360 visuals leave a lot to be desired, but stick with it and Risen will eventually suck you inexorably into its uniquely absorbing fantasy world."
• Polish site Gry-Online published a very detailed review and rewarded Risen with 89%. (PC)
• Critical Gamer found out that "Your character seems to only have one attack animation and blocking is crude and largely ineffective" and "We have decided that we’ll wait for Fable 3." That's probably a good idea. - 5/10 (XBox 360)
• games xtreme gives the XBox 360 conversion a solid 7.5/10. Looking at this review I have some sort of deja vu. We might have seen it before.
• Player4Ever is in line with the other French sites. "Gameplay: 18
  On retrouve avec plaisir tous les éléments du gameplay de la série « Gothic » : des combats dynamiques aux systèmes de progression. Les nombreuses quêtes et la qualité de l'IA font de Risen un excellent jeu d'aventure." They criticise a couple of technical flaws and the focus on Gothic fans. - 17/20 (PC)

(more ..)

Your character seems to only have one attack animation and blocking is crude and largely ineffective

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Another retarded reviewer. Hey mister reviewer, find just about any creature in the game, hold up your shield, and keep facing the creature. Let me know if you ever get hit. Moron.

There may be a great game there under the surface, but frankly, I don't have the patience to slog through to try and find it, and I don't suspect many other gamers will either.

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Excellent. Here's a fun one too:

Your heart surgon, during your quintuple bi-pass surgery: "It's been 10 hours and we're only on the 2nd bi-pass and we've got 3 more to go. I don't have the patience to slog through to try and repair them, and I don't suspect many other heart surgons will either."

That's some fantastic logic there to justify such a disservice to their readers. And people get paid for this wow...

Well the sweden reviewer seems to have just smashed the attack button and he seems to bash the fact that more then one enemy at the time can attack you.

He also dislike that you misstakenly can attack a NPC if you have your weapon drawn.

And the lack of "Joke spells" is also a problem. I however have never needed to use one. And i am only 20+ hour in the game right now.

It seems the guy reviewing the game was thinking he was playing an Action RPG.

However he thinks the game looks good and the story is good and that it's old school.

Reading the review, knowing the Gothic game serie, i would have run to the store buying it … but … now i already bought it so i don't need to do it!

I've read several reviews which clearly indicates that the reviewer didn't played the game through or even more than 1 hour or so.

This is a good example:

Your character seems to only have one attack animation and blocking is crude and largely ineffective

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That's true at the START, but eventually you will gain new attack, thus have lot of animations.

And most of the reviewers didn't get the game at all obviously. It's like they have used to play something like Halo where you don't need to know anything. Have you already gone that dummy? And now the are fucked up, because in Risen you actually have to think. It has it flaws, but only very few of the reviews are actually putting out the real flaws. It will be interesting to see GameBanshee's review, they usually have very comprehensive reviews that point out the REAL flaws of the game.

This is clearly the sort of game that challenges the typical review process by being too long, not meeting up with standard action-RPG tropes, and actually developing as you proceed. Oh, and being unforgiving if you are stupid.

With Risen something more reviewer ego-maniacal than normal is emerging, because of the console-to-pc gamer reviewer age group divide "will sort the games review men from the boys" is becoming most relevent.
It's obvious that some so-called blogger style reviewers just can't handle Risen, though they are trying to put their own ego's on a pedestal, they are in fact tripping over their own inabillities in the process, going round in ever decreasing circles and finally disappearing up their own gaming port holes.

They are making an ass of themselves.

Here's an interesting review written by a Gothic fan. He offers some suprising thoughts.
http://www.gameobserver.com/review/inside/all-platforms/risen-298/

Thanks Gorath, that is indeed enlightening.

"In an age where cross-platforming has killed the hardcore computer role-playing game" - and -"It’s Gothic all over again"… yes indeed!

But again, the reviewer slips up by saying the "bug" word, which from a die-hard point of view is wrong.

This bit is completely subjectively contentious —>

The downside to this is that oftentimes quests go uncompleted even when you’ve met the conditions for their removal from the journal. On the other side of the coin you can sometimes find yourself prematurely completing quests and have them removed from your journal even though you haven’t even actually started them yet.
There was one instance when I was told to kill four enemy leaders that were positioned outside of the harbor town and found the entry filed under “completed” after only defeating two of them. Thirty gameplay hours and two chapters later I accidentally ran into the two remaining leaders I never got to kill and shook my head in disbelief as it gave me a second “quest completed” sign after beating them.
Another weird quest bug happened when at the very start of the game when I was told to talk to Master Illumanar, a magician in the monastery. I finally reached him near the end of chapter one, but the quest did not remove itself after I spoke with him. Instead it remained with me the entire game and was still asking to be completed as I struck the final blow on the game’s last boss.

The reviewer just does not understand about chosen path direction *quest selection* - the fool is mouse clicking the dialogues in rapid succession and ad-nauseum.

The Swedish review wasn't very good, he's spending a whole paragraph complaining about NPCs getting angry after he whacks them with his sword! He didn't seem to understand the combat system at all either.

But the Game Observer review was very good, I agree with pretty much everything he writes! Especially the part about combat vs humanoids being to enjoyable, I was really surprised and a bit amazed the first time I met the lizardmen and they could do pretty much everything I did.

That review seems to mirror my own thoughts, almost point for point.

I'm not at all bothered by the quest/journal thing he mentioned, but otherwise I think his opinion was more valid than most of the "official" thoughts about the game that I've read.

That said, I also disagree with him (and many others) about G3 - as I happen to think quite highly of Gothic 3 - even if the game was broken beyond repair. That might sound odd to most people, but aside from the horrendeous launch state and abysmal combat system - I think it's the best approach to a singleplayer freeform CRPG I've seen. I think they bit off more than they could chew, but I'd actually have preferred Gothic 3 done right - than the Gothic 1 clone that is Risen. But I DO understand how unreasonable that would be to expect of PB with a new publisher and all.

Even if Risen is still a GREAT game and the sensible choice in terms of realistic business.

I just hope PB haven't given up the notion of a larger scale game ala Gothic 3, and won't be redoing Gothic 1/2 indefinitely.

Wulf said:

slips up by saying the "bug" word, which from a die-hard point of view is wrong.

The downside to this is that oftentimes quests go uncompleted even when you’ve met the conditions for their removal from the journal.

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I haven't noticed any issues at all nor any quest problems either.

Everything is as it should be... actually, better than that. This is the first PBytes game that has not crashed - not even once. Good stuff.

Risen is in the top 10 for steam and and 1st for d2d (think it was.) The negative reviewers can eat that.

Loving the game so far.

Anyone know if Stone Tablets ever appear in harder chests? I keep trying to save Learning Points by not taking the 2nd rank in Open Locks, but am left wondering every time I can't open a chest if it contains stuff that would help me get to the 3rd Seal Magic level quicker.

DArtagnan said:

I just hope PB haven't given up the notion of a larger scale game ala Gothic 3, and won't be redoing Gothic 1/2 indefinitely.

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Actually, I hope for the opposite. I hope they keep doing smaller scale rpgs instead of trying to make Oblivion clones as G3 was. Smaller scale means more realistic worlds that actually feel alive. Location that are actually interesting to visit.

vanedor said:

Actually, I hope for the opposite. I hope they keep doing smaller scale rpgs instead of trying to make Oblivion clones as G3 was. Smaller scale means more realistic worlds that actually feel alive. Location that are actually interesting to visit.

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I think a middle-ground is not unreasonable.

Personally, I think the world of Risen is too small - and though the exploration is excellent, too much of it is tied in directly with the main storyline. It lacks the sensation of a huge world for the taking and too soon it becomes evident that the experience will be a limited one. Too soon, yes, though you do get to enjoy the illusion for several hours before realising this and I was expecting the world to be larger and the exploration to last at least a couple of playthroughs.

It's beautiful, but it lacks variety. It's a brilliantly realised setting, but in my mind - it's just not on a big enough scale to support the fantastic freeform aspects inherent in the design.

But that's me, and if you enjoy your freeform CRPGs on such a scale, then I suppose you got exactly what you wanted.

I don't think of Gothic 3 as an Oblivion clone, far from it. Many of the strengths of the previous Gothics were present. I'll grant that the story was too superficial, but I consider the main problems to be of combat imbalance and a very unfortunate technical state upon release.

Then again, I rarely play freeform CRPGs for a dense and rich story. Rather, I enjoy the idea of having an entire world that I can experience at my own pace, and that I get the sensation that it could potentially last as long as I want it to.

The demo, short as it was, sold me.

On my way to make my foolish impulse buy ... NOW!

You gotta remember where these console gamers are coming from. This game is nothing like Mass Effect or even Jade Empire. It isn't even remotely close to Final Fantasy or Star Ocean. Fable has some similarities but it's not going to prepare them for Risen. The only game on the consoles that has been anything like this one is Oblivion.

I think some of these bad reviews are more a reflection on how bad off the consoles are when it comes to serious RPGs.