Two Worlds II - First Magazine Review

Finally a game who can beat Oblivion's popularity? I hope so.
 
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Was Oblivion really that popular? Sure it got great critic ratings and sold alot but how many RPGers were really that enthralled with the game. Oblivion was okay but I had more fun with 2 Worlds and Risen than Oblivion.

In any event, sans nothing noted, the Euro version seems to be stable enough to give it a go when it gets released. And not worry about the US release sometime next year.
 
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It was all about the mods.

If you haven't tried Oblivion with mods, you haven't played Oblivion.
 
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Wow well the previews were rather glowing and now this review is very positive so this is all good news!
 
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Don't put too much value into this review. Console mags are often quite optimistic if they get an exclusive, and this mag is no exception. We'll find out soon enough if other reviewers share their opinion.
 
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Was Oblivion really that popular?

It's still a very, very popular game with a huge and very dedicated community and ~hundreds of new mods every month (if you include updates to existing mods). There's even a total conversion called Nehrim which is really cool, as good or better than a commercial RPG.. Morrowind is also popular, and with the help of the community it now looks even better than Oblivion.

Looking forward to read some more reviews, but it does sound promising :)
 
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It's still a very, very popular game with a huge and very dedicated community and ~hundreds of new mods every month (if you include updates to existing mods). There's even a total conversion called Nehrim which is really cool, as good or better than a commercial RPG.. Morrowind is also popular, and with the help of the community it now looks even better than Oblivion.

Looking forward to read some more reviews, but it does sound promising :)

but popular with who??? It doesn't really get much chatter here. I mean, I know people play it but are they raving about it like the early Fallout, Gothic or Might and Magic????

I loved loved loved Morrowind (top 5 rpg of all time for me) but Oblivion just couldn't sustain my interest over the long haul. I'm playing Nehrim right now and as I get deeper into the game the Oblivion engine is starting to wear on me. Nehrim is a fantastic achievment but the game crashes on me at least once every session and studders when ever I play for over an hour. But it is free so I'm not complaining. However the excellent game world that Nehrim presents has me hungry for a well put together commercial product. (2Worlds2, I hope-hope-hope)
 
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but popular with who??? It doesn't really get much chatter here. I mean, I know people play it but are they raving about it like the early Fallout, Gothic or Might and Magic????

You just asked if it was popular, to be fair. And in the general scheme of things, Fallout and Gothic aren't really that popular outside of RPG circles (not counting Fallout 3).

Anecdotally, I have a number of friends that wouldn't know what Morrowind was if you asked by clocked well over 50 hours into Oblivion and look back on it happily - although they probably didn't download any mods and you wouldn't find them on a forum talking about it.

Oblivion from my understanding was did really well sales wise (a quick google says 1.7 million back in 2006).

If you met any of them on the street they would probably rave to you about how great it was. Though, if you brought up Fallout they would rave about how great 3 is.


As for topic . . .

Is the original Two Worlds worth grabbing on the cheap? I remember when it came out it was buggy as all hells but I think they may have fixed most of that up? I really liked Reality Pump's "Earth" RTS games but missed grabbing TW.
 
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I bought and played the first Two Worlds some time after its release, and thought it was pretty good. It made a poor first impression, but once I got used to how it looked and sounded, I found the game quite enjoyable. It reminded me of Oblivion, but far more interesting and less polished. The game world was interesting to explore, the quests and story were good enough to keep me going to the end. I'd rate it above Oblivion, but below Gothic 3. A good first attempt at the genre from Reality Pump, definitely worth grabbing if you like open world RPGs.

Kay
 
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The first two worlds received good scores too 85-90% from many european sites including german ones. They are posted on the official website. It wasnt until the english reviews that the game got ripped to pieces 66-70%.

Remembering this I wouldnt buy the game until I see english reviews.
 
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I just finished Two Worlds last night after picking it up at gog.com for 6 bucks. Definitely more than worth it, although the ending was extremely anti-climactic. I also had to force myself to finish it towards the end because I found myself losing interest once I reached god-like status (although I did enjoy being that powerful for quite a while because I know how wimpy I was through much of the beginning of the game).

The production values are very poor, and unfortunately the game opens with a drawn-out cut-scene that shows off its mediocrity in all its glory (which probably ruined the first impression for a lot of folks). But if you expect that going in and didn't pay top dollar, no biggie.

The dialog gets knocked a lot, but I didn't mind. Since the olde-english was used consistently throughout the game, I easily accepted it as the speech that's used in another world. Besides, I'm not going to complain about dialog when my favorite games growing up consisted of "Name, Job, Bye."

Combat is pretty much a click-fest, with the only strategy consisting of when to hit 'Q' to do a back-jump when the hard-hitting foes choreograph their coming blows. Definitely not its strongest point (although I didn't use archery or combat magic very much).

I found the loot system sucked me in pretty good once I figured out that most armor belongs to a set, and that you get a significant boost to all defenses when you've completed a set. Unfortunately the implementation of this was poor, as the only way to tell if something is part of a set was to look at its "Set Value" stat. But between looking for the ultimate armor and weapons (both stats-wise and looks-wise), and then trying to upgrade my stuff over time, I admit I got drawn into a loot hunt pretty good.

The game's strengths are its numerous side quests, and its exploration (at least for me). I'm such a sucker for any game that has a huge world map that's all grayed out and ready to explore, and this game proved no exception. I really liked the feeling of trotting down a road on my horse, slowing down as I approached a walled village, and slowly walking in on my horse as the gates open for me. As I talk to the guard from horseback to get a lay of the land, it just really nails the atmosphere of a travelling mercenary riding in to a new town to see what adventures folks have in store.

The numerous side quests provide plenty to do, and although most of them are nothing more than excuses to go explore another part of the map, that's usually good enough for me. The most interesting aspect is that many side quests have multiple linked parts, and you never know what tangents some seemingly-innocuous quests will lead you to.

Other pluses: Very nice fast-travel system, and great, great music. I found myself teleporting to one of the big cities fairly often to check out shop-keepers stock, mainly because I had a couple favorite tracks that were only played in cities, and I found myself craving those tunes as they continued playing in my head long after I'd shut the computer down.

I don't know what kind of game Two Worlds was when it first came out, but right now it's a very decent action RPG and I see no reason why any open-world RPG fan shouldn't buy it at a hugely-discounted price and see if it sucks you in. If it does, great, if not, then no biggie. I'm looking forward to seeing what the developers can do for an encore performance…

One suggestion if you do pick it up: Play on Hard. The game gets pretty easy after a while, but I find this is mitigated somewhat if you struggle to get to that point. Plus the death system on normal simply resurrects you at the nearest shrine with no penalty, so in practical terms you can simply throw yourself at a foe and die as many times as it takes to kill him. I find it provided a much more tense environment when I had to reload when I died (which is how death works on Hard).
 
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There was also a short review in Polish at Gamecorner.pl. As tester stated, the game is not perfect, and there are a lot of aspects he could have complained about, but... he didn't want to as he really enjoyed it and couldn't stop playing. He compared it to Civ series, which makes people think "just one more turn", except in TW2 it's "just one more level".

I can't wait :)
 
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Seriously?! Does it play better as well?

In some areas yes, in some not, if you mean gameplay. It still has to load cells, but on the other hand that's the only time it stutters for half a sec. It has many really great mods, i love the Morrowind lore, especially compared to Oblivion.

Some screens, most are kind of focused on trees becasue they've been used to show of my tree mods, but they get the job done showing how it has evolved with the use of Morrowind Graphics Extender i think:

Bitter Coast:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/35080-1-1286633508.jpg
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/143/vurtbittercoast.jpg

Grazelands:

http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/41808-1286765838.jpg
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/4198/vurtgz2.jpg

Ashlands:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/29399-1-1263851851.jpg

Solstheim:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/32210-1-1276199296.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/41808-1274038045.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/41808-1274038367.jpg

Ascadian Isles:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/29341-4-1279370381.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/57416-1276776715.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/29341-2-1279370380.jpg

Random:

http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/57416-1268761960.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/41808-1260057314.jpg
http://i37.tinypic.com/10ygcvp.jpg


Sorry for OT and screen spam ;)
 
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It was all about the mods.

If you haven't tried Oblivion with mods, you haven't played Oblivion.

I agree. I reinstalled and started adding mods after the review from this site and have been playing it nonstop. With the right mods it's really an amazing geme.
 
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Those are impressive bemushroomed. Now you modders just need to help Bethesda with their animations!
 
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There are several animation replacers for both Morrowind and Oblivion, i'm sure there are for FO3 too - i havent really payed attention to that game for quite a while.
 
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