Two Worlds II: PotFF - Review @ TCO

Dhruin

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Every few days I run a search for Pirates of the Flying Fortress reviews, because the expansion seems to have sunk without trace, and finally an English one has popped up at a site called The Controller Online. The score is 4/10 and here's a quote that sets the tone:
The exploration and boat controls are about the only redeeming qualities of PotFF. The missions are all multiple-stage fetch quests, which grow tiresome quickly. Every NPC you talk to is overly sarcastic and not as funny as they think they are. Humor has a place in games like this but when everyone, and I mean everyone, is being so obviously sarcastic it gets extremely annoying. Since the story isn’t interesting and you won’t care about the characters the only thing left is the combat and looting. PotFF doesn’t add anything in these areas but killing stuff is still fun, as it was in the main campaign. In the end, the roughly ten hour adventure won’t leave you feeling like you got your $30 worth. I’ve played a number of $10 DLC adventures that had as much or more content as this.
More information.
 
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Eh, the sarcastic humor of the game is the same as the original campaign so no surprise there. You either like it or you don't. If it falls flat for some people, it might be in part to translation and voice acting, but honestly that's somewhat of an issue for almost every Euro-RPG I've played.

I thought the story, taken as a whole was really good. It's quite a departure from the usual 'evil guy trying to destroy the world' trope. However, the best parts of it really do come at the end. It's sort of the opposite of front loaded, back loaded I guess, which is a shame because some people will probably give up before getting there.

It doesn't reinvent the game, so anyone looking at that will be disappointed. It refines a number of things though to the point where going back and playing the original campaign I miss certain aspects. I would definitely say though that how you feel about this expansion will pretty much be the same about how you feel about the base game. If you like it then you will probably like the expansion and vice versa is also true.

*Edited to add:

I thought 4.0 is rather harsh so I did some snooping around on that site to see what their general taste is. It's an XBox 360 site, not a PC gaming site firstly. I also noticed they gave Dragon Age 2 a 9.0, Daggerdale an 8.0 and meanwhile The First Templar gets a 4.0.

Seems they follow the tiresome gaming 'journalism' trend of grossly inflated scores for even very flawed releases from the large publishers while giving extremely harsh scores to smaller to mid sized publishers.

It honestly wouldn't shock me if they get freebies, invites and other press perks from the big publishers, hence want to stay on their good side, and then save up all their angst for the likes of Topware and Kalypso who don't give them a damned thing. This sort of nonsense goes on in the gaming 'press' all the time.
 
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Just to add although I didn't get that add-on (but will if the hack to stop respawns in the original game works)...
I don't mind sarcasm anywhere, especially in a game where you meet - pirates. Of course there will be sarcasm everywhere, what did they expect? Anyways, the whole review definetly feels if they had to slice and dice the expansion, but covered it up by mentioning some "boat controls" as a positive thing - like anyone actually cares for controls in a RPG. I bet if there was no sarcasm, they'd write "this sux as there is no sarcasm" just to maintain a negative tone.

Anyways, the expansion perhaps deserved only 4, as I sdaid I didn't play it, but that review wasn't fair towards it.
 
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These seem much more positive: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/two-worlds-ii-pirates-of-the-flying-fortress

Although there are only three reviews on metacritic right now (one short of providing a score), the average score is 86.

I haven't played either the base or expansion. I've been waiting for a Divinity II: DKS type re-release to come out and then be really cheap on Steam. I figure I'll be able to buy the whole package for probably 15-20 this winter.
 
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I basically liked it - I'm not done yet. If you enjoyed the main game, I'd say this was a little better.
 
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The sarcastic humor of the game is the same as Mass Effect games were you pick something serious and the character says the opposite. To many WTF moments. I dont like it but you can ignore it.
 
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The sarcastic humor of the game is the same as Mass Effect games were you pick something serious and the character says the opposite. To many WTF moments. I dont like it but you can ignore it.

Except that site gave Mass Effect a 9.5 which is pretty damned near perfect and completely ignored the sarcastic humor there and in DA2. Couldn't be because they are EA games. :rolleyes:
 
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Are we really saying the writing in 2W2 is the same quality as Mass Effect /2? Really?

I don't know. It would be hard for me to say without playing 2W2 in the original language (German I think?) but I don't really care personally for the new era Bioware humor and I certainly don't think ME2 and DA2 are 9.5 and 9.0 games respectively.

Personally, I think the whole ME series is overrated. It's fine if people like them but giving EA games all 9.0+ kind of skews their whole scoring for me.
 
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Are we really saying the writing in 2W2 is the same quality as Mass Effect /2? Really?

No only saying the choice you pick isn't the line that your avatar says.
 
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Are we really saying the writing in 2W2 is the same quality as Mass Effect /2? Really?

Your shocked by this, why? Totally laughable I know, the writing on mass effect 2 is light years beyond two worlds 2.
 
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It would be hard for me to say without playing 2W2 in the original language (German I think?) […]

Really? I don't what that has to do with anything. If it is scintillating in German, that doesn't change my experience one iota (by the way, the developers are Polish but the script was co-written by TopWare in the US to help avoid translation issues).

[…] but I don't really care personally for the new era Bioware humor and I certainly don't think ME2 and DA2 are 9.5 and 9.0 games respectively.

My mind boggles that anyone honestly thinks the quality of the writing in these two are close. I'm by no means a Mass Effect fan and can find plenty of flaws but characters like Mordin, Thane and Kasumi (and their related quests) are so far ahead of 2W2 they aren't even playing the same sport, let alone in the same ballpark.

I don't really care what scores ME2 and DA received - how does that change the relative quality of writing versus 2W2?

Personally, I think the whole ME series is overrated. It's fine if people like them but giving EA games all 9.0+ kind of skews their whole scoring for me.

Sure. I get you think you the universe is out of balance because some websites overrated ME2 but it still doesn't change that the writing is light-years (yes, light-years) ahead of 2W2. I'm not saying 2W2 doesn't have other redeeming qualities that make it better than ME2 overall or even that this review isn't too harsh but even if the humour is similar (??), BioWare executed the writing that much better.
 
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Even as native german I don't think 2W and its sequel would win any award for its writing. Only played the first one until today, but its strengths clearly does not lie in the dialog. They took some good voice actors, but the dialog itself isn't above average, even in german. Its usual rpg small talk. Just my 2 cent.

Mass Effect isn't my alltime favorite game either, but for me the story and writing clearly was more affecting than in 2W.
 
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Man... Comparing 2W2 with ME2 is a bit unfair don't you think?
Start with ME2 being almost a pure shooter with rare RPG elements, continue with the fact it's actually partybased, and end it with the money invested in it.

While I honestly enjoyed it, ME2 IMO doesn't deserve 9.5. But it really doesn't matter when we're talking about 2W2. Dunno honestly with what to compare 2W2, but that's definetly not ME2.
 
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They took some good voice actors, but the dialog itself isn't above average, even in german.

I second the good voice acting (very good, IMHO), but I think the dialogues also had a certain real-life quality to them. Not this Biowarish larger-than-life stuff. Ordinary people living ordinary lives, talking in a casual way. This ain't bad in my book.
 
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Even as native german I don't think 2W and its sequel would win any award for its writing. Only played the first one until today, but its strengths clearly does not lie in the dialog.

I often found the NPC dialogs rather poor as well.

I found the NPC's "head-bobbling" far worse.

What might have had an inflkuence, though, is that translation might distort things.

Especially east european games seem to have aquired a certain (rather bad) reputation for it ...
 
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Well, since I started PotFF and then quickly decided to start over with a new character in 2W2, I can't fully comment on the expansion. However, the voice acting isn't really that bad in 2W2. It gets the job done. My most recent Bioware game is Dragon Age, and while the dialogue is much better in that game than in 2W2, it's only better if you're comparing it to a movie or something. Dialogue in Bioware games feels like a script, whereas dialogue in 2W2 feels like something that Joe Blow might say. Ever played PNP rpgs? The dialogue is MUCH closer to 2W2 than it is to Bioware.
 
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I wonder how many of you have actually played some of the games you talk about.
 
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Honey, if I didn't play something I say I didn't. I've played ME2, finished it, couldn't be arsed to replay it with a different character as it's not really RPG so it's practically collecting dust till I get brave enough to make a con over eBay on someone or I'll just trash it - and it doesn't deserve 9.5. Another game mentioned up there as an example of high marks is Daggerdale - but I haven't played it and I can't say anything about it. So I didn't say anything about it.

Now, instead of wondering, how about saying what do you think about PoTTF (if you played it), about the quality of the review (doesn't matter if you played anything in your life - besides a review is there to tell you things about a game you haven't played yet, right?) and about ME2 since it's appearing a few posts here.
 
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Jesus, internet arguments bla bla bla.

It's a different kind of game, I was just hesitant to say how the writing is since I thought it was somewhat obscured by the translation (apparently not if they wrote it in the US) and delivery by the actors. Plus I had read some comments by Germans that they thought the German dialog was better than the English.

Of course a game with all the resources of EA and which the writing is the cornerstone of the entire game and there is far more of it is going to come off more polished. The writing is kind of the whole point of those EA games and it's not for 2W2. I thought it was fair enough for what it was but no, it's no going to win any awards.

As for the scale of rating the EA games, yes, it matters, because if those scores are ridiculously inflated to near perfect levels then in my opinion it makes the scale useless and discredits the site. Most of those supposed professional review sites exaggerate the scores of the big releases up and exaggerate the scores of the small releases down.

2W2 is not perfect but I don't think it's a 4.0. ME2 and DA2 aren't the worst games ever but I don't think they are 9.0-9.5 either.

I wonder how many of you have actually played some of the games you talk about.

That is extremely presumptuous. Everyone takes different things out of games and has different tastes. If someone else's doesn't line up with yours it's hardly evidence they didn't play something.
 
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