Risen - PC Review @ Eurogamer

After the vocal response to thier 4/10 Xbox 360 review, Eurogamer have taken a stab at reviewing the PC version of Risen. Resulting in a higher grade of 6/10 but not exactly full of praise for the game.

So, sorry Risen apologists, but even when viewed in its best light, Risen simply isn't anything special. Despite being Gothic 4 in all but name, Piranha Bytes has brought little that is new to its creaking formula and the elements that are worthwhile are all but smothered under a design ethos that confuses length for depth.
Ironically, while the PC version inarguably shows up the flaws in the 360 effort all the more, it also fares far worse when compared to its peers. Consoles have relatively few RPGs in this traditional mould, but on the PC the competition is much fiercer and so well-intentioned failures are harder to tolerate. Adequate rather than inspired, Risen doesn't even match up to the polish and narrative depth of The Witcher, now two years old, so releasing it only weeks before BioWare's Dragon Age is bordering on suicidal. Patient gamers looking to tick off genre standards without being troubled by any surprises will no doubt unearth a few truffles of amusement, but in the grand scheme of things Risen barely manages to rise above the herd.

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More information.

That Whitehead guy again? Why am I not surprised?

Don't see anything wrong with the review, 6/10 isn't an unfair score if you consider the (larger than)second half of the game to be rubbish.

The first half is pretty enjoyable and solid while being nothing special but it felt like an appetizer for a larger story/game world. It was disappointing to find out those were all the towns you were gonna find and all that was left was a shitload of combat/dungeon romping.

This review is alright but just barely… and I'm judging it relative to the masses of online reviewers out there, which isn't saying much really as I loathe most of them.

There is a lot of subjectivity to his criticims. Here are a few points where I disagree:

opening with a long-winded tutorial session during which gameplay info and features are introduced in a frustratingly slow drip feed.

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An interesting spin on the opening part of the game. I felt that the 'tutorial' part of Risen was quite terse actually. And for the better.

Navigation around the sizeable map is hampered by a rudimentary map

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Navigation around the sizeable map is hampered by a rudimentary map, which makes finding quest markers more of a chore than it should be

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Again, a very subjectively defined negative on what I considered a postive. There are a lot of 'RPGs' out there that really hold your hand from point A to point B for each and every quest… and those games were crticized by a lot of online reviewers because of just that. So this is a sort of you are damned if you do and damned if you don't by the online review press out there. How many online reviews did I read condemning Oblivion of being a hand holding fest? At least 20 I'm sure.

while the game's oddball levelling system opts for the long-term grind over more inspiring goals.

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This type of comment happens recklessly on the net. The problem with a comment like this is that it can be applied to quite literally most CRPGs out there, and to ALL MMORPGS. So singling this out is strange.

So, sorry Risen apologists, but even when viewed in its best light, Risen simply isn't anything special

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Arguably the worst sentence in the review. If there is a 101 book out there on reviewing games I'm sure there would be a part in there to NOT explicitly and willfully alienate your readers… especially when the vehicle for such alienation is such a subjective comment. But, well, this IS an online reviewer so what do you expect.

The second half of the game is not rubbish at all, the beginning is a bit slow and definitely for me was the weakest point (other than the final battle) but Risen is very enjoyable in my view. I never played Gothic 1, I somewhat enjoyed Gothic 2 (though not nearly as much as Risen), and I didn't like Gothic 3 at all.

Piranha Bytes has brought little that is new to its creaking formula

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I'm a bit confused by that statement. There's really only a small handful of games that have ever used that formula. I wonder what he thinks about the 10,000 different Diablo clones out there.

KapitanUnterhosen said:

Don't see anything wrong with the review, 6/10 isn't an unfair score if you consider the (larger than)second half of the game to be rubbish.

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How do you figure that? Chapters 1&2 were great, and comprised a much larger part of the game than Chapters 3&4 did. I do agree that the latter were disappointing though.

Agreed - using the term 'fanboy' or 'apologist' in a review is asking for trouble, and shows direct antagonism that is the same sort of bias that could be ascribed to the other side.

Even though it wasn't the same reviewer, Eurogamer gave Oblivion a 10/10.

Credibility has left the building….

txa1265 said:

Agreed - using the term 'fanboy' or 'apologist' in a review is asking for trouble, and shows direct antagonism that is the same sort of bias that could be ascribed to the other side.

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Not only that, but it reads like something you'd read in a wow forum. Or worse, in barrens chat (or equivelent). Totally unprofessional and not necessary.

I actually like Ch 4. A dungeon crawl with puzzles and traps is very old skule. EoB, LoL, etc were little more!!

They should probably just drop the chapter system completely. I haven't finished the game yet (I'm in Ch 4 at the moment) but so far I have nothing against neither Ch 3 or Ch 4 - or the game as a whole.

I checked my save games - I entered Ch 3 at 28.5h of play time and reached Ch 4 at 30.5h. So Ch 3 wasn't really a full chapter in my opinion, and I had fun exploring the dungeon for the short time it took.

The previous Gothics had a similar structure. A couple of long, open chapters.. and then a very focused "finale" with short linear chapters.

6/10 is still too much IMHO , the game is terrible .
Graphics , Combat , Magic , Quest wise it didn't add anything new to the genre either.

JDR13 said:

Even though it wasn't the same reviewer, Eurogamer gave Oblivion a 10/10.

Credibility has left the building….

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Well, I don't want to make a flame war here, but I think there is a HUGE misunderstanding here.

Oblivion is a casual RPG, and as such, it absolutely succeeds.
Risen is a niche, hardcore stuff for hardcore RPGers who are willing to invest the time it demands for.
So, if you run a review site for the masses, what game should you favor? Oblivion (great for the masses, thus, 10/10), or Risen (bad for the masses, thus, 6/10)?
In this regards, IMHO, Eurogamer's indication is spot on.

On the other hand, that's the reason why RPGWatch or RPGCodex exist: these sites are for the hardcore, so, reviews here are written from an entirely different angle.

duerer said:

So, if you run a review site for the masses, what game should you favor? Oblivion (great for the masses, thus, 10/10), or Risen (bad for the masses, thus, 6/10)?
In this regards, IMHO, Eurogamer's indication is spot on.

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That reviewer was hostile from the get go. Even Gamespot gave it a 7, while IGN went as far as 8.6. If those aren't sites for the masses then I don't know what is.

Still, it's just a number. However, the majority of sites, even ones that don't cater to the rpg hardcore crowd, seemed to enjoy the latest game from PB.

At least I know that anything written by that reviewer can be disregard because he obviously doesn't like the kind of games I do.

OFFTOPIC

skavenhorde said:

At least I know that anything written by that reviewer can be disregard because he obviously doesn't like the kind of games I do.

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Heh, I do remember his controversial Dead Space review (7/10).
Almighty Hype Machine (TM) got me by the balls, so I got the game… and it was terrific, easily 9/10 stuff!
… but, well, after 6 hours (approx half of the game), I realized that he was right: this is truly a 7/10 game for me…

Obviously, there is no such thing as universal acclaim


/OFFTOPIC

I don't agree with his specific criticisms but I don't think the score is that far off. Even though I've really enjoyed it (in the main), I'd score it at 7/10 if I were using their scale. As duerer above me notes, a mainstream site will understandably score lower.

Edit: Didn't see skavenhorde's comments. I think IGN's score is a little unusual. Good for them.

duerer said:

So, if you run a review site for the masses, what game should you favor? Oblivion (great for the masses, thus, 10/10), or Risen (bad for the masses, thus, 6/10)?
In this regards, IMHO, Eurogamer's indication is spot on.

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By that token, they would give Miley Cyrus / Britney Spears / Jonas Bros 10/10, and Beethoven / Miles Davis / etc a 2/10 and that would make sense to you?

What a bunch of asshats, considering what PB has been through and accomplished while these douchbags piss and moan is ridiculous. No more eurogamer for me.

Navigation around the sizeable map is hampered by a rudimentary map, which makes finding quest markers more of a chore than it should be

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If he's got that issue he's not really cut out for the Gothics then, I was annoyed to find out there even were quest markets, what happened to getting directions from people and actually looking at the game world?

He's probably upset that there aren't exclamation marks over quest givers heads as well.

Well, sadly a review is simply an opinion and whether it's something you agree with or not - that's just what we gotta deal with.

The level of experience with the history of gaming in the media is already absurdly low, so expecting anyone to appreciate the nuances of what makes hardcore gamers tick is unrealistic.

We're just going to have to live with it, I'm afraid.