Two Worlds
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Publisher: SouthPeak Interactive Genre(s): Role Playing Game Home Page: http://www.2-worlds.com/
This is Open-World Gameplay? The water effects are well-done, though I still question how RPG heroes swim in full armor Aside from setting the stage for a thin narrative, the opening cutscene also introduces the hackneyed dialog and mis-cast voice acting. Throughout the game, you're treated to dialog that is representative of the worst that fantasy fan fiction has to offer (does fantasy fan fiction have anything good to offer?). The exposition is so comical that at times it borders on a satire of the genre, and the game experience suffers as a result. Two Worlds is a case where taking a story too seriously - to the point of melodrama - kills any value in the story itself. The voice-acting, which is too stiff and often doesn't fit the characters, reduces the narrative pull to zero. Gameplay is driven by quests, which are obtained by speaking with various NPCs throughout the land of Antaloor. The Quest Log is quickly filled with objectives, ranging from retrieving a lost gem to clearing out an entire dungeon. Most quests can be considered ancillary to the main storyline, and players are given the option of completing quests as they come. In other words, there are main quests and a larger set of unrelated quests which are superficially tied in to the main story.
If this is the definition of non-linear, open-world gameplay, then I'd prefer a linear narrative with continuity and cohesion. NPC conversations are drawn-out and tedious, with a small number of casual chit-chat options shared by a large number of the game's inhabitants. Two Worlds isn't the lone offender in this regard; as veteran designer Warren Spector recently lamented in a GameInformer interview, "Branching tree conversations are still the state of the art, and that's pathetic." It's just that the dialog in Two Worlds is so forced and repetitive that I found myself skipping through it just to get the next quest or waypoint. It's not all bad A quick stop by a magical totem for a mana refill The story may be entirely contrived and unoriginal, but the character development system is at least a bit refreshing. Rather than pigeonhole you into a set class, such as magician or knight, you're free to develop a character as you see fit. In addition to the standard upgrades such as Willpower and Intelligence, Two Worlds features a free-form Skill system. Skills are "learned" (purchased from NPCs, mainly), and Skill Points can be applied to any learned attribute, with no regard for a particular pre-defined character strength. What if you hastily apply Skill Points to an attribute - say, horse riding - but later decide that you're that you're not the rodeo type? No problem: for enough gold, a Soul Patcher will retrieve those Skill Points and add them back as unused, ready to be spent again. The magic system works in a similar manner: Spell Cards from five schools of magic are collected or purchased and may be used at will. The only restriction is an "initiation" into a school of magic, which generally involves forking over some gold in exchange for the ability to cast spells from a particular school. The spells themselves aren't noteworthy, but the ability to equip two active spells and one passive spell at a time is a nice touch, as are the booster cards which enhance certain characteristics of a spell.
Related Stuff Games: Two Worlds
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