Review: Risen

[nagi]

Risen on X360 looks like crap, while on PC it's quite good. Try it on PC then

Actually, it looks like crap on the PC as well. Some characters are decent, but most are underdeveloped. Oh, did I mention that at least some of the bushes look like 2D sprites? Same form every angle?

 

[Mordwyl]

Frankly despite all flaws the Gothic series wipes the floor with the Elder Scrolls. It does a much better job at instilling immersion and exploration.

I'll have to give this game a try.

 

[Majere613]

I got the demo the other day out of curiousity (hadn't read the review at the time) and ouch. Don't think I've actually quit an RPG demo in disgust since Depths Of Peril. The thing is, after a little time away from it I got an itch to try again, and this time got to the end of the demo, but I can't say I enjoyed it. Maybe the voice acting gets better later on, but what I heard was very stilted. Having no defense mechanic that actually works against most of the monsters in the demo is ludicrous, and frankly the 'your character looks like this, end of' approach went out with the Ark. The 'pre-game' island level in Age of Conan is actually more fun in all respects, which is pretty sad.
I'm not saying Risen is necessarily a turkey, but if they expect that demo to sell it to people, I fear they'll be disappointed.

 

[Rockdrake]

You do your job well John. I mean really out of all of your reviews I have watched and read this is the ONLY one I disagree to share your point of view with.

Animations are truly repetitive, and the jumping is a little awkward. Though I'm happy I can jump more than two feet in the air and I can even climb. I also have the ability to skip text when I reload, I actually have to think when I counter a guy, and the friendly npcs actually aren't useless in combat, treasure hunting is also fun...etc. I can say that the positives of this game outweigh the faults besides a couple of bugs that are so tiny in comparison to "Gothic 3" that I'm actually happy they are there. (It wouldn't feel like a western RPG without them...)

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

10 hours? Really? Dude, you're not even trying. Come back when you've done at least 50 hours... it's an RPG!

Although you have, cogently, explained why I myself wouldn't buy an RPG. I mean, who has 10 hours?

The suggestion that having to spend 50 hours on a game before you start enjoying it JUST because it's an RPG is completely asinine. As an avid RPGer myself, I find that I enjoy the beginning bits /more/ than the ending of the game (though admittedly that's more because I'm a stats and number cruncher, so I always love playing around with numbers which come faster at earlier levels). If I have to put-in a full-time job's worth of hours into a game before it starts getting fun, I got news for you, I'll quit that game before it's even hit part-time hours.

Frankly, if anything, his summary of the game is /supported/ by your attempts to undermine it. As he specifically said: There's a great game in there, but it's buried under all the crap. Saying that he's wrong because he hasn't spent at least 50 hours on the game only proves that he's right. So the question is: How many gamers want to suffer through 50 hours of crap just to get to a point where a game is tolerably fun when they could have spent those same 50 hours on a game that starts-out fun, and continues to be?

 

[Garfunkel00]

It's a sad day when even the reviewer for The Escapist is a deadlines consoletard. Most of the complaints are straight from the XBox-port, which seems to quite horrible, and even then it's more "why does this game actually challenge my brain instead of just hand-holding me to end game" instead of proper criticism.

Anyway, there is NOTHING wrong with the gfx. If you say that your PC ran Crysis without problems but now has issues with Risen, you are blatantly lying. Risen runs much, much better than Crysis ever did. The grief over NPC's waving their arms while in discussion is completely overblown one - should we return to Oblivion and it's NPC's with widly changing voices but atleast they did not wave their arms!

Reviewer who never played Two Worlds? Pass, please. What next? Your first RPG was FF7 and Oblivion? Combat IS real time, as the whole game is real time - you better handle your combo's and have a sense of rhytm. Complaining that a real-time game isn't like a turn-based one is utter idiocy, especially since The Escapist did its part for promoting the completly shitty 'gameplay' of FP, realtime 'RPG'-games. You reap what you sow, bitches. Hopefully you shall all drown under the blood and titties of Dragon Age.

 

[Garfunkel00]

The suggestion that having to spend 50 hours on a game before you start enjoying it JUST because it's an RPG is completely asinine.

Oh and maybe, just maybe, you could understand that not every game is supposed to be NHL2009. Or Halo3.

Since when did it became a holy mission for players to praise every game published? Risen is not a perfect game - it has its flaws, but it IS a solid 8/10 game. But luckily Piranha Bytes never bribed gaming "journalists" so the game gets slammed with 3/10 or 4/10 "reviews" from people who have trouble differenting between male and female restrooms in airports.

PB did stick with their guns - they re-made Gothic 1, they that their old fans wanted. Their publisher demanded a console-version since that's all the rage nowadays, so they gave the source-code to a completely different company, which made the port. Result? Great PC game, awful XBox port. But seriously, who plays real RPG's on console anyway? :smug:

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

I also disagree about graphics being needed to bring immersement into a game. Did you feel immersement in Crysis? I didnt? But that is neither here nor there.

I can agree that graphics aren't needed for immersion, but the point was made that this is being priced as a Triple-A title yet has the quality of something that would have been made 5 years ago. Graphics are negligible, but in today's economy gamers are getting more aware of price points, and we know that top-notch graphics is the industry's favored fall-back for why games need to priced as high as they are. So when the graphics are archaic, it makes us wonder why we're paying so much money for this title.

Also, it isn't "immersement", it's "immersion".

 

[Taerdin]

Am I wrong to assume that this game is basically... a Gothic clone?

Everything I saw in the review screamed Gothic, including the awkward jumping, the way people were animating while talking, etc.

But I guess that's just pirahna bytes' thing?

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Am I wrong to assume that this game is basically... a Gothic clone?

Everything I saw in the review screamed Gothic, including the awkward jumping, the way people were animating while talking, etc.

But I guess that's just pirahna bytes' thing?

That's kinda like griping that Starcraft was basically a clone of Warcraft.

 

[Taerdin]

Am I wrong to assume that this game is basically... a Gothic clone?

Everything I saw in the review screamed Gothic, including the awkward jumping, the way people were animating while talking, etc.

But I guess that's just pirahna bytes' thing?

That's kinda like griping that Starcraft was basically a clone of Warcraft.

Oh I'm in love with Gothic and Gothic 2, Gothic 2 is probably one of my more favourite games of all time.

I was seriously asking. I'm guessing you meant to say 'yes'

 

[FROGGEman2]

Hmm, well I completely disagree with this review. I finished Risen yesterday and I loved every moment of it. Comparing Risen's graphics to a 2004 game? Spoken like a true graphics whore.
Combat works great when you get used to it. No idea how you managed to die so much, hold down parry/block untill there's an opening and do a couple of attacks. And stay away from enemies that are obviously to hard to kill at a early stage in the game.
And agree with Jandau, this is not really a review, more of a "First look" from someone who apparently failed completely, got pissed off and went to write a "review"

No need to be rude.

Nice review, though I've never heard of the game.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Am I wrong to assume that this game is basically... a Gothic clone?

Everything I saw in the review screamed Gothic, including the awkward jumping, the way people were animating while talking, etc.

But I guess that's just pirahna bytes' thing?

That's kinda like griping that Starcraft was basically a clone of Warcraft.

Oh I'm in love with Gothic and Gothic 2, Gothic 2 is probably one of my more favourite games of all time.

I was seriously asking. I'm guessing you meant to say 'yes'

I was more stating that it's made by the same company, so the games are likely to be similar. Another poster earlier in this topic was also saying something about how the developer was aiming to give us another Gothic, and that's what they did.

 

[Bretty]

I also disagree about graphics being needed to bring immersement into a game. Did you feel immersement in Crysis? I didnt? But that is neither here nor there.

I can agree that graphics aren't needed for immersion, but the point was made that this is being priced as a Triple-A title yet has the quality of something that would have been made 5 years ago. Graphics are negligible, but in today's economy gamers are getting more aware of price points, and we know that top-notch graphics is the industry's favored fall-back for why games need to priced as high as they are. So when the graphics are archaic, it makes us wonder why we're paying so much money for this title.

Also, it isn't "immersement", it's "immersion".

I see your point but I do not agree that the graphics are that of something 5 years ago? The Vistas are immense, the weather effects are just awesome. Give me one RPG game that had that 5 years ago, of this standard?

Shit I still play Baldurs Gate 2... My point remains about RPGs and not graphics. There is a reason FPSs need good graphics to sell; because that is all they offer! If you solely judge this game on GFX you are not a RPGer... at all. And last time I checked all games are pretty much $50 now.... even if they are broken. And compared to the releases this year Risen is a fucking beauty.

 

[Taerdin]

Am I wrong to assume that this game is basically... a Gothic clone?

Everything I saw in the review screamed Gothic, including the awkward jumping, the way people were animating while talking, etc.

But I guess that's just pirahna bytes' thing?

That's kinda like griping that Starcraft was basically a clone of Warcraft.

Oh I'm in love with Gothic and Gothic 2, Gothic 2 is probably one of my more favourite games of all time.

I was seriously asking. I'm guessing you meant to say 'yes'

I was more stating that it's made by the same company, so the games are likely to be similar. Another poster earlier in this topic was also saying something about how the developer was aiming to give us another Gothic, and that's what they did.

There's a huge difference between similar and the same.

Or at least I'd like to think so.

 

[Eldarion]

You spent an awful lot of time bitching about small things like graphics and the jump animation that don't really matter.

What about the stuff that does matter? The actual game? Care to elaborate as to why exactly combat is clunky?

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

I also disagree about graphics being needed to bring immersement into a game. Did you feel immersement in Crysis? I didnt? But that is neither here nor there.

I can agree that graphics aren't needed for immersion, but the point was made that this is being priced as a Triple-A title yet has the quality of something that would have been made 5 years ago. Graphics are negligible, but in today's economy gamers are getting more aware of price points, and we know that top-notch graphics is the industry's favored fall-back for why games need to priced as high as they are. So when the graphics are archaic, it makes us wonder why we're paying so much money for this title.

Also, it isn't "immersement", it's "immersion".

I see your point but I do not agree that the graphics are that of something 5 years ago? The Vistas are immense, the weather effects are just awesome. Give me one RPG game that had that 5 years ago, of this standard?

Shit I still play Baldurs Gate 2... My point remains about RPGs and not graphics. There is a reason FPSs need good graphics to sell; because that is all they offer! If you solely judge this game on GFX you are not a RPGer... at all. And last time I checked all games are pretty much $50 now.... even if they are broken. And compared to the releases this year Risen is a fucking beauty.

I must apologize, but I stopped taking your opinion seriously when you said that FPS titles have nothing to offer but graphics. Just because you don't care for a genre doesn't mean that it has nothing to offer.

As for debating about exactly what time-zone the graphics came from is moot: The point is that they're dated-looking graphics, yet still require a high-end machine to run them for some obscure reason. As well as the fact that this is supposedly an A-list title. Were it a $30-40 game it'd probably get a little slack. "Yeah the graphics aren't great, but the price is."

 

[Klepa]

Anyway, there is NOTHING wrong with the gfx. If you say that your PC ran Crysis without problems but now has issues with Risen, you are blatantly lying.

a game with ASCII characters can hog all the memory out of your computer. Programs don't even need graphics to be able to do that. This game has optimization issues, and nobody's lying.

Anyway, to the game.
It's otherwise a moderate game, but stinks of low production value, and lacks polish. The combat is the biggest culprit. The only part that I really enjoyed was Harbor City, as one of the Don's men.
I'd pretty much agree with review on most parts. Although I found "sameface" to be a bigger annoyance than the animations. All the game's women have contracted this notorious disease.

 

[Fearzone]

Good call on the animations and controls. These are way under-discussed in gameplay reviews, and absolutely important to the overall enjoyment of a game.

Seriously, when reviewers give score tallies I think graphics and animations should be separated and there should be a separate additional score for controls. It might have saved me a number of bad purchases.

 

[ChrisP.Lettuce]

I don't see how anyone can say that these graphics *look* up to date. I was running them on max, and it looked grainy and I actually found it hard on the eyes. Similar to Shadow of the Colossus. Has anyone arguing the point about graphics played a game like FEAR from 2005? The graphics look cleaner, and sharper.

This review made me look into the demo, and the demo didn't make me want to buy the game. While some people may find the gripes with the animations petty, think about it. He's reviewing all parts of the game. From the dirt to the sky, why wouldn't he say that jumping looks gay? I think if the jumping was only the float, ok, I could deal with Oblivions jump, or even WoW's jumping and wall humping. In Risen it's all jerky and weird looking. The strafe dodge looks funny, and so does the run/jog thing. Like Funk says, all these seem to be symptom of a bigger issue, general lack of polish.

I would like to say that just like the Gothic games, this one has one thing absolutely perfect. The lighting effects from fire in the dark. I don't know what it is but these games have nailed the look of a soft orange glow from a torch or fire on NPCs, environment and your character.