Review: Risen

[Mad Artillery]

I enjoyed the demo and could feel that the game was good well before the end. Thought I was lucky that you were reviewing this but... you never really said anything about the game.

All I got out of it was that you didnt like the jump animation, that the chat animations anoyed you, and that you did very badly with the combat. I'll never understand why such a huge chunk of your review was based on the jump. I learned absolutly nothing that would help me decide if I should buy it. Next time try reviewing the game instead of 2 types of animations. What a bloody waist of time.

 

[saejox]

Why people keep saying "combat sux". I found it very good and thrilling.

Do you remember gothic 3's combat system? You could kill a whole town of orcs by just mashing first mouse button.

 

[domicius]

10 hours?!? lol

you cant even finish chapter 1 in 10 hours.

Do you have to so you can write a review? No.

Sure, next time he can review a movie based on the first half hour. Totally valid. I mean, think of all the time that can be spent writing a better review that way.

I'm off to review War and Peace.

 

[domicius]

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?

Who said he's wrong? He's totally "correct" in his opinion. It's just not a fully informed opinion. Maybe I am old fashioned to expects reviewer to actually play a game before judging it?

For example, if this reviewer had reviewed, say, a multi-faction strategy game based on one faction it wouldn't be a comprehensive review, would it? And here's an RPG game... traditionally full of customizability, and different "builds" that play differently. But we'll never know how different builds can be, since it doesn't seem that this was covered in the review beyond the cursory "melee sucks, and so do arrows". And we won't know if the game gets better or worse after 10 hours, so those of us who ARE willing to spend more than 10 hours on a game are SOL. All 3 of us.

Look, a guy has a right to post his opinion based on 10 hours of gameplay. But there should be a full disclosure on the first line of the review saying "I DID NOT FINISH THIS GAME, OR GET PAST THE FIRST AREA". Then he can explain why he didn't get past 10 hours.

10 hours of game is a day's work for a reviewer. That's not even enough time to review a shooter on a couple of difficulty levels - forget about online. How could it possibly be enough for an RPG? Especially one that isn't actually broken... just slow?

This review is another example of the shoddy journalism that is increasingly showing up on The Escapist. What the hell is the editor up to?

 

[Triple G]

DUDE STFU. Say nothing against Piranha Bytes talking animations and fighting system because then ur just being a n00b. Who hasn't played Gothic I and II should kindly stay the fuck away from this game and not touch it with his unworthy fingers so he doesn't make it dirty from his unwashed and spoiled hands.

Games from this developer are made for real RPG fans and not for some fighting game pricks who bother about a 100% polished fighting system or people who are so disturbed by innocent gestures that they need to whine about them. Games from Piranha Bytes are for people who like to enjoy the atmosphere of just going into a forest to search for some herbs you need for your potions while killing 3 "animals" on your way back to take their meat and furs to sell and consume after you fried the meat. Those games are a reasonable depiction of a life in fantasy world mixed with an nice story, and NOT a generic RPG in which the monsters drop gold swords and health-potions.

 

[Kilgorn]

i played the demo until i forgot to save and got killed by a wild boar and went back 5 minutes of gameplay, if it were something like fallout 3, i would have replayed 20 minutes of what i just did before getting frustrated and turning the game off, but for this unimmersive, awkward mess i just deleted the demo.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Who said he's wrong? He's totally "correct" in his opinion. It's just not a fully informed opinion. Maybe I am old fashioned to expects reviewer to actually play a game before judging it?

For example, if this reviewer had reviewed, say, a multi-faction strategy game based on one faction it wouldn't be a comprehensive review, would it? And here's an RPG game... traditionally full of customizability, and different "builds" that play differently. But we'll never know how different builds can be, since it doesn't seem that this was covered in the review beyond the cursory "melee sucks, and so do arrows". And we won't know if the game gets better or worse after 10 hours, so those of us who ARE willing to spend more than 10 hours on a game are SOL. All 3 of us.

Look, a guy has a right to post his opinion based on 10 hours of gameplay. But there should be a full disclosure on the first line of the review saying "I DID NOT FINISH THIS GAME, OR GET PAST THE FIRST AREA". Then he can explain why he didn't get past 10 hours.

10 hours of game is a day's work for a reviewer. That's not even enough time to review a shooter on a couple of difficulty levels - forget about online. How could it possibly be enough for an RPG? Especially one that isn't actually broken... just slow?

This review is another example of the shoddy journalism that is increasingly showing up on The Escapist. What the hell is the editor up to?

Firstly, where are you pulling 10 hours from exactly? His exact words were "several hours", which could be any amount. However, 10 sounds still sounds like more than enough time to get an opinion on a game. Hell, if I haven't had a game on a single day's play (which mind you I usually don't spend more than maybe 5 hours a day tops on gaming most days, days off are exceptions), I probably won't give the game a good review when I'm telling my friend about it. Rather, it'd be more like "Yeah, I just wasted my whole night last night on some new game I picked-up. I'll probably give it another shot tonight, but it just hasn't been fun yet." And how exactly is that an unreasonable assessment? Games are, after-all, for entertainment.

If I try-out a game at a friend's house and it takes me 10+ hours of tear-inducing boredom before I get to a part that's finally fun, I'm NOT going to go out and buy the game for myself. I'm going to wonder why the developer bothered putting that first 10 hours or so into the game as some boundary between me and the actual game. I agree that RPGs can be slow to start, I've played numerous RPGs that I've enjoyed where I felt like I was being dragged through the opening bits before the game would finally let me get going, but that shouldn't last much more than an hour if the game hopes to have any lasting power. If starting a new game is an arduous chore for 3 or 4 days before it starts being fun again, I'll probably just try and rent the game to beat it once, then never look at it again. I certainly wouldn't buy it at A-List pricing when I know that I'm only going to play the game once for fear of having to endure the beginning again.

You can enjoy the game all you want, but don't let your fanboyish elitism get in the way of admitting that this game is VERY niche, and as such the review is fairly justified. Your average gamer will not like this title, only the die hard fans.

 

[unacomn]

For the record, most wildlife will only attack if the player doesn't back off when warned. Wing flapping, snarling, spike wiggling, those are all warnings to stay back.

 

[Vlane]

10 hours?!? lol

you cant even finish chapter 1 in 10 hours.

Do you have to so you can write a review? No.

Sure, next time he can review a movie based on the first half hour. Totally valid. I mean, think of all the time that can be spent writing a better review that way.

I'm off to review War and Peace.

Movie =/= Game.

It's completely valid to review a game based on the first 10 hours because the gameplay probably won't change in the last 50 or so hours.

 

[domicius]

Firstly, where are you pulling 10 hours from exactly? His exact words were "several hours", which could be any amount.

Here are his exact words, from the review you didn't read:

"10 hours"

Here they are in context:

"But they'll have to be able to put a lot of time into the game: I have to confess that I haven't beaten Risen. In fact, I haven't come close - despite sinking about 10 hours into the game, I'm still in the early stages and the introduction thanks to repeated deaths in combat, having to grind to be able to actually learn skills, and the general slow pace of the game."

--/--

For the rest of your argument you are entitled to play and enjoy games anytime you like. You're not a reviewer, so you're not bound (at least in part) to be professional in your approach to your job.

You can enjoy the game all you want, but don't let your fanboyish elitism get in the way of admitting that this game is VERY niche, and as such the review is fairly justified. Your average gamer will not like this title, only the die hard fans.

Don't let your smitten obsession over Funk colour your defenses of his work. I'm not a diehard fan of RPGs, just as you are not an average gamer.

The review was unprofessional. Your defense of it is fanboyish.

 

[domicius]

10 hours?!? lol

you cant even finish chapter 1 in 10 hours.

Do you have to so you can write a review? No.

Sure, next time he can review a movie based on the first half hour. Totally valid. I mean, think of all the time that can be spent writing a better review that way.

I'm off to review War and Peace.

Movie =/= Game.

It's completely valid to review a game based on the first 10 hours because the gameplay probably won't change in the last 50 or so hours.

You're probably correct. Probably. Heck, why should the reviewer find out. He's got better stuff to do, right?

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Firstly, where are you pulling 10 hours from exactly? His exact words were "several hours", which could be any amount.

Here are his exact words, from the review you didn't read:

"10 hours"

Here they are in context:

"But they'll have to be able to put a lot of time into the game: I have to confess that I haven't beaten Risen. In fact, I haven't come close - despite sinking about 10 hours into the game, I'm still in the early stages and the introduction thanks to repeated deaths in combat, having to grind to be able to actually learn skills, and the general slow pace of the game."

Fair enough, I admittedly mostly just skimmed the written part of the review because it seemed to mostly mirror what I'd already heard from the video portion.

Don't let your smitten obsession over Funk colour your defenses of his work. I'm not a diehard fan of RPGs, just as you are not an average gamer.

The review was unprofessional. Your defense of it is fanboyish.

lawl i c wut u did thar.

This has little to do with the reviewer though, or even the review itself, and more to do with your reaction to the review. We're talking about picking the game up, playing it, and then telling people whether or not it was an enjoyable experience. And you can compare it to books and movies all you want but that's a pure case of apples and oranges. A book is a complete story, and we're not here to find out if Risen has a good story or not. And a movie takes (I should hope) a lot less than 10 hours to complete, so it'd be silly to walk out half-way through it and expect people to take the review seriously.

So how is a game different? Simple, you don't have to beat a game to know whether or not you're enjoying it, and that's the core of what a review is about. Whether he's played the game for 10 hours or for 40 hours is irrelevant, he didn't have fun. He saw the potential for fun, hence why he said that there's a good game in there somewhere, but he did not have fun with the game.

We're not here to learn whether or not Risen has a good story, so I could care less if the reviewer hasn't beaten the game. Heck, the Legacy of Kain games had fantastic story-telling, but the gameplay in most of them was sub-par, so they all suffered in their ratings. Did you see me on the forums bitching at them? No, because unlike you, I'm willing to come to terms with the fact that a game I like isn't perfect. I (and a number of other fans) am willing to over-look the poor gameplay because I enjoy the story aspect of it. Heck, if I was asked to write a review for any of them I'd probably give them similar ratings because I know that /as games/ the LoK series was mostly drawl. Great story, but only a niche group is going to care about that.

I still have yet to hear a rational explanation as to why more than 10 hours, or even 50 hours as you claimed, is a reasonable amount of time to expect to have to wait for a game to start being fun.

 

[domicius]

Firstly, where are you pulling 10 hours from exactly? His exact words were "several hours", which could be any amount.

Here are his exact words, from the review you didn't read:

"10 hours"

Here they are in context:

"But they'll have to be able to put a lot of time into the game: I have to confess that I haven't beaten Risen. In fact, I haven't come close - despite sinking about 10 hours into the game, I'm still in the early stages and the introduction thanks to repeated deaths in combat, having to grind to be able to actually learn skills, and the general slow pace of the game."

Fair enough, I admittedly mostly just skimmed the written part of the review because it seemed to mostly mirror what I'd already heard from the video portion.

Don't let your smitten obsession over Funk colour your defenses of his work. I'm not a diehard fan of RPGs, just as you are not an average gamer.

The review was unprofessional. Your defense of it is fanboyish.

lawl i c wut u did thar.

This has little to do with the reviewer though, or even the review itself, and more to do with your reaction to the review. We're talking about picking the game up, playing it, and then telling people whether or not it was an enjoyable experience. And you can compare it to books and movies all you want but that's a pure case of apples and oranges. A book is a complete story, and we're not here to find out if Risen has a good story or not. And a movie takes (I should hope) a lot less than 10 hours to complete, so it'd be silly to walk out half-way through it and expect people to take the review seriously.

So how is a game different? Simple, you don't have to beat a game to know whether or not you're enjoying it, and that's the core of what a review is about. Whether he's played the game for 10 hours or for 40 hours is irrelevant, he didn't have fun. He saw the potential for fun, hence why he said that there's a good game in there somewhere, but he did not have fun with the game.

We're not here to learn whether or not Risen has a good story, so I could care less if the reviewer hasn't beaten the game. Heck, the Legacy of Kain games had fantastic story-telling, but the gameplay in most of them was sub-par, so they all suffered in their ratings. Did you see me on the forums bitching at them? No, because unlike you, I'm willing to come to terms with the fact that a game I like isn't perfect. I (and a number of other fans) am willing to over-look the poor gameplay because I enjoy the story aspect of it. Heck, if I was asked to write a review for any of them I'd probably give them similar ratings because I know that /as games/ the LoK series was mostly drawl. Great story, but only a niche group is going to care about that.

I still have yet to hear a rational explanation as to why more than 10 hours, or even 50 hours as you claimed, is a reasonable amount of time to expect to have to wait for a game to start being fun.

You are right. I've seen the light, and it is bright. I look forwards to Funk's half hour review of Starcraft 2 so I can find out if he enjoyed it.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

You are right. I've seen the light, and it is bright. I look forwards to Funk's half hour review of Starcraft 2 so I can find out if he enjoyed it.

Your snarky sarcasm only serves to support that you have no rational explanation for why a game should take over 10 hours to start being fun.

 

[Vlane]

10 hours?!? lol

you cant even finish chapter 1 in 10 hours.

Do you have to so you can write a review? No.

Sure, next time he can review a movie based on the first half hour. Totally valid. I mean, think of all the time that can be spent writing a better review that way.

I'm off to review War and Peace.

Movie =/= Game.

It's completely valid to review a game based on the first 10 hours because the gameplay probably won't change in the last 50 or so hours.

You're probably correct. Probably. Heck, why should the reviewer find out. He's got better stuff to do, right?

What is the average length of a game today? 15-20 hours I guess (multi-player not included). He tried to find out. Just because the game is an RPG and therefore is longer than most games doesn't mean you should review it differently.

 

[domicius]

You are right. I've seen the light, and it is bright. I look forwards to Funk's half hour review of Starcraft 2 so I can find out if he enjoyed it.

Your snarky sarcasm only serves to support that you have no rational explanation for why a game should take over 10 hours to start being fun.

Ah, my misunderstanding friend, once again you miss my point. There is absolutely no reason a game shouldn't be entertaining you from the beginning. You are right.

If only you could explain to me why it is ok for a reviewer to write a "Review" of a WHOLE GAME based on only playing a SUBSECTION of it, and then claim to have an authoritative opinion on the game, then we might start having a conversation.

To start you off, let me remind you that the difference between a review article and an opinion piece article is based on precisely the writer having either completely reviewed an item, a game in this instance, or just expressing an opinion of it based on experience. Since this is a game review, and not an opinion piece, playing only the introduction of the game is not sufficient to claim anything beyond an opinion of the game.

 

[domicius]

What is the average length of a game today? 15-20 hours I guess (multi-player not included). He tried to find out. Just because the game is an RPG and therefore is longer than most games doesn't mean you should review it differently.

What should be the standard for writing an RPG review these days? Play half the game? Play the first chapter? Make a character? Install it? When does a reviewer qualify as having played it enough to write a review of it?

Perhaps we can look at another example; Nathan Grayson reviewed Dissidia: Final Fantasy here on the Escapist, just over a week ago: ([link]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/6581-Review-Dissidia-Final-Fantasy[/link]):

And that leads us straight to the only real beef I have with Dissidia. The first half of the game, the part where most games are trying to impress you, sets the story afloat with neither wind for its sails nor a skip for its step.
(...)
Bottom Line: Dissidia: Final Fantasy is an extremely pleasant surprise. The combat's fast, fluid, and - most of all - fun, even for gamers who normally avoid fighting games like the plague. Sure, the story could be better, but as a whole, Dissidia's a spell-slinging, pretty-boy bashing good time.

So here we have a very similar scenario; Only in this case the reviewer played ALL the game, and he can tell you "yeah, the beginning half is slow, but the game is fun to the end".

I *do* feel that a reviewer should play the whole game (regardless of length) if it is a game of finite length. And YES, an RPG should be reviewed differently from an FPS or a sports game, or an arcade game. It is not enough to review "gameplay" since gameplay itself can vary vastly from the beginning of an RPG to the end (read the Fallout 3 reviews for example).

I think the article we are discussing should have been an "opinion piece", or a "first impressions" article, and not a review. I don't expect anyone to change anything about it.

I am, really, just expressing my own opinion here.

 

[Nurb]

Reviewer has a point about combat, thats for sure. There's no way to telegraph a beast's attack, but they sure know whore to telegraph yours so they can dodge or interrupt your combo when you're unable to do anything when they pull off theirs while each hit sends you reeling.

When it comes to mutliple enemies it gets worse, you have to lure them into a situation where they have to come at you one at a time, and I actually had my ass handed to me by a couple of the lowest and weakest level wolves because while I was attacking one, another would dodge around and pull off a combo before I could get my sheild up.

I suppose this is 'realistic' but its not very fun when I've trained up my skills and bought new equipment, and the high cost of training with LP and gold makes it all the more frustrating when you get whittled down in health by something that should be beneath you

 

[Vlane]

What should be the standard for writing an RPG review these days? Play half the game? Play the first chapter? Make a character? Install it? When does a reviewer qualify as having played it enough to write a review of it?

Personally I have a 10 hour rule for every game before I write a review. If the game hasn't hocked me at that point it probably never will. Sure the story could end up like in Fahrenheit but you shouldn't talk about the story that much in a review anyway.

Perhaps we can look at another example; Nathan Grayson reviewed Dissidia: Final Fantasy here on the Escapist, just over a week ago: ([link]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/6581-Review-Dissidia-Final-Fantasy[/link]):

So here we have a very similar scenario; Only in this case the reviewer played ALL the game, and he can tell you "yeah, the beginning half is slow, but the game is fun to the end".

I haven't played Dissidia so I don't know how long it takes to get through the story mode (if there is a story mode). I just guess that it's shorter than Risen.

I *do* feel that a reviewer should play the whole game (regardless of length) if it is a game of finite length. And YES, an RPG should be reviewed differently from an FPS or a sports game, or an arcade game. It is not enough to review "gameplay" since gameplay itself can vary vastly from the beginning of an RPG to the end (read the Fallout 3 reviews for example).

If I would write a review for a game like SMT DDS I wouldn't play through the whole game because that takes a lot of time and I'm not willing to spend that much time just so that other people can know about my opinion. I should be able to write a review of an RPG which I have only played for a couple of hours without getting insulted because I didn't finish it.

I actually have a perfect example. Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne. It's one of my favourite RPG's of all time and I have spent over 140 hours on that game. Yet I didn't finish it because I can't kill the final boss. I wrote a review for that game and people liked it even though I didn't finish it.

Also I don't get why you take Fallout 3 as an example. There are a lot of other games out there you could have taken.
This is Fallout 3 for me: Turn on V.A.T.S, aim for the head, push the button, execute, watch. Of course there is also some running around and stuff but if you have played 10 hours of that game you know how the game feels and that feeling won't change even if you play 100 hours.

I am, really, just expressing my own opinion here.

Same here and our opinions are different which is completely OK. That's why we are on a forum: We discuss our opinions.

 

[BGH122]

I agreed with this evaluation. The game just feels bad. No matter what the annoying little fanbois scream defensively, the combat is NOT in any way skilled. It's not a case of learning to play. It's a case of learning, as Funk rightly said, to cheat the combat system: continuously circling the opponent whilst blocking and then attacking once each time they rebound off your shield isn't skill, it's just boring and not particularly heroic.

The game also suffers from the exact same problems as Gothic 3: several months after its release, a fan on the Gothic 3 forums fixed the animations so that the player didn't get stunned from attacks. The mods and the community in general sung his praises for basically fixing group combat. But, lo, stun-locking is back. Get into a fight with more than one animal and you'll be hammered with chains of blows, each of which stun for a half a second. That is just terrible, terrible game design, especially considering the fact that packs of animals litter the game world.

It's a real shame because, from what I can tell from the eight or so hours I've played, it's actually got a really great world to explore with a tonne of quests and cool little storylines.