Two Worlds II Is Looking Good

by Erik Brudvig - IGN.com | 08 July 2010 12:00
 
I get my hands on the sequel and come away impressed.
 
It was pretty clear to just about everybody who follows RPGs closely that Two Worlds went through some rough development times. Actually, you didn't have to follow it closely -- you just had to play the rather buggy and unpolished final product to see the struggles. With a new budget and clearer goals at the outset, it looks like Two Worlds II is well on its way to avoiding the pitfalls of its predecessor. Even at this early stage, my first time playing this open-world RPG left me impressed with how far this franchise has come.
 
If Southpeak and Topware hadn't swung by the office to show me Two Worlds II, I probably would have gone on continuing to only give it glancing looks. It's not so easy to ride a ship that has gone off course so severely, but the developers at Reality Pump seem to have this monumental task under control. A new engine has been built -- one that allows for simultaneous console and PC development -- and that has brought the visual fidelity up to the high standards of 2010.
 

Friend?

But this isn't just a technically good looking game. Reality Pump have looked at ways to put the physics and effects in their toy bag to good use. Conversations are a great example of this. The background blurs out a bit to focus your eyes on the characters' dialogue while the polygon count of each object in the foreground is increased to add even more detail. It's a cool effect that, when combined with the slight freedom you're given over your character, makes the occasionally long conversations stay interesting.
 
This is an RPG, though, so all of the spooky trees swaying in the wind and light filtering through branches isn't worth much if the core concepts don't add up. For that, I'll need much more than the half of an hour I got to play, but what I did see looked solid enough.
 

Get the basic info on Two Worlds II here.

There aren't any classes in Two Worlds II. How your character develops depends only on how you allocate skill and parameter points. Since everything is so freewheeling, the game allows you to map different equipment loadouts to hot keys (or the d-pad on consoles). Hit a button and you can instantly swap from your mage setup to your berserker. It looks a bit odd, but it cuts down on the time spent in menu systems considerably. You'll be doing enough of that as it is going through the in-depth spell and item creation systems.
 
Two Worlds II is all high fantasy, but Reality Pump is pushing the limits of the genre to have some fun. Stacking spell cards can allow you to do crazy things like creating whirlwinds that circle the player and rain down boxes. One side quest involves obtaining the Oculus, a giant floating eye with magical powers. After getting it, you can go on other mini-quests to hunt down animals, rip their eyes out, and imbue the Oculus with their powers to create flying eyeballs that do everything from scope out the upcoming landscape to shooting out exploding fireballs.
 

How you treat this witch will have far reaching consequences.

The brief section I played involved a town besieged by a curse and a witch the townsfolk believed responsible. In classic fashion, you're free to outright kill the witch or listen to her tale. Should you kill her, you'll find that she was actually protecting the town -- her demise leads to the town's destruction, which sends a ripple effect through the rest of the story. Talk to her and she'll send you on a quest of her own (it turns out she's a nice witch), adding some background info to the main quest that would otherwise be unobtainable. Reality Pump is hoping to not only make the decisions you make feel important, but to give different experiences entirely depending upon how you act. Some story elements will only unfold to players that make specific decisions.
 
It only took a few moments to get used to the controls in Two Worlds II, and I was playing with an Xbox 360 controller. Sure, the PC will probably end up being the most convenient way to navigate the many menus here. But this doesn't look like console players will struggle. Radial menus and easy to assign hotkeys allow you to quickly change battle roles, cast spells, and dish out pain. My favorite move involved pulling out a torch and sword simultaneously, then burning a zombie's face with the flame.
 
Two Worlds II still has a ways to go before it's ready for prime time. The dialogue is all placeholder at this point, and the translations to English are still being worked on. It could use just a bit more fine tuning in the combat area, as well. Even so, it's a great looking game and doesn't appear to be under such a time crunch as its predecessor.
 
Supplied by IGN.com