Two Worlds - True Oblivion contender?
Boy some games choose to set their hopes high! There are some games out there that are so good that the thought of someone creating something better doesn’t come to mind very often, games Like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a game praised by every games site on the internet for almost every aspect. But the Germans at Reality Pump (Earth 2140) seem to like this sort of challenges, let’s see if they can compete.
Open environment games are in my humble opinion the hardest to develop, along with MMOs, because you have to create this huge world to satiate the players’ hunger for exploration, create a fair number of diverse quests to prevent boredom, because we’re talking about an RPG, the story must be intriguing and the character customization system has to be pretty complex. Not to mention the gameplay, graphics and audio aspects. That’s why games like The Elder Scrolls and Gothic are so appreciated, they’ve managed to nail all the important aspects creating true digital masterpieces.
Now, Two Worlds wants to climb to the top of the genre by offering players a world spanning over 35 square kilometers (impressive!) with many populated cities and villages for adventurers to explore.
The game’s storyline isn’t very impressive, your sister is kidnapped during a caravan raid, by a group called the Dark Brotherhood. Your main goal after will be to find and release your sister and punish the fiends that dared take her from you. Don’t panic, that’s not it, after you free your sister you’ll have to choose if you want to release an ancient god of war upon the realm. That is actually why your sister was kidnapped, because you are the only one with the power to set free this creature (it figures!). Depending on your choice the way the world looks will change significantly. The main campaign offers roughly 20 ours of gameplay, but if you choose to complete the side quests the number of ours triples.
The RPG aspects of the game don’t look very innovative, you won’t have the possibility to choose from different classes, but as you go along you’ll be able to influence the character’s development through the assignment of skill points. If you choose to improve a skill like strength or brutality, the character will become a better warrior, whereas enhancing willpower will make him a better sorcerer. An interesting aspect is the possibility of forging two or more weak weapons together to make a more powerful one. This will encourage experimentation with different combinations of weapons, adding to the game’s diversity. Just like any other RPG you’ll receive a multitude of weapons, armor, magic and other items to use in your quest.
The production values of the game are huge, over 200 hundred actors were used to bring all the characters to life, which I’m sure will have a great effect on the game’s authenticity, a team of 50 people is currently working on the game, fixing up any last bugs, the graphics look impressive, especially details like the grass’ movement, the mountains in the distance and many such things. Another impressive feature of Two Worlds is the absence of loading times despite the immense world, unlike Oblivion where moving from location to location brought up a loading screen. The game apparently runs just fine, with a decent frame rate depending on the graphics card of course.
Judging from the screenshots I’ve seen Two Worlds has an honest shot at success, doesn’t it doesn’t screw something up in the end. European produced games don’t often impress the masses but I have a feeling this one will. To find out we’ll just have to be patient for two more days.
