Two World II| Review

Synopsis: Welcome to the sequel of sequels, SouthPeak Games’ Two Worlds II has just released and our good buddies sent us a review copy to do our bidding in the world of Antaloor with the first big RPG of 2011. The story takes place shortly after the final events of the first entry, but this time around you can expect completely revamped combat, new enemies, enhanced AI, along with better voice overs and character animations made possible by a new gaming engine to help make the sequel stand out above and beyond the original. So it is time to break the chains, escape the dungeon with an Orc rescue team, and save your sister from Gandohar’s evil grasp…after you read through the review of course!

Praise: I am sure everyone has their own idea about what makes an RPG fun and sure there are some that just think they are lame, but I like RPG’s mainly for the character development and long play time without growing repetitive. Well, this has character development down in spades on top being able to choose which spells and skills to enhance on your quest to squash Gandohar, on top of breaking down obsolete weapons to improve equipped weapons and armor. The environments look wonderful along with the cutscenes, and load speeds are one of the most forgiving I have seen in a while. I do have to admit that the outlook of my review was bleak for the first hour due to not seeing everything on the screen and little bugs here and there, but after turning the safe area on to see all of the user interface and learning about how to develop my hero, I was hooked and easily distracted with both poaching in the Savannah and trying to complete all my side quests before continuing with the main quest.

Gripes: As much as I am a fan of the RPG genre, there are still many things that get to me every time, starting with the voice acting. It could have used some work as it was lacking depth, but the writing of the story and humor is what kept me from skipping the dialogue sequences to get me back in the action faster. Another issue I had was with the map, it would be a lot easier to navigate if I was able to zoom in further, especially in crowded cities. Some of the missions felt repetitious, but the payoff with experience is rather satisfying making it so that it doesn't take too long to level up and beef up your hero. Lastly, I felt like more of a tutorial was needed or at least better descriptions in the interface as there are a LOT of things that you can do on the fly to your character and even after doing it four and five times an hour, I still felt like is was not doing something right or completely missing out on more stuff to do with my items and equipment.

Overall, it has been a great experience with this title and though I was a bit hesitant to give this title a chance due to the negative stigma behind the first entry. However, this is a great example of a developer listening to what was wrong with the first try and making it completely bad ass to get us to shut up and lose our social lives. Now it is time for me to get back to my quests, side quests, and my daily poop flinging baboon slaying fix. Hey, it is not unethical treatments if those bastards started it, right?

Mashbuttons.com gives Two World II an 8 out of 10.

Two World II is available now for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

Developer Trailer for Two Worlds II trailer to Whet your Whistle before release

We are getting closer to release of the uber large RPG, Two Worlds II, next week to be precise. While you wait, SouthPeak Games has provides it's fans with a developer diary showcasing how the game overshadows the first in graphics, gameplay, and customization in astounding ways. As a fan of the first Two Worlds and just about all of the developer's RPGs so far, I am counting down the days and playing Little Big Planet up until the games release.

SouthPeak Games clears up rumors regarding Two World II release

Bad news for those anxiously awaiting the October release of Two Worlds II, that includes me and MANY others. SouthPeak games has announced that this title will no longer be released in October as expected, but will hopefully see store shelves in January. The good news is that they are making sure that the game is not rushed and will be a truly AAA title.

Sordahon just can't get a break

Sortahung, I mean Sordahon has been appearing over the interwebs lately, showing of the struggles of what it is like to be an epic medieval baddy. From the looks of it, he needs Johnny Cochran to get his balls out of SouthPeak's vice. I mean come on, who loses their woman to a human with a little knife? Check out this humorous video of the Two Worlds II negotiations between SouthPeak Games and Sordahon.

Last and certainly not least from E3 is Southpeak Games

Texas based Southpeak Games allowed us over to see them at E3 to show off a little of what they have to bring to the table in the new future and it was fun! Three words, I got nail’d! I will explain shortly, but what they did give us was time with their upcoming off road racer, Nail’d and their upcoming sequel to the massively huge RPG, Two Worlds II. Aside from their patience of having to deal with me after three NOS energy drinks and being in awe from just entering E3 for the first time in ten years, they handed me the controller and let me loose.

As stated above, the first game I got to play was Nail’d, and from having a past with years of ATV riding and my love of racers, I was ready and didn’t need much of an explanation. This title is not your realistic racer with lots of stunts, but more of an extreme over the top racer, focusing on landing huge jumps and avoiding environmental obstacles to gain boost to work your way to the front of the pack. Yes, the developer gave me an ample looking racer which I blame most of my crashes on, but the real fun was hitting massive jumps and the new feature to me, which was the ability to steer in mid air. Along with the fast gameplay, large tracks, and larger jumps, I was ready for more, but they took away my controller and sat me in front of Two Worlds II.

Now I never played the original Two Worlds title, so I had one of the developer’s actually play it for me switching between classes, skills, and environments while explaining changes made between the original and the sequel. We starting in a dungeon to show off how detailed the environments can be and the improvement of collision detection from walking through puddles, rattling hanging chains, and attacking encountered enemies, and it was pretty damn smooth. After the environments and graphics, comes the character development and here is where I am happy I didn’t get to try my hand at this because the number of options are limitless between the three classes as you have the option to customize your abilities, weapons, and armor at any point during gameplay. Here is where I fell in love, with the game of course, you can reassign you ability points towards different attributes at any time to change your character’s strong suits to help take down the harder to defeat fiends.