Fledging studio Sledgehammer has never made a Call of Duty game before - or indeed, any game at all - but that isn't stopping it from aiming high. Simply put, its goal is nothing short of creating the very best Call of Duty ever made, at least in terms of review scores. Sledgehammer revealed this little tidbit of information in a number of online job listings for the studio. Of the thirteen positions available, only three make any mention of review scores, but each makes it pretty clear that Sledgehammer is looking to make a game that gets a Metacritic score of 95 or better. It seems likely that this is blue-sky thinking, rather than a genuine goal, as the highest Metacritic score for any of the Call of the Duty is 94, jointly held by the Modern Warfare 1 and 2, and it's hard to imagine a studio beating the best that series has produced so far on its first try. As yet, we don't know anything about the game that Sledgehammer is making, aside from the fact that it's definitely an FPS, and definitely a Call of Duty game. There have been rumors that it might include space marines, or that it could be Modern Warfare 3, which some think Sledgehammer might make by itself, while others think it will be a team effort from Sledgehammer, Infinity Ward, and Raven Software. Whatever the truth of the matter is, it's encouraging that Sledgehammer is striving to make an excellent game. It's a shame that that level of excellence comes with a particular number attached to it, but there's not much that anyone can do about that.
Let's get this out of the way right at the start: Two Worlds 2 is better than the original. So, if any of you out there were cringing at the thought of another Two Worlds, you can rest a little easier. Developer Reality Pump seems to have addressed this sequel humbly, with an eye to their own failures on the first Two Worlds. The second game is better in many ways that matter quite a bit, but it's also still faltering in a few key ways as well. The result is a game that I can recommend, but with an asterisk. Two Worlds 2 is a far more technically-sound game than its predecessor. Where the first game had a huge number of severe graphical glitches, the second game has next to none. However, that doesn't mean that the game is even close to perfect. But it gets the really important things right, and that's what matters. The low points of the game weren't enough to keep us from enjoying the highs. Two Worlds II Screenshot All you really need to know about Two Worlds 2 is that it gets open-world exploration just right. I'm a huge fan of open-world games, and the world of Two Worlds 2 is just gorgeous. It's a joy to behold, and magnificent to traverse. Here's the trouble though: if you're not someone who has fun just exploring a virtual world, then there probably isn't enough here to engage you. Unfortunately, a lot of the other support structures that hold up most games aren't functioning all that well here.
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