Perhaps a decent rental for RPG fans, otherwise spend your time and your cash elsewhere.
CONS
1. The “character-creation” screen is a joke. There is no reason to fiddle with your character’s appearance at all. You are limited to only a male bounty-hunter. Your selections are few, and what sliders are there don’t do much. For example, when changing your eye color, you can pick from 6 shades of brown.
2. The voice-overs and script are very poorly done. I hate to use the word “cheesy”, but I will. You will tire of hearing “alas” and “pray” in every sentence used by your main character. I found myself laughing at the script instead of being drawn into the main story.
3. The battle system is a joke. All you do is press the right trigger. There is no block button. There really isn’t a great way to strategize your attacks on your enemies, and no combos or special attacks. Just hit and run. It’s a bitter disappointment. Dying is common in the game, and it warps you to a spot to “revive”, sometimes quite far from where you were in a region you haven’t explored yet. 4. Leveling up only allows you to improve on four major attributes. Not that this is bad in and of itself, but compared to Oblivion, the game it’s trying to be, it’s a joke.
5. The inventory screen is confusing and clumsy. You can “run out of space” before having too much weight on your character. A sorted list of your items, easily categorized, would have been much better and more practical. 6. The map is tricky to use, and the navigating the quest log requires an advanced degree. They are not done well, and hard to navigate and use.
7. The graphics aren't bad, but they don’t seem next-generation. I would compare them to an Xbox or late generation PS2 game. I expected better with the Xbox 360 technology.
8. The frame-rate isn’t good. Though you can move seamlessly into and out of different environments, the game pauses and freezes too often when doing so.
9. Story seemed choppy and hard to get into. Hard to know what to do next and where to go. See #6.
10. Items in the inventory all look the same. It’s easy to come across “new gear” very early in the game and money is too easy to come by.
11. The text is ridiculously small and difficult to see, especially if you don’t have HD. 12. Is there a reason to play it online? The 1P game isn’t that fun, so why share in it with others?
PROS
1. Decent magic system and cool use of spell cards. Spell creation a good idea.
2. Good background music and soundtrack. 3. Combining weapons is a cool feature – this should be hashed out more.
4. Fighting on horseback is another cool feature.
5. Reputation is another decent feature and affects the world around you.
6. Huge world to explore, cool environments, lots of weapon and armor varieties.
Two Worlds wants to do what Oblivion did, but didn’t innovate enough nor build on what Elder Scrolls accomplished – it took a huge step backwards in both design, practicality and fun-factor. Basically, it attempts a lot of things but does none of them well. Overall, I give the game a generous score of 4.0. It’s playable, but not addicting enough to urge you to keep going and finish the game, and if you manage to that, I find it hard to believe there would be any replay value. It does not set a new standard for RPG’s, and it’s not “Oblivion on steroids” as the box says. I would call it “Oblivion’s disabled baby-brother.”
If you are fan of RPGs and MUST have an RPG for the 360, rent it first. Otherwise, leave this on the shelf and save your cash.