If your undecided whether to give this game a try, check out my very indepth review!
I heard that it had a bad frame rate in some reviews so I did the maintenance on my hard disk. --**-- goto system -> memory - press Y - now press X, X, LB, RB, X, X. Click yes... and its done. Whatever anyone tells you, it does NOT delete downloaded content and it does NOT delete save games. Just deletes the patches/bug fixes the dev's upload before the game.--**--
I was brought to the menu screen, which had some of the land in the background. It wasn't stunning looking but considering how far the draw distance was it was pretty impressive.
First Impressions
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So I start a new game and enter the first cutscene. ( I won't say what happens because some might consider it a spoiler).
The voice acting is hilariously bad. Mostly from your own character! Still, I knew and heard about this already so it didn't surprise me but it did make me laugh.
Once I gain control of my character, I realise I'm just outside a dungeon. The camera is awkward, but not that bad to control (unless you enter a house but you can always go into first person). I talk to an NPC outside the dungeon, and again there's bad voice acting on both characters (but at least there is speech and no need for subtitles!). He tells me to go into this dungeon, so I start moving my character and thought the frame rate isn't too bad. I enter the dungeon and the layout is pretty poor. Oblivions dungeons... this is not. So I walked forward and the frame rate dipped a bit and the character model was pretty bad to look at. I open a gate and slay two Groms. Looting their bodies ala Oblivion style.
The inventory was awkward to use at first but after about an hour it becomes a breeze.
I'd also like to point out I love the way items stack, which means you can have 2 of the same item, join them together for more damage and bonuses.
The good
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Ok so my first impressions weren't good but having read numerous reviews and opinions I figured it wasn't as bad as I was expecting.
The frame rate sure does drop sometimes but usually when you first play the game, after about 20 minutes (once its loaded in all the details of trees, grass, etc) it runs slightly better. Probably about 20FPS - 25FPS.
A few things really amazed me: I could come back from a save game and go back to the very first area when I first killed something and pick up his loot which I might have left behind, and the bodies are still there!
That is fantastic detail but probably why the frame rate dips.
The way that if you stray too far and your character isn't strong enough you can run into some impossible to kill monsters who can take one giant swipe and kill you. Which is good because I wouldn't expect to kill a cyclopse at level 5. It gives you a feel that you need training and thats a good thing.
Another great thing is you can use whatever weaponry you want. What I mean by that, some games require sword skill, axe skill, mace skill... so your stuck with one type of item for the whole game, not this game though! I can switch between whatever weapons I want to deal with a certain enemy.
So if im fighting skeletons its pointless using something with piercing damage, so I might have to use a mace or club, instead of my favourite halberd. Some weapons like the halberd have two types of damage and its the way you press your right trigger. If I tap my right trigger once with the halberd he will do a thrusting strike (which uses piercing damage). If I keep tapping my right trigger he will start swinging his halberd around hitting multiple enemies doing slashing damage.
The variety in magic is good, lots and lots of spells! Although I didn't really train in magic so its hard to say what it would be like.
Which leads me to another point... If you get bored of playing your archer, fighter or mage, or feel too weak being a jack of all trades... you can get your points changed from one of the NPC's in town. So you can go from a fighter to a mage and vice versus just for the cost of in-game money.
In this game you can dual wield, which is a great feature which Oblivion lacked, and you can do it with a mix of weapons which can be useful. So maybe an axe and sword or mace and dagger. So you get multiple damage types.
I have to say I love the skills tree. Reminds me of Diablo, except with slightly more depth. Such as kicking dirt in the enemies eyes which makes them blind for x amount of seconds (the more skill points the more amount of seconds they are blind for), or dehorse a rider when using a spear or halberd or fire a burning arrow into an enemies face causing them to flee and do x amount of damage. These are just a few of the skills in the skill tree.
The bad
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I already mentioned the voice acting was hilariously bad, but unless you really want to get into the games story this shouldn't put you off. Some of the enemies voice acting isn't so bad at times but its hit and miss.
The frame rate when you first load the game up can be pretty bad, but after 20 minutes.. it seems to sooth it out by loading in all the textures. Like I said try doing a maintenance on your xbox 360's memory.
The controls and camera are slightly awkward. I already spoke of the camera issues, but the controls are a bit odd and take a while to get familiar with. For example, to switch from your current weapon to another weapon or spell... you need to use D pad to select the weapon/spell and then left trigger to arm and then press X to draw your weapon, ready to fight. You can always use the inventory screen but like I said before, its kind of sluggish and really misses a mouse and keyboard here. The graphics are pretty bad but considering how much the game has to remember its pretty forgiveable, not a great game to show off to your PS3 owning mates who will probably say "OMG your Xbox 360 sucks, look at those graphics!". I'm not sure whether to say this is a bad point as such but when you kill something, late at night it can come back to haunt you literally! Ghosts appear and so far im unable to do any damage... probably because I need magic which is realistic I suppose, and if they touch me once I die... but death comes at no cost unless your playing on hard when there are no respawns.
Avoiding death can be pretty easy, because you have a dodge button and i've yet to see anything run faster than my character... even wolves haha. You can strike and dodge and the enemy can't hit you, if you get really good at this you'll start to feel invulnerable. Which leads me to another bad thing... on numerous occassions in dungeons I have hit the dodge button and got locked into the wall of the dungeon. I could still move out but the enemies couldn't hit me and nor could I hit them, it would be easy not to mention this because its not like I've got stuck... yet!
Loading times... I heard alot of people complain about these but they are no more common than Oblivions loading times and they are quicker. At least you can enter a house without loading! However, it must be said that while Oblivions loading actually paused gameplay... in Two Worlds the game is still playing whilst your still loading. So if your running away from some giant monster and it comes up with the loading disc sign, don't let go of that analogue stick because you'll probably find your character dead or near death.
The conclusion
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I'll tell you what this game reminds me of... Diablo in 3rd person, except with more spells, variety and depth but at the cost of a slightly dodgy frame rate and some random load times. So far I have enjoyed the game but I really have to be in the mood to put the disc in because I know what im going to expect for the first few minutes of gameplay...which is a slightly bad frame rate, although once im playing and got into the swing of things, its fun if your anything like me and love Diablo. In my eyes its a treasure hunt and has the addictiveness of Diablo to keep playing and search for that extra special item.
My advice will be to rent it, get trained up (get a few extra skills such) so you can do all the special moves and if your enjoying it and can handle the frame rate and graphics... buy it!