Risen

I had a look at the reviews as well. They did little to persuade me to purchase this game, since, while positive overall, they did mention a lot of negatives. Howerver, since I enjoyed some of the previous games by these developers, and as I did feel like playing a good old fashioned RPG again, I decided to give this game a go, after all. And I must say... it is simply lovely.

This is a real RPG. One that gives you plenty of freedom, has depth, has character development that makes a big difference, and that will involve you for a long time. It is, of course, quite combat-focussed, but the combat is not frantic. In a game like this, you can rush into things, but really, it is ideal for those who like to take things carefully and go about their gaming with a degree of deliberation.

Sure, the main character is fixed, there is a lot of gritty combat, and delving into swamps, running through bushes and delving into caves. And it is all quote 'manly' (like the Gothic series, of which the first managed to have a large cast without a single female character). Yet, at the same time, it is quite enchanting and athmospheric. The story makes sense (within the genre, at least), the many gruf characters are decently voice-acted and likable enough. Sure, the story and quests are a bit less complex than, say, the Witcher, Kotor or Oblivion, but it makes sense, most of the time. The world feels quite alive. Reviewers complained about dated graphics, though they did admit it did not look bad. But who cares if it is 'dated' somehow? It looks really good, often breath-taking. The landscape looks quite natural, the weather is really well done and brings a lot of athmosphere. In short... it is a very immersive game.

Reviewers also complained about quirky combat. I disagree. The fighting is quite well done and exciting, especially, although it can be challenging. But that IS sort of the point of games like these. It also makes sense, isn't overly complex (like the Witcher) and requires some skill (unlike Oblivion and Kotor).

In short, this is really the sort of RPG that lovers of the genre will like very much, provided they do not mind playing a likable but somewhat unremarkable nameless hero that they cannot customize. Within it's genre, this is the best game I have seen in quite a while. Don't believe the magazines. This game wasn't hyped, and without hype (and favours to editorial staff members) games get poor reviews, it seems. Don't be misled: this one is a gem.

Played on windows vista64.

Those of you that have played the Gothic game series (a lesser known yet hardcore RPG series), of which i recently completed myself Gothic 2 Gold Edition & Gothic 3 . This break away series, Risen, is made by the developers, Pirana Bytes, of those previous Gothic titles. They signed over the rights to Gothic 4 Arcania to JOWood & Spellbound for that one game, in order to make this Risen series, so don't worry, PB still own the rights to Gothic, so we have plenty of future prospects with Gothic & Risen.

The story of Risen is an interesting one, you play from a 3rd person perspective, a ship wreck survivor in a fantasy world with magic, swords & sorcery, who washes up on an island, an island with troubles. Eventually you will learn about the factions on the island, and have to pick a side that you want to fight for out of 3 factions to choose from. Which are the Warriors of the Order, Mages or Bandits. No matter which faction you choose the story incorporates your choice's very well as you see a different side to the same tale, which adds some replayabiltiy there. As you complete quests and slay enemies, you are given "learning points" which you can then use to customize your characters class as you see fit, with the use of strength, dexterity, mana, swords, axes, staffs, alchemy, smithing(incl.goldsmithing), prospecting ore, gutting animals, archery, crossbow, pick locks, pickpocket, acrobatics, sneak & more. Other Gothic-esque traits appear eg. No control over your characters facial appearance. Gold is important for learning skills from trainers. Dig up loot. Mine ore. Pick plants. Interact with NPC's and engage in conversation dialogue, some critical ones can have various response options. Cooking food. lockpicking etc...

Visually the game isn't mind blowing but looks good for the genre, the shadows and especially the lighting effects of entering and leaving caves/temples is pretty realistic, along with the reflections of your armor etc... The audio is also very good, although there are a few glitches when sound doesn't play, although this is very rare i found. The voice acting is excellent overall, but you will hear quite a few of the same voices on different characters in similar vain to a game like Oblivion, however the main characters are unique with the voice talent of well known actors such as John Rhys-Davies (Indiana Jones) who voices the bandit leader & Andy Serkis (Gollum from LOTR's) is also a lead character voice. It is a little distracting, but doesn't ruin the game experience.

In conclusion, this unique style of RPG approach requires allot of patience to enjoy it, so it won't be too everyone's taste. It's more suited for those who enjoy learning about the game world from long conversations, investigating peoples backstories, taking your time to explore & build your character etc... The out the box vanilla version of Risen, is of a high quality, and having just completed it myself, i am already looking forward to another play through, with a new character build. Certainly looking forward to Risen 2. Recommended.

Risen is a third person fantasy role playing game from the team that developed the Gothic series. I've never played that series so cannot comment on the similarities. It is very open world in the style of Oblivion although the island on which it is set does not have the same sense of scale. The skill tree is nice and clear and simple, experience points determine when the character levels and monsters do not level up with the character (as happened in the vanilla Oblivion). In this respect, and it the look of many of the environments it is similar to The Witcher. The game is very difficult in the early stages which I notice has drawn some criticism from commentators who also stated that combat was unsatisfactory. I found these aspects consistent with the RPG style - in the beginning you are a weak character and are not very good at fighting so it feels awkward. As you progress you unlock additional combat moves and combat becomes pretty fluid and varied. You cannot button mash - you must time your attacks to suit the tactics of your adversaries. The good news is that unlike many recent games there is a conventional quicksave function which I used often. If this game used the checkpoint system it could have been unplayable in the early stages. I disabled the autosave in the config file as I felt it was unnecessary and kept breaking immersion. The game is fairly short for an RPG - I completed it in fifty hours which is way shorter than many. The character of the protagonist is not developed (we do not even know his name). By contrast in The Witcher I got to like Geralt, the eponymous hero, which added to the feel of the game.

I played with all the settings on their highest at 1920x1200 resolution apart from turning off ambient occlusion and soft shadows in the config file (they ruin framerates and seem to make little visible difference). With vsync enabled in the Forceware control panel (there is no option in-game) the game ran very smoothly on my GTX 285 at framerates in the high fifties. Given this is an open world game with fairly detailed textures and large environments this is quite impressive. I also noticed an absence of loading pauses as you traversed those large environments which I found very annoying in Oblivion and Fallout 3. I noticed from FRAPS that the game used up to 850MB of VRAM which suggests you may get stuttering with a 512MB graphics card. Despite some environments looking very good, particularly the swamp areas, there were problems with the graphics. Some of the textures used for distant scenery were very poor and incredibly blurry. The pop-in in outdoor areas was terrible - I tried increasing the view range in the config file but it did not seem to do much apart from drop the framerate. The character models, particularly the faces, were dreadful. I could not understand this as the various monsters in the game were very detailed and realistic but most of the humans were quite awful and looked dated by at least ten years. I am currently revisiting Half Life 2 from 2004 and the faces of the characters are superb compared to this. Finally I have never seen such bad clipping in a game. My hero spent most of the game with his two-handed sword, which was supposed to be strapped across his back, actually sticking out of his right shoulder.

The game was unusual for an RPG in that you did not select your character class at the start but became either a bandit (fighter/thief), inquisitor (fighter/mage) or true mage depending on which of the island factions you sided with. I played a bandit but these can still use magic and craft scrolls and I enjoyed the variety. Monsters were quite plentiful and varied and the game has a similar crafting system for making arms and magic items to Oblivion and an alchemy system for brewing magic potions very similar to The Witcher. The best feature of the game in my view was the dungeons which were dark and scary and full of traps. The storyline begins well - the world is being ripped apart by storms and strange temples are rising all over the island (hence the title Risen). However the story does not seem to develop logically - it is almost as if the scriptwriters decided to alter the plot half way through but forgot to rewrite the earlier parts. The result is a confusing mess of a story which culminates in an extremely tedious and largely unexplained boss fight. Perhaps a sequel will clarify matters.

Some commentators have complained of the number of bugs in the game. However after applying the 1.10 patch (approx. 175MB) I think most have been fixed. I found one sidequest where the name of a cow inexplicably changed (hardly gamebreaking) and there were a couple of quests I completed which stayed in the current section of the quest log. Overall I quite enjoyed Risen but the game could have been so much more satisfying if the story were more logical and the graphical problems cured, particularly the awful character faces. If you like games such as The Witcher you should like Risen too but I think it is not as good in terms of its looks or storytelling.

Hope this helps.