Review Extravaganza: Risen
Review Extravaganza: Risen
Review - posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Sat 20 March 2010, 20:51:22
Tags: Piranha Bytes; RisenA couple of Risen reviews surfaced, although they refer to the console version.
Game Critics keep a critical eye, which translates to 8/10.
<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;">I could go on, but over the course of this review I've already described a litany of qualities that should win over players who appreciate mature RPG experiences with quality commensurate to the amount of time spent in them. However, there's no getting around the fact that first impressions will likely turn a lot of potential adventurers off. Clearly, another few months polishing rough edges would have been a worthy investment. That said, I'm not the kind of player who's blinded by low polygon counts and low-res textures. It didn't take long for me to appreciate the true value of Risen, and I have a feeling that those (like me) more concerned with options, abilities, and events instead of how shiny something looks will likely agree.
He's not turned off by shit graphics. A fact that allowed them to get right to the true values of Risen.
PopMatters doesn't like it, 4/10.
<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;">Tiresome sums up a lot of my feelings about Risen. There’s some genuine, classic RPG fun to be had here, and once you commit the time and energy to get your character going, the Pavlovian need to grind for XP and gold kicks in. But with its clunky combat, endless wandering back and forth, and dull storytelling, I don’t think that it’s worth the time or effort.
Not worth the effort.
And finally GameZone scores it 7/10.
<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;">Risen was a pretty good looking game on the PC, but the aesthetic quality was greatly diminished in the porting to the Xbox 360. The textures are pretty muddy, and the character models are lacking. The whole game has taken a real polish hit in the transition, including the framerate, which gets pretty laggy especially in towns.
The game’s sound effects fare much better than the graphics. The music sounds great and adds an excellent ambiance to the game, and the voice acting is spot on.
Risen is a solid game brought down by a shoddy port to consoles. While there’s still a lot of fun to be had with the deep missions that foster exploration, the game’s technical presentation is subpar and there are some gameplay issues as a result of the move to the Xbox 360.
So the bottomline seems to be that the console port doesn't quite live up to the PC version. Couldn't care less.
Spotted at: The Gate to the Codex
Game Critics keep a critical eye, which translates to 8/10.
<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;">I could go on, but over the course of this review I've already described a litany of qualities that should win over players who appreciate mature RPG experiences with quality commensurate to the amount of time spent in them. However, there's no getting around the fact that first impressions will likely turn a lot of potential adventurers off. Clearly, another few months polishing rough edges would have been a worthy investment. That said, I'm not the kind of player who's blinded by low polygon counts and low-res textures. It didn't take long for me to appreciate the true value of Risen, and I have a feeling that those (like me) more concerned with options, abilities, and events instead of how shiny something looks will likely agree.
He's not turned off by shit graphics. A fact that allowed them to get right to the true values of Risen.
PopMatters doesn't like it, 4/10.
<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;">Tiresome sums up a lot of my feelings about Risen. There’s some genuine, classic RPG fun to be had here, and once you commit the time and energy to get your character going, the Pavlovian need to grind for XP and gold kicks in. But with its clunky combat, endless wandering back and forth, and dull storytelling, I don’t think that it’s worth the time or effort.
Not worth the effort.
And finally GameZone scores it 7/10.
<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;">Risen was a pretty good looking game on the PC, but the aesthetic quality was greatly diminished in the porting to the Xbox 360. The textures are pretty muddy, and the character models are lacking. The whole game has taken a real polish hit in the transition, including the framerate, which gets pretty laggy especially in towns.
The game’s sound effects fare much better than the graphics. The music sounds great and adds an excellent ambiance to the game, and the voice acting is spot on.
Risen is a solid game brought down by a shoddy port to consoles. While there’s still a lot of fun to be had with the deep missions that foster exploration, the game’s technical presentation is subpar and there are some gameplay issues as a result of the move to the Xbox 360.
So the bottomline seems to be that the console port doesn't quite live up to the PC version. Couldn't care less.
Spotted at: The Gate to the Codex
