Review Risen runs without misfires

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Risen

... or so say RPGWatch about this: <a href="http://www.worldofrisen.de/article_257.htm?PHPSESSID=09c09c35e4da5fb0a88cc4d0b79f1d6c">Can you read German</a>? While you wait for some Codexer to do the proper translation, <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldofrisen.de%2Farticle_257.htm%3FPHPSESSID%3D09c09c35e4da5fb0a88cc4d0b79f1d6c">here's the google version</a> of a Risen fan-site review (Note: There may be a possible potential for bias):
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<blockquote>While the editors of the relevant gaming magazines are still arguing about whether Risen is now or not innovative enough and therefore was a good or not so good RPG, is the opinion of the fans already announced: Risen is in large part exactly what we wants. Much of the first two titles and Gothic to contemporary, there's still a service and accessibility. Fans ist das genug Innovation. Fans is enough innovation. This must not be the role-wheel to be reinvented. Neue Reifen mit besserem Profil sind genug. New tires with a better profile is enough.
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[...]
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Piranha Bytes typical history begins with a fixed predetermined nameless character. A character creation is no longer applicable and one immediately enters the story.
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[...]
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At the beginning, the various factions to whom we may join them, revealed. However, one can postpone his decision or the entire first chapter. To join the groups, typically have specific tasks to be done, which ultimately lead to the fact that it binds tightly to a group. The further history can be seen from the perspective of that group.
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[...]
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Partial interlocking quests that reveal themselves only after questioning several people to switch to tasks that can be tricky to solve. A little too short, the ability to solve quests come in various ways to the vast majority of quests have only one solution. </blockquote>
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WTF google tooltip when you however over text? And it copy-pastes the original as well? Fuck off. Risen might be exactly what we wants but WTF happened to google translate.
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You might also want to check out <a href="http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,696074/Risen-in-graphics-card-benchmark-test-Radeon-HD-5870-on-top/Practice/">video benchmarks for the game</a>. Results seem to indicate some chugga-chugga-chugga.
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!gamebanshee (which has fucked itself at the moment with error 404's all over the place) & <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPGWatch</a>

 

[thesheeep]

Don't blame google. German is just too powerful for any translator.

 

[Gorath]

The WoR article also includes a detailed hardware chapter based on their experience with the 4 review copies they got. Their results are not really similar to those at PCGHW.

 

[Mackerel]

That PCGHW article is bull, Risen runs much more smoothly than Gothic 3 on my girlfriend's computer and she only has a 4670. It's running between 30-40 FPS at 1280x1024 with all the settings maxed except for putting shadows at Medium and using 8xAF.

 

[JarlFrank]

While you wait for some Codexer to do the proper translation,

I'll do it. Gonna take 10 minutes or so.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Less than four minutes left....

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Time's up. I guess you were joking then.

I notice it'd be an hour-ful of translation.

 

[JarlFrank]

Risen Test

While the large gaming magazines still discuss whether Risen is innovative enough or not and whether it therefore is a good game or not, the fans are already sure of their opinion: Risen is, in many parts, exactly what they wanted. A lot from the first two Gothic games and on top of that we get a modern interface and accessibility. For the fans this is enough innovation. The devs don't need to develop the Roleplaying-Wheel anew. New tires with a better profile are enough.

The old fans of the Gothic series hope for a game, that possesses the typical features of the first two games: Among these are a dense story that is parted into chapters, lots of unique NPCs with diverse quests, that ideally have multiple solutions, and a world that invites to explore. Oh, and did I mention a combat system with tactical elements that rewards practice? Besides these fans, there are the people who liked Gothic 3 and only complained that it was unfinished but didn't have any complaints about the gameplay. Do Piranha Bytes manage to please both the old fans and the people who liked G3 with their new game?

Where am I?

Typical for Piranha Bytes, the story begins with a pre-generated nameless character. Therefore there's no character generation and you immediately delve into the story. The first minutes of the game might already be known to some of you from diverse previews and videos. In contrast to Gothic 2 and 3, where you were sent out with a clear goal that had a connection to the whole story, Risen feels more like Gothic 1 again: in the beginning you stand on the beach without any knowledge or possessions, and have to find out about the story and relationships first. In order to not send beginners completely unprepared into the gameworld, the tutorial character Sara gives some hints about combat, the direction you have to go to and how to use items. People who don't like that can just leave Sara alone and explore the island by themselves.

Already in the beginning you will meet quite some factions that you can join. But, during the first chapter, you don't have to decide yet.

To join a faction, you typically have to solve certain quests that, in the end, lead to you joining that faction. The rest of the story will then be seen from the viewpoint of that faction. This way, the game clearly goes back to the same faction-system that was used in Gothic 1 and 2. The replay value thus comes from the different quests and viewpoints of the different factions instead of just the sheer size of the world. While Gothic 3 gained attention mainly through size, Risen returned to a smaller, more overlookable world. In order to have enough interesting places for the different quests and to show the player many new locations during the main quest, the island of Faranga, on which the hero stranded, has many nooks and crannies. On multiple layers there are swamps, grasslands, forests and canyons, and waterfalls show the height differences more clearly. That way they show on the one hand the wildness of the island, and on the other hand also show the soft romantic natural side of the gameworld. High cliffs and mountain walls additionally seperate the island and prevent you from seeing all of the gameworld at once. Behind every road turn the player sees a different panorama. There are peaceful farms, dark swamplands and sometimes thick, sometimes sunny forest areas. Additionally, there are many caves, temple ruins and dungeons. In Risen, all of them are designed by hand. No cave and dungeon looks the same as the other. Normal caves are usually inhabitet by gnomes or wolf hordes. Dangerous ghouls wait in dark ambushes to surprise the player. Dungeons, on the other hand, of which there are plenty because of the temple ruins that appear everywhere, contain worse things. There are not only dangerous traps which sometimes have to be disarmed by magic, but also stronger and more dangerous enemies. Ash-beasts are only one of them. The dungeons aren't as deep as the Old Mine in Gothic 1, and the ancient cave-rooms of the temples aren't as high as the Temple of the Sleeper, but the secret subterranean buildings, which you will undoubdetly find during the game, nonetheless have a certain Sleeper's Temple feeling to them. Hot lava flows in chasms deep under half destroyed bridges, hallways lead down to unknown dark depths and protection mechanisms show the player that he's only an intruder.

But before you can enter these places, you will be sent square across the island. Not only the camp of bandits in the swamp is a place you'll often visit, there's also the harbor city that offers many quests. Here - and even more in the volcano fortress - you will see the old quest structure you know from the first two Gothics. Quests that partly relate to each other which can only be solved after talking to some different people are there as well as quests that you can solve cleverly. The possibility to solve quests in different ways isn't used that often, most quests only have one solution. The harbor city itself is very diverse, multiple streets seperate the city into different parts which all have their own flavor. There's a multitude of characters living in these city quarters. The models of the male NPCs are also quite diverse and aren't reused all too often, so that you won't get the impression of talking to a clone army. Sadly there are only two models for the few female characters in the game, which both have rather strange proportions (lol Piranha Bytes and women) which really show during animations. Still, the animations have improved from Gothic 3. While in Gothic 3 characters often did hectic movements during dialogues, they seem more natural in Risen. The plastic-look of Gothic 3 is gone, too, NPC-faces and clothes look more organic, more real. Hooked noses, scars, full beards, fat and slim persons, bald and furry (yeah I intentionally chose this word instead of, say, hairy ). The variety is quite large. The voice actors aren't reused too often, either. Optically, the NPCs remind of the old Gothic games. The models are, of course, more detailed, but the dialogues and the general design of faces and clothes have the same rough charme of the characters from Gothic 1 and 2.

 

[JarlFrank]

Alright, I did it. Phew. Might be a little sloppy because I'm tired and slightly drunk. Didn't do the small texts in the boxes beneath the screenshots, just the main article. To sum it up, it says that the game feels much like Gothic 1 and 2, it talks mostly about graphical atmosphere and landcape and little about gameplay.

The two most interesting things from this article:
There are only 2 female models. There are much less females in the game than males.
There are only few quests with multiple solutions, most have only a single one.

 

[Lysiander]

Alright, I did it. Phew. Might be a little sloppy because I'm tired and slightly drunk.

I'll second that. You do realize you just translated the first of six pages do you? Basically the introduction. :p

Im too busy to translate the rest, but in essence the review keeps saying "like gothic 1/2" and "unlike gothic 3", so according to this review we get a solid open world game. I might do a translation when I have more time.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

I'm kind of going to miss the way their hands flailed about every time they talked.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Risen runs perfectly on my Radeon 4670/Athlon 64 X2 3800+/4 GB RAM. Gothic 3 still runs like crap, even with the community patch. PB really did an amazing job with optimization this time.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

IS the game worth getting then? I've some disposable income to... dispose of.

 

[fastpunk]

Risen runs perfectly on my Radeon 4670/Athlon 64 X2 3800+/4 GB RAM. Gothic 3 still runs like crap, even with the community patch. PB really did an amazing job with optimization this time.

What resolution and detail levels are you playing Risen at with those specs? Curious cause mine are similar. My main concern is will it work fine at 1680 x 1050? Anything other than native resolution on LCD monitors and things start to look sub-par.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Risen runs perfectly on my Radeon 4670/Athlon 64 X2 3800+/4 GB RAM. Gothic 3 still runs like crap, even with the community patch. PB really did an amazing job with optimization this time.

What resolution and detail levels are you playing Risen at with those specs? Curious cause mine are similar. My main concern is will it work fine at 1680 x 1050? Anything other than native resolution on LCD monitors and things start to look sub-par.

1280x1024, 4x anisotropic filtering, shadows and vegetation turned off, everything else set to high. No lag, loading times take about 7-10 seconds.

 

[fastpunk]

Risen runs perfectly on my Radeon 4670/Athlon 64 X2 3800+/4 GB RAM. Gothic 3 still runs like crap, even with the community patch. PB really did an amazing job with optimization this time.

What resolution and detail levels are you playing Risen at with those specs? Curious cause mine are similar. My main concern is will it work fine at 1680 x 1050? Anything other than native resolution on LCD monitors and things start to look sub-par.

1280x1024, 4x anisotropic filtering, shadows and vegetation turned off, everything else set to high. No lag, loading times take about 7-10 seconds.

No vegetation? Eh, from screens it looks like vegetation is a big part of the game's look. But that's pretty good performance nonetheless. Thanks!

 

[JarlFrank]

Alright, I did it. Phew. Might be a little sloppy because I'm tired and slightly drunk.

I'll second that. You do realize you just translated the first of six pages do you? Basically the introduction. :p

Im too busy to translate the rest, but in essence the review keeps saying "like gothic 1/2" and "unlike gothic 3", so according to this review we get a solid open world game. I might do a translation when I have more time.

OH SHIIIII~

Oh well. More work later, I guess.

 

[fastpunk]

There's already an english version of the review you twats.

http://www.worldofrisen.de/english/article_263.htm

 

[Licaon_Kter]

There's already an english version of the review you twats.

there is one now punk

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

No vegetation? Eh, from screens it looks like vegetation is a big part of the game's look. But that's pretty good performance nonetheless. Thanks!

False alarm. Setting vegetation to high and shadows to medium did not cause any problems. Only shadows set to high are laggy.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

http://www.worldofrisen.de/english/article_263.htm

Sounds good (especially the "Statements" section). Definitely gonna buy it as soon as it's published in the English speaking world. Too bad it won't have the scale and openness of Gothic 3. (And I doubt it will have the challenging travelling of G2: NotR... for example, travelling between the Valley mines collecting information was an amazing experience that no other RPG adventure has replicated.)

 

[fastpunk]

No vegetation? Eh, from screens it looks like vegetation is a big part of the game's look. But that's pretty good performance nonetheless. Thanks!

False alarm. Setting vegetation to high and shadows to medium did not cause any problems. Only shadows set to high are laggy.

Even better! This should work just fine.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

No vegetation? Eh, from screens it looks like vegetation is a big part of the game's look. But that's pretty good performance nonetheless. Thanks!

False alarm. Setting vegetation to high and shadows to medium did not cause any problems. Only shadows set to high are laggy.

Well shadows tend to be the thing really pushes most systems.

So far it all sounds good.

 

[A user named cat]

I'm about an hour or so into it, snatched the torrent to try it out. Sure it's optimized a ton better than Gothic 3, other than Saint's Row 2 and GTA IV, what the hell games aren't?

This game doesn't run exactly smooth though, I only have a 9600gt GPU but do have a Phenom II quad core OCed. Even with shadows at medium, certain parts the game just starts chugging. Defragging helped some, but this isn't exactly great optimization. There's a bit of stuttering that happens randomly. It's still playable though and a good game so far.

Also another problem I'm hating: the damn audio looping. During wind or rain, there's almost a half second delay every time the ambience loops again and it gets rather annoying.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

No vegetation? Eh, from screens it looks like vegetation is a big part of the game's look. But that's pretty good performance nonetheless. Thanks!

False alarm. Setting vegetation to high and shadows to medium did not cause any problems. Only shadows set to high are laggy.

Well shadows tend to be the thing really pushes most systems.

So far it all sounds good.

anisotropic filtering also fucks up for me in most games. I find it unecessary, too