Written by: Mark

 

 

 

"Risen" on the Xbox 360 is the latest role playing game (RPG) to be released on the system. It is fair to say that it faces stiff competition with the likes of the excellent Oblivion and Fable 2 but have German developers Piranha Bytes released a game which competes can hold it’s own or simply a game best left on the shelves?

 

 

The story in the game sees the player taking on the role of a shipwreck victim who has been washed up on the shores of a mysterious island named Faranga. As expected Faranga is anything but a deserted island and is populated by humans and a variety of fantasy creatures.

 

The player starts with nothing but rags on his back and very little to defend himself apart from the odd stick which can be found at the start of the game but this soon changes in typical RPG fashion when the player interacts with other characters, levels up and obtains much better clothing and weapons.

 

The good sized island is packed with buildings and other characters which can be interacted with throughout and this certainly prevents the story from being boring however it would be fair to say that the story can never be considered captivating.

 

 

It also soon becomes obvious that the story is packed full of clichés expected in games set in such mysterious surroundings and more importantly those found in other games in the RPG genre and this strikes me that the developers have gone with the tried and trusted format to ensure that it will appeal to a wider audience.

 

 

It goes without saying that the developers have put together a decent storyline and have been somewhat brave in their attempts to put together a game of good size. As a result it seems that this has led to inconsistencies in both graphics and gameplay and leads to the game being a real missed opportunity.

 

 

After a pleasing introductory movie to set the scene one may expect to be in with a pretty good looking game however once the action starts it does not take long to realise just how poor things actually are.

 

Having first played Risen the whole graphical presentation instantly hit me as being a major let down for a next gen game packed full of jaggies, poorly designed characters and a rank bad draw distance which saw incredible amounts of slowdown and pop ups throughout. For the purpose of this review I persevered with this and thankfully so as a recent update has seemed to improve things from a graphical perspective and this now makes the game more acceptable but the game still seems lacking in it’s overall presentation.

 

 

I can see that the efforts have been put in to try and give the game a fantasy feel but it just seems rushed in how it’s been put together and whilst it may not have had a budget as big as numerous other games it could (and should) have been so much better.

 

The saving grace is that throughout the game the voice acting is pretty good and the variety of accents on offer fits the game well. The same can be said about the sound effects which admittedly does add a sense of atmosphere to proceedings but with the graphical failings it all too often gets overlooked which is a real shame.

 

 

It is hard for me to recommend "Risen" as a must play title particularly as there are far better RPG’s currently available. Whilst I can see what has been attempted with the game there are just too many things wrong with the whole experience.

 

In many ways Risen has been a difficult game to review due to the obvious flaws which cannot be overlooked however it does have it’s enjoyable aspects particularly in the character acting and interactions.

 

Overall I would say that Risen is probably worth a rental at best as you may be disappointed if you paid your hard earned money to buy the game and I for one would not be surprised if before long we see the game appearing on bargain shelves everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

+ Character acting is done pretty well
+ Good sized island with plenty to explore
+ Gets better later in the game