Review - Risen 2: Dark Waters

Pros: Solid story line, appealing graphics and well-designed combat controls.

Cons: Dodgy character animation and glaring graphical errors which damage the overall experience.

Final Judgement: Nagging graphical issues can hamper enjoyment but overall worth a play through.

http://www.risen2.de

Available for: PC, Xbox 360, PS3

Oh good times, pirate adventures on the high seas and I mean the fake romanticized pirates with the “arr”, the eye patch and the buried booty on the desert islands. Not the ones in the skiffs with RPG’s, AK-47’s and hostages. Those guys suck, who do they think they are? Destroying all the good work Johnny Depp did as Captain Jack Sparrow… in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie anyway, the last three are another form of piracy all together, but I should focus in here.

"Whats that? You want ANOTHER Sequel? Giddy-up!"

This week I’m looking at Risen 2: Dark Waters, a game brought to us by Deep Silver and Piranha Bites. For starts I’m just going to come right out and say that there is a lot going on in this game.  If you’re a sucker for experiencing the series in its entirety then start out with its predecessor Risen.  However, if you suffer from Attention Deficit or just have better things to do then here is the gist:

Risen came out in 2009 on PC and was a game that received fairly good reviews but as I recall didn’t receive too much hoopla or acclaim. An Xbox port was also released but the game suffered some deep cuts to features and the translation to console left that version of the game as the redheaded stepchild to the original presentation.  So if you are looking to play Risen then stick to the PC.

The game followed you, a nameless hero, who is shipwrecked on an island off the coast of the “old world” throughout the game you are forced to fulfill the role as the salvation of all humanity. See in In the game humanity has banished the gods from the world… I think it was because the gods thought they were better the humanity and were totally all “holier than thou”. This kinda strikes me as a bad reason to get rid of the gods. They’re the gods, of course they think they’re better then you… they made you. It’s sort of how I tend to think I’m better than the sandwich I made for lunch it’s not because I’m a dick, it’s just I know that I’m smarter and stronger than a combination of peanut butter and jelly. In any case operation ‘kick the bus driver off the bus’ somewhat backfired and with the gods no longer keeping shit square in the world “the titans” (powerful elemental creatures) have begun rising up from the forgotten places underground.  So now the titans are totally wailing oneverything in sight and you can’t even scream “gods save us!” because humanity just fucking fired them. Your character, who has learned about the Titan menace and became a “Titan Lord”, is the only person who could save humanity. The game ends rather anti-climactically with you defeating one such Titan and then strutting off in a random direction while some disembodied voice talks about you showing humanity the way.

"Oh heeey."

My only complaints with the first game was that the NPC characters were all so flat boring that trying to give a shit about them was like trying to find flavor in a Domino’s pizza. Fortunately the game play and overall story line made up for the weak cast and was able to keep my interest.

Her expression never once changes from "durrr...".

In Risen 2: Dark Waters the theme of the game has shifted from dark fantasy adventure with swords and magic to a colonial Caribbean type setting with Pirates and guns and voodoo. You play the same nameless hero, as the first game, who doesn’t really seem to have aged all that much over the several years that have apparently passed. The previously clean cut hero is now sporting an eye patch and drinks his face off nightly. Apparently his brush with a titan in the last game bore a heavy price and he is now a shadow of the hero he once was. Humanity has been pushed to the edges of the world by the rampaging titans and the hero is called upon to go undercover as a pirate. The heroes’ mission: To steal a titan slaying weapon from the famous Pirate Lord Steelbeard.   


"Saigon, shit. I'm still only in Saigon. Every time I think I'm going to wake up back in the jungle..."

The change in the setting is night and day between games and is a bit jarring at first. We started with a dark fantasy Dungeons and Dragons-esque hack and slash and now we have a jaunty swashbuckling yard sale from Sid Meyer’s Pirates! It’s hard to get your head around this being a direct sequel at first, but fortunately you will see enough familiar faces from the first game that start filling in the gaps almost immediately so as the drastic change in setting seems more reasonable. After a few hours of game play I was looking at Dark Waters as not so much a sequel to Risen as a reinvention of it. 

AVAST! Yon hero looks far more badass and has even learned to emote!

Piranha Bites isn’t just continuing the story of Risen they also took a good long look in the mirror and did their best to correct a lot of the complainants people had over the previous game. For one they’ve spent a lot of time reimagining the characters and your interactions with them to make them more dynamic and engaging. The love interest from the previous game Patty, who is the daughter of a pirate lord, has gone from being a boring tavern owner that only appeared as “the love interest” in the game because it was spoon fed it to you right before the final battle, to in Dark Waters being a bright, sarcastic partner that your character has. The voice acting has also been drastically improved with characters now delivering their lines with feeling and not as if they were reading from a phone book. Add this all together and suddenly I go from wishing Patty would fall off a cliff giving a damn if she gets the business end of a musket on the high seas.


From the fifteen or so hours of the estimated sixty hour single player story that I’ve experienced so far in Dark Waters, I’m impressed with what Piranha Bites has done. Changing from sword hack and slashing with magic to dueling with rapiers pistols and pirates has really changed the flavor of Risen, taking it from just another decent fantasy game and elevating it to its own niche entirely.  I enjoyed the way that Dark Waters really threw its self in its new found pirate clothing. The new setting really gives the title a dose of vibrancy that the first game lacked.

VIBRANCY!

All that being said, Dark Waters, like Risen, is not given to us without its fair share of problems and bugs, namely in the graphics department.
 

There are two major issues here, the first: Character model clipping. Dark Waters suffers from this chronically, you can’t have one conversation without seeing an NPC’s shoulder pad breaking through his chest a la aliens or his collar clipping through the side of his head. It’s distracting and looks unfinished but again you get used to it after a while. The other graphical issue I had a much larger issues with is with the lush green foliage of the islands you visit. You will find when you walk towards some plants and vegetation they magically expand and shrink with almost a kaleidoscope effect, this wouldn’t be so bad but because the light and shadows are dynamic so the shadows also expand and contact like crazy.  I’m told that this is a result of an issue with the “Depth of field” (-the way the game renders graphics so that the things closer to you are clear while things away from you are fuzzy making for a more realistic representation of the environment. I got used to it eventually but until I did it murdered my enjoyment of the game.

The only other issue I really have with the game and this is more from a humor stand point, is the stilted character model animation. The characters look good, faces are well animated and costumes are detailed, however, the character animations are way off and horribly exaggerated.  It’s like they’re trying to do interpretive dances to go along with what they’re saying. Patty is the worst offender, you ask her what you should do next and she sticks one hand on her hip and cocks out her waist like a hooker trying to get the attention of a passing 747 pilot, she then waves her other hand about like she’s trying to conduct the London philharmonic orchestra from Australia and then rather plainly suggests that you sail for the next island. Good voice acting, terrible character animation.

"HEY YOU GUYS!"

Glaring graphic issues and Thunderbirds style animation aside, Risen 2: Dark Waters is an enjoyable game. The romanticized pirate theme is great and Piranha bites efforts to improve their product add depth to the series. I would really play this title solely for the fun of being a pirate captain in charge of his own ship. After all, who didn’t at some point hold in their childhood place their palm over their eye and let out a hearty “Arr”? Dark Waters may just be the answer to that call.