Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Worth playing"

I love it when games have something extra in them, or go the extra mile to entertain the player. Risen 2: Dark Waters has at times near photorealistic graphics. The female pirate you talk to early on almost looks life like when she is standing in front of the lit up background. Not everything looks that photorealistic, but when it happens you will be amazed. After a couple of more hours of gameplay and things just looking nice; I found a swordsmith who also looked life like when he is looked at in his buy/sell interface. The environment also looks pretty nice especially the lighting, or far off things, like a pirate ship, or burning town. Certain items, bottles, tables, almost seem cell-shaded, but in a good way. It is almost like you are playing in a painting at times. Piranha Bytes' artists did a superb job. Some enemies also look exceptionally good, and I found myself while blocking to really enjoy the graphics of their attacks- much like a baby is amazed watching TV for the first time, or having a favourite toy dangled in front of them. The graphics are not always exceptional; sometimes they are just good, and even average. For example, the jungle looks just average to me-although I have seen plants blow in the breeze. The game is missing polish sometimes in certain aspects-graphics, gameplay--but most times the lack of polish doesn't take away from the experience and just makes the game feel quaint.

I also like the leveling system of the game, and how you gain experience. Both are well balanced. There are also some interesting skills. I like how you have to pay to learn to sneak, and it doesn't just give it to you. "Nuff said" is an interesting skill, among others. The enemy AI is also well balanced. On medium I have died like 50 times in 10 hours already. It adds to the feeling of accomplishment when you finally beat a tough enemy. It hasn't been walk-away frustrating yet though; you can more than likely move on to something else in the game, or try to solve the problem in a different way. Some people hate the combat, but I really like it. It is fairly simplistic because you lock onto enemies with no slowdown. You decide when to swing, or hold the block button. Some later enemies are a lot of fun to engage in combat; there are a medium to large amount of different kinds of enemies too. The simplicity of combat goes well with the game's art style. The dialogue is pretty good with characters dropping the F-bomb quite often. The comedic dialogue is pretty funny at times. There is also humour in the gameplay.

A negative would be the Steam version I bought doesn't have controller support out of the box. As long as you reassign the movement keys to the arrow keys on your keyboard, and your vitals to the number pad you should be alright; that worked for me. The controlled character still moves pretty smoothly although he is keyboard controlled. Not a reason to miss out on this very good game. Important--You should also set the camera sensitivity to the lowest setting.

I could go on about this game, but the review is long enough. For example, the game has different swords, and guns; the pirate theme adds to realism; excellent day, and night cycle; actual dark segments in caves (you will need a torch); and so forth. Although I got the game in a sale, $29.99 is a steal for this game. A good game can make you feel emotions like panic, and accomplishment: Risen 2: Dark Waters with its well-balanced gameplay, and good, immersive graphics does that.