- Title: Two Worlds
- Platform:Xbox 360
- Publisher: SouthPeak Interactive
- Developer: TopWare Interactive
- ESRB Rating: “M” for Mature
- Genre: Open world RPG
- Pros: It boots up and the name is spelled correctly
- Cons: Bad graphics, sound, combat, menu system … pretty much everything; online play is broken
Features
Two Worlds plays out just like any other RPG. Your character has a problem with someone else, so they venture out into the world to find them. In this case, you are looking for the man that kidnapped your sister. Along the way, you wander through the wilderness fighting bears and wolves and boars, or stroll through towns filled with awful characters that use “verily” and “prithy” and other such ye olde Englishe words way too often. The main storyline only takes about 12 hours to beat, and in only half of that time you are strong enough to kill pretty much anything. You can, of course, also do a ton of different sidequests, but the onscreen map that is supposed to tell you where to go is basically worthless, so trying to finish any quest is a chore. You do learn the ins and outs of the map system eventually, but there are enough other problems with the game that you’ll likely put it down for good long before you get things figured out.
Online multiplayer is supposed to be the main attraction here, but it is incredibly laggy and glitchy. Eight players can engage in a handful of selected quests on set maps rather than the open world, and the whole experience, when it works, just isn’t as cool or fun as you’d think it would be.
Gameplay
Graphics and Sound
Graphically, Two Worlds leaves a lot to be desired. The human characters are bland and ugly looking, and make even the hideous freaks that inhabited Oblivion look good. The animals you come across in the wild look surprisingly bad, and in the case of the boars and wolves, you can’t even tell them apart other than by sound. There is also a strange problem where shadows and ground textures right in front of you will flicker in and out depending on where you are standing. It is strange to be walking down a path and having the shadows in front of you turn on and off with every step you take. Another big problem with Two Worlds is that it is constantly stopping to load. You can walk more than ten steps in any direction before it tops for a second or two to load. Put this on top of an already unstable and bad framerate, and you have big trouble. It goes, chug chug chug, pause, chug, pause, chug chug chug pause, etc. Not fun.The sound is also an area of concern. The music and sound effects don’t really stand out in any way, good or bad, but the voice acting is hideous. Ye olde Englihe is fine in small doses, and even appropriate for a setting like this, but it is overused to the point that it is just obnoxious here. Even without all of that gobbledy-gook, the dialogue barely makes sense and is sleep inducing. Good thing the story isn’t all that important.
Bottom Line
