Risen – 360 – Review

Released on the PC last year, Risen
was a hidden gem, a solid RPG with some great features and a pleasant surprise.
While the story was pretty generic for the genre, Risen did have solid
mechanics, a long and involving campaign, and a great world to explore. Now the
game is making its way to the Xbox 360. The port of the game cuts a few corners
from a technological standpoint and doesn’t look nearly as good as its PC
counterpart. However, the controls work pretty well and the overall experience
has streamlined for consoles, making for a solid, if flawed, RPG.

Risen takes place on the island of
Faranga, a lush, volcanic island with a variety of wild creatures and human
settlements. Ancient ruins have begun to pop up around the island, exposing a
connected network of tunnels and dungeons. Due to this, the Inquisitor (the
powers that be) has imposed a lockdown on the island, not allowing anyone to
leave. As a recent arrival at the island (you washed on shore with nothing after
a shipwreck), you become enveloped in the story of the island and its politics,
and become its potential savior.

The game’s quests are seldom mapped
out, meaning that you’ll have to do a decent amount of exploration. Mission
goals are fairly enigmatic and even going back through your journal entries will
reveal few clues on what you need to do to progress. There’s not a lot of hand
holding to be had in Risen, but the point of the game is that you explore the
environment and that is most of its charm.

Risen puts a lot of emphasis on
exploration in the mission structure, and this is the most appealing element for
RPG gamers. While the game starts out pretty slowly, and you’ll be little more
than a glorified gofer for the first third or so, it does give you time to
explore the island and check out new areas. The game is far from linear, giving the
player ample choices for playing the game and allowing you to take on a wide
variety of quests, and giving you plenty of options for completing them.

You’ll have plenty of means for
building up your character as well. While leveling them up moves slowly, you’ll
also be able to meet up with trainers in order to teach your character new
skills. You can teach them several skills that will cater to your individual
play style, creating a thief character who is adept at picking locks, pockets,
and sneaking into guarded areas unnoticed, you can train them in a variety of
trade-type skills like alchemy and smithing, making it possible for them to
craft their own weapons and items, and several other abilities. The game is very
flexible in that regard, and hardcore RPG gamers will have no difficulty
creating a character that will suit their play styles.

The game’s exploration system means
that you’ll spend a lot of time wandering through the world trying to figure out
what your next step is, and this is further exacerbated through the game’s
somewhat underwhelming interface. The game doesn’t offer you much in the way of
a mini-map, The game’s actual map is unintuitive and cumbersome, requiring you to
pull it up and select where you want to go after jumping through some
unnecessary hurdles to figure out where you’re going next. The interface is also
tiny and difficult to see, even on big screen TVs, making it all the more
problematic.

Additionally, the combat is a drag.
It’s not so much of a problem when you’re facing off against an opponent
one-on-one, but when you have to take on several enemies it becomes a huge pain.
The game uses an automatic targeting system that works very spottily, often
targeting enemies in illogical ways, leaving you open for attack. While you do
eventually get ranged weapons and spells that will make battling more intuitive,
it still lacks fluidity and feels very sloppy.

Risen was a pretty good looking game
on the PC, but the aesthetic quality was greatly diminished in the porting to
the Xbox 360. The textures are pretty muddy, and the character models are
lacking. The whole game has taken a real polish hit in the transition, including
the framerate, which gets pretty laggy especially in towns.

The game’s sound effects fare much
better than the graphics. The music sounds great and adds an excellent ambiance
to the game, and the voice acting is spot on.

Risen is a solid game brought down
by a shoddy port to consoles. While there’s still a lot of fun to be had with
the deep missions that foster exploration, the game’s technical presentation is
subpar and there are some gameplay issues as a result of the move to the Xbox
360.

Review Scoring Details for Risen

Gameplay: 7.0
Risen has a solid framework and is a long and deep experience, but there are
a few shortcomings. The quests lack direction and can be confusing at times and
the game’s combat leaves a lot to be desired. The controls are well mapped for
the most part, but there are some weird technical issues like overly sensitive
turning that feel strange. The interface is also very cumbersome.

Graphics: 6.5
The game’s graphics took a big hit when moving from the PC to the Xbox 360,
and the game’s realistic environments look muddy and bland and the character
models a bit simplistic. The framerate is also pretty spotty.

Sound: 8.5
The game definitely has a great soundtrack, and the voice work is solid
throughout.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 7.5
The game’s story is well done albeit fairly generic, and the game features
plenty of missions to keep you busy.

Overall: 7.0
Risen loses a bit in the porting process to the Xbox 360, but aside from the
technical shortcomings, this is still a pretty solid experience that brings some
good things to the RPG table.