Comments on: The Risen Report #3: Native

By: Annika (yeah, just like one of the prostitutes in the game)

Annika (yeah, just like one of the prostitutes in the game) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:54:28 +0000

I totally agree about the women part. Not only are the breasts strange (not just too big, but rather square), why do they all have tiny heads? And why do they all look the same? It’s as though the developers had forgotten to add women to the game, remembered a week before the release date and let their teen son who had grown up in an all male monastery design them.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:23:52 +0000

Had a great time with the game so far (once I worked out all the mechanics). Went the Order/Mage route and love it! Some of the quests are great and remind me once again why I don’t play MMO’s any more. Here you get real stories, progression, decisions.
The animations are buggins me still a bit, but you can get used to them. The voice acting, even by the same actors, can be a bit hit&miss. But the atmosphere, especially at sunrise/sunset in the jungles, is just fantastic. I can’t remember many games where I had so much fun just running around and exploring every little corner of the whole island.
Also: the game is challenging at times. And I love it! This is an old school RPG and is something I’ve been waiting for….well basically since Gothic 3, which tbh. once you got over the bugginess was awesome as well. Also worth noting: I have so far clocked in about 40 hours of net gameplay…and not a _single_ crash! Not one! Maybe I’m just lucky but I love it!

Some tips: don’t sell apples or eggs. Eat them. All of them. Trust me on this!
Don’t sell Hero’s Crowns either. And learn Alchemy. And don’t eat those +1 attribute plants, keep them until you have alchemy at 3, for then you can brew +5 potions from them! I’m currently running around with 240 Mana… generally keep plants and dont sell them.

By: tKe

tKe — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:04:55 +0000

@AndrewC everyone knows Link’s real name is “Fagballs”.

By: Klaus

Klaus — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:26:30 +0000

Yep. I believe I had the same problem. Found no solution either. :(

By: Railick

Railick — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:58:32 +0000

Tried the demo here as well on Steam and the game crashs each time I attempt to load it, reminds me a lot of Gothic 3 already :P Ah well I guess I'll have to come back to Risen in 3 or 4 years once it has been patched to something stable with community patches and give it a try then. For some reason my system hates foreign games but sadly I love them :( Any game I get that is from Germany or Russia ect seems to have a ton of problems.

By: TheFool

TheFool — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:50:42 +0000

GAH. thought that would reply to Helm’s comment about the portrayal of women in The Witcher and Risen.

By: malkav11

malkav11 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:14:40 +0000

Well, that’s not really true. I’ve encountered quite a number of people out there for whom English is a second language who can write it quite indistinguishably from native speakers. And, for that matter, it’s quite possible to (either yourself or with the aid of someone who’s got a better command of the language if need be) produce a translation that conveys everything it needs to without losing that sense of the foreign about it – and I for one actually find that pleasing. It’s like…reading the novels of Koji Suzuki in translation, or Let The Right One In, or Frank Schatzing’s excellent The Swarm, or the Witcher books, I can absolutely tell that they weren’t originally written in English. But even though the writing approach is clearly foreign, the actual language used flows naturally and conveys everything it needs to convey.

And I encounter translations of this caliber (or entirely native-sounding, for that matter) over and over again in more modern Japanese games and in foreign movie subtitles and such. It’s possible. I think that if European games are really going to succeed in America, they’re going to have to manage this.

And I’d still like to skip the dubbing, thanks.

By: TheFool

TheFool — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:02:00 +0000

I think this might be explainable to some extent by the relatively close proximity of the developers (although now that I checked they’re not all that close, but possibly close enough as far as the cultural expectations of their gamers/game developers); CD Projekt Red is in Warsaw while Piranha Bytes is in western germany

By: Waltorious

Waltorious — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:31:34 +0000

A few people have expressed interest in buying either Gothic 1 or Gothic 2 in these comments, and I figured I would point out that the games are available from Good Old Games for $10 each. The version of Gothic 2 for sale includes the Night of the Raven expansion pack. I bought them myself but haven’t yet had a chance to try them out… too many other games to play first and not enough time.

Anyway, I figured I’d point it out because it’s a good way to get the games without dropping too much cash. And they might give you a sense of whether you’d like Risen also, before you drop a lot of cash on that.

That is all.

By: Vinraith

Vinraith — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:31:20 +0000

“I do not know if you’ve already tried the demo, but I strongly urge you to.”

I actually already tried, but I think the download was corrupted as it wouldn’t install. It’s my intention to give it another shot, because the game does look very interesting. I’ll keep your thoughts in mind, thanks for sharing them.

By: Earl_of_Josh

Earl_of_Josh — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:08:57 +0000

I definitely know what you’re saying. After playing WoW and finally getting that last piece of tier 1 (yeah I played along time ago… no time for it now) and having everyone in my guild notice and congratulate me, it did seem a little meaningless when I got some achievement in a single player game where its just me that’s happy about it.

At the same time, what really got me back into enjoying the single player rpgs was how incredibly fast paced they were. When you’re waiting for half an hour for your guildies to get back from Ironforge or whatever, or you’re grinding honor/faction/spleens or something it takes a LONG friggin’ time. I jump into Final Fantasy, and in six hours i’ve uncovered major plot points, progressed my character 20 levels, and got some pretty sweet gear? Six hours of grinding only got me 20 faction!?! (er, its been a long time since I’ve played, so I actually have no idea if that’s even remotely realistic).

But, while the camaraderie was gone, and others appreciating your accomplishments is gone, there’s a whole hell of a lot more happening in a gaming session in single player.

By: Alastayr

Alastayr — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:01:30 +0000

Vinraith, don’t get this wrong, but I think you have already become too entrenched in your own thinking to empathise with a different point of view. I don’t mean any hostility towards you. We all develop our tastes for certain things and defend them against people that think less of, or even just different about, them.
But please, give Risen a try. I do not know if you’ve already tried the demo, but I strongly urge you to.

There seem to be some misconceptions in your image of Risen, which I hope can be rectified. You do not start out as someone who is terrible at everything. Your basic starting skills are as developed as in TES games, only all of them are at this level of sophistication. Whereas in TES only a subset of skills can be chosen, which you (theoretically) have to live with for the rest of the character’s life, Gothic/Risen gives you the chance to make an informed decision of every skill’s usefulness in-game before asking which ones you really prefer. I can pick up that stick, knife or sword and try my hand at each of it, while not sucking, whereas I got my ass handed to me by the first bandits in Morrowind because I chose to fight with a nice Sword I found lying around but couldn’t effectively use because I chose axes at the start. I liked Morrowind a lot and had a few hours of fun with Oblivion. But I restarted them a lot, simply because I couldn’t gauge a skill’s usefulness at first.
Generally, Gothic/Risen enables you to become (and role-play) a certain character that is defined by your moral choices and actions, embedded into the game’s world. Whereas TES-style games enable you to outlive your preconceptions of a certain archetype of character, with mostly inconsequential changes to the game world.
And now I lost my train of thought here, maybe someone else can chime in and carry on.