An epic story in an authentic world hand-crafted with an eye for detail and populated by "real", plausible characters. A Mysterious Volcanic Island the heavy tremors on the island bode ill for its inhabitants. Ancient temples have risen from the ground recently; bizarre creatures are terrorizing the area. Fear and terror is spreading among the population. The End of All Hope? A group of powerful men who call themselves "The Inquisitors" have taken it upon them-selves to put an end to these events. They send an exhibition to this remote island, but a storm takes hold of the ship and destroys it at sea. A Hero Will Come - As if by a miracle, the player survives the shipwreck and is stranded on the volcanic island alone. He finds himself amidst a chaos of rebellion, tyranny and mystic rituals. He must now decide to which side the pendulum of fate will swing.

 

Risen came along at a time when I was starting to think PC RPGs were becoming an endangered species with only a few big notable games coming down the road and a lot of minor indie titles that would barely be a blip on the gaming worlds radar. But Risen surprised me by bringing back some of that great old feelings I had when I played the original Gothic and Gothic 2 and is one of those PC games which I will never have a problem recommended to people as a good RPG to try out. Risen is this year’s big gaming surprise and it is certainly a welcome one.

 

 

 

RPG’s to me should be a maximum 10 percent combat and the rest of the game exploration and storytelling because those true RPG’s we remember years down the road did not have us fighting most of the time they brought us into the world through its story and exploration gameplay.  Risen mostly does this right with a lot of exploration and storytelling but it does not do everything gameplay wise correctly.

 

The games combat always feels a bit clunky and far from smooth and natural. There is too much mouse movement needed to quickly dispatch an enemy and most of the time it feels like pure luck that I killed the monster rather than my skill at playing the game. Risen also has some issues story wise when the games overall story is old and something we have played a few times before in past games and it never feels like the story is opening up naturally like we have seen in recent years with some of the bigger titles like The Witcher and of course The Elder Scrolls Oblivion.

 

Those gamers who are familiar with Gothic will instantly feel at home because Risen basically plays like Gothic which is good and bad for the most part. Gothic was a great game and actually it still is, but the gameplay is a bit dated and that may leave some gamers out in the cold.

 

Lastly a word of advice for those gamers who are looking to play Risen, it takes a while to get into the game and see the potential so give it a few hours and once that time is up you will be pulled into the amazing world of Risen and enjoying its well written and conceived of quests and of course cooking some food and searching for herbs to make some magic potions is always a nice distraction.

 

 

 

As a RPG gamer for the last 30 or so years I have to love how the graphics in RPG’s have moved from simple text to ASCII screens then on to lines and basic shapes through sprites and eventually beautifully rendered 3D worlds which seem alive. Risen is not the best looking RPG I have ever played but it is certainly up there if you run the game at maximum settings. The jungle and caves in the first part of the game had me excited just to see where this game could take me visually and I was not let down once in any of the graphic departments.

 

I was very happy with the lighting as I entered a cave and saw how the fire lit up the room and shadows were cast around it, or how the water looked washing up the beach and how it covered rocks, clams and other normal items. The attention to detail in the first moments of the game alone was impressive enough to keep me playing until the wee morning hours.

 

Audio wise I was happy with the sound effects and music but at first the voice work left me cringing in horror at how wooden the characters sounded as they spoke to each other. It almost sounded like the female character was robotic and was searching for her lines. Luckily the voice work does improve down the road as the game continues and I did not have to bore out my ears with a power drill to get over the experience. Yes I hate bad voice acting, it will be the death of me.

 

 

 

The overall value of Risen is hard to put exactly into numbers because if you are a RPG gamer like I am who put hundreds of hours into other similar games like the Gothic series this is a treat because this game fills the void left by the departure of the Gothic series of games. But if you are looking for a quick in and out RPG experience this probably is not the game for you and I would end up saying go back to play something like Diablo. For true RPG gamers this is a great high value experience.

 

 

 

This is a game that all PC RPG players should buy and enjoy (360 version is not out in North America yet) it has some rich details, fun adventures and great gameplay mechanics which kept me enthralled for hours on end. With its beautiful graphics and great environmental sound it is easy to find yourself traveling around the island just picking herbs and mushrooms while stumbling upon the odd monster to fight. In the end this is a must buy because it is rare we PC gamers see a good RPG like this and that is what is most important.