RPGs released for Xbox are generally greeted with great joy and anticipation by die-hard fans of the genre. Risen was no different and gamers across the globe have been eagerly awaiting this release. However the unfortunate reality is that Risen falls horribly short of what was hoped for.<\/p>\n
The first thing gamers are likely to notice is the horrible framerates that their trusty Xbox 360 generates with Risen. Unfortunately unlike with the PC version there is no way to tweak the graphics. So ultimately we are left with sluggish and extremely poor performance which makes one wonder what Piranha Bytes was thinking when signing this off. In all fairness to Piranha Bytes, Risen was ported to Xbox 360 by a third party studio. However it still makes one wonder who was in charge of quality control when it came to testing.<\/p>\n
The next thing players may notice is the terrible texture rendering in Risen. The textures are what one would expect from a badly ported PS2 title. It is so poor that some scenes require a moment of intense concentrating to establish what is being presented. Bushes seem to look like bugs and bugs often look like, well nothing at all.<\/p>\n
Not only are the textures and animations poor, but the lighting is also sub-par. Night time in Risen is akin to wearing a pair of welding goggles while trying to play. Once the sun sets players are in more ways than one, in the dark. It is best then to find your character a bed somewhere and wait until morning, or better yet, find yourself a bed and sleep Risen off all together.<\/p>\n
Not only do things become horribly difficult to see at night, but the quests are also about as clear as a mosaic church window. Players are likely to spend ages wondering around aimlessly trying to find their quest locations. Risen gives very few, if no clues as to where and when quests should continue to or ultimately end. This ultimately makes questing frustrating and disengaging.<\/p>\n
Much like the rest of the game, Risen’s combat system is exceedingly week. Instead of being fun, fighting creatures is just annoying, and even common loan forest boar knows how to back track and side step even the most skillful sword strike. Pressing the A button on the Xbox remote results in the hero automatically queuing up actions for every subsequent button press, as if on a schedule. If you press too many buttons, you will find your hero slashing and swiping even after you have stopped your button mashing, and your enemy is disposed of.<\/p>\n
The menu system employed by Risen on Xbox 360 is so confusing that it would probably have been easier if the developer had shipped us the source code and asked that we design the menu setup ourselves.<\/p>\n
Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n Risen has been so badly ported to Xbox 360 that it is not even worth looking closely at the story, characters or gameplay for the sake of a review. Poor production values have ruined what could have been a good game, and by no means should anyone have to pay R700 for something this terrible.<\/p>\n While the PC version has received a fair amount of praise, the Xbox 360 version has met a generally poor reception. While there is talk of a patch being released to address many of these issues, it remains doubtful that any single patch could address the numerous debilitating shortcomings which Risen faces.<\/p>\n