Coot, I did not realize this was out. Nice!

Been hearing positive stuff about this.

What are your impressions?

Mine are different to Coot's and he has played it more but its more of Risen 2 for me, bad script writing and abysmal voice acting and that terrible attempt at humour that cheapen the game and make it feel like I'm playing comedy based game. I want my RPGs dark and menacing and they said this one was but it feels like more Risen 2 to me which isn't good.

Maybe I shouldn't play PB's rpgs but I liked Risen 1 and this isn't like it IMO.

Hmmmm. The user reviews on Steam (beta testers?) are pretty positive.

Looking at Metacritic it's a very mixed reaction.

Definitely looks interesting, but given the mixed reaction I won't plonk 40 quid down on it.

Looks very Skyrim-like from what I've seen. Is it that open?

Don't think Skyrim as far as tone. It really is basically the same engine more or less and presentation as Risen. Its a Piranha Bytes rpg. A little quirky but I find its fun. The different land areas are open to explore. You "sail" to them in cut scene fashion but once you are there, its a different biome that is explorable.

Mace I don't know how far you got but the island where the Mages live is much darker. The creatures are fierce and as it goes with many RPGs, low skill means you'll have your rear handed to you many times. Its the first place I saw these "Shadow" type minions. They are like 9 feet tall and there's no way at this point I can challenge them.

Performance for me is a little iffy. I hope they release some patches that optimize it. I've heard people say it runs better with hyperthreading turned off and running on one core which I tried but Windows just froze on me so I could never get in game to try. That's just nuts to me anyways to have to disable a core in the bios to make it run smooth.

I think its worth it if you liked Risen and PB's version of an RPG. I can see myself wishing I had waited for a sale but I think if you wait until its like 20 bucks and you liked Risen there's a good chance you'll be happy.

I've gotten to the northern part where the demon hunters are and it is indeed different but still gives me the Risen 2 feeling and not sure why. I really do wish they would do away with the voice acting (especially your character as it is awful) if they cant afford good voice actors. Maybe the German voice actors were excellent and its the English ones that are bad? Also, the modern swearing... Now i don't mind swearing at all but it doesn't fit here at all, if you have to do it then do it like in The Witcher where they say 'ploughing'. Could be down to the VA's sounding like they're just reading from a script in Risen though.

I don't hate it and don't think its a terrible game but I think they have gone down the Risen 2 route instead of the Risen 1 one.

I agree. I haven't dug into it enough yet but I agree on the voice acting so far. The main character is just shy of full retard. I don't think the f words are necessary either and are distracting.

I do like how you can talk with gnomes now and I find their vocabulary kind of cute.