Risen

Risen is an RPG based around the main character who, for some unknown reason, you never find out his name, who has been stranded on a remote island. The company who published this is Deep Silver, whom in the past also published Sacred 2 (I'll review Sacred 2 at a later date hopefully).

In the first cut-scene you see you and Sara sneaking around on a small ship in the middle of stormy seas. As you and Sara get to deck, you see the Inquisitor, calling out to a Titan in the seas. The giant Titan rises through the waves, shrieking at the Inquisitor. The Inquisitor tries to battle the creature, but he loses and teleports off of the boat (talk about getting your priorities right) . Seconds later the Titan smashes the boat into pieces, sending Sara and you into the depths. You wakes up on the shores of Faranga in the midst of the storm, surrounded by dead bodies (thank god your not one of them). Both you and Sara are unharmed.

You soon learn about combat and as you make your way inland you also learn about restoring your health by using healing plants which you can find all over the island. Soon you come to an abbandoned house at which you and Sara rest and she decide's to stay for a bit leaving you to continue exploring. Once you get futher inland you meet a man named Jan who can help you get to either the bandit camp or the main city. The choice is yours and he doesnt really have any use other then to help direct you to them.

Soon you will come to a part in the game where you get to make your choice about your profession, Bandit, Knight of the Order or a Mage, all 3 have different quest lines although they all meet at 1 common point in the game. I chose to become a mage but also did some work in the bandit camp first to get some experience and gold before i went to the city (makes it easier because you can get a couple of levels of experience and some training in camp before you go to the city). Once youve got free roam of the island (its best to choose a profession first and do the main quests for it before you go out exploring) you can pretty much go anywhere you like and also do numerous quests or just run around killing things.

The combat system is pretty good as you can use a variety of weapons such as sword's, axe's, bow's, crossbow's and staves. You can find trainers for all these in the different areas of the island and as you progress each one you learn new techniques such as parry or even wielding a 2 handed sword in 1 hand. As a mage you can also progress your magic spells to make them cast quicker and become more powerfull.

Another thing you can learn is prospecting, smithing, gold smithing and alchemy so you can make some new weapons with things you prospect using smithing, new rings and amulets using gold smithing and potions with the alchemy talents. All of which people can train you in so you can become better at them to make better things.

The main story consist's of 4 chapters with chapter 2 being the longest and 3 and 4 passing pretty quickly, it's also based around ruin's which have risen from the ground all over the island so if you want to be a bit of a treasure hunter you can go and search them to see what you can find and sell or even use.

In the end you have to fight a Titan which can be quite easy to beat once you know how (no i wont tell you, you will have to find that out yourself) but dont worry you still have to find certain things first before you can go against it (this is where the treasure hunting comes in) and once youve got what you need you can go fight it if you want.

Something you may notice as you play through is achievement's unlocking, I have no clue what their use is as you cannot link it to a Games For Windows account yet they seem to on the Xbox 360 version (from what ive been able to find out atleast) so my guess is that they are just for show when you show people the game.

To summarize, Risen can  be a good game if you want to try something new but dont expect it to take you a week to complete, the combat system and character improvement is pretty decent compared to some games although could be better. The story could have been done better like actually giving your character a name. It should have been longer, perhaps more chapters or atleast making 3 and 4 longer then what they was instead of having them so that just as you start getting into them you end up in the next one.

Thats my review of Risen, I am your host Simzy, thanks for reading and I bid you adieu untill my next review.