Video Game Vintage Title: Two Worlds II

Two Worlds II

Two Worlds II is an action role-playing game developed by Polish video game developer Reality Pump and published by TopWare Interactive as a sequel to 2007's Two Worlds. It was released on November 9, 2010 in Europe for Microsoft Windows/Mac OS X, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The game was released on January 25, 2011 in North America for the same platforms. The game has been a commercial hit and sold 1 million units three weeks after its release in Europe. By February 2011 units sold exceeded 2 million.

Two Worlds II Plot

Gandohar has managed to name himself Emperor of Antaloor. The power of the hero is finally exhausted, and he and his sister Kyra are taken prisoner . Everything changes when he is saved by a group of orcs on orders of their prophet, and the prophet seems to know why the hero can get to Gandohar.

Two Worlds II Gameplay

Two Worlds II is a real-time role-playing game that takes place in an open fantasy world where players take the role of a single character with whom they can explore and undertake quests. From the beginning players can customize the appearance of the protagonist such as shape of face and body, and skin colour. As is common in role-playing games, the player�s character will level up by gaining experience points through completion of quests and defeating enemies. Much of the in-game world can be fully explored from the beginning, regardless of how much the player has progressed through the main story arc. Despite being non-linear, many areas of the land are populated by strong foes with higher levels than that of the player initially and as a result, players may want to explore them once their character has improved. While players will travel across much of the landscape on foot, they are soon given the option to ride on horseback and even later, a chance to man the helm of a boat to sail across the seas between islands. In addition players can also fast travel using magical teleportation fixtures found across the map.

From the beginning of the single-player game, all players' characters begin at the base level. Rather than having players choose a character�s class and style of play, as they level up points are given to be spent on improving their four main stats; endurance (health and damage), strength (combat), accuracy (ranged), and willpower (magic) while also unlocking and improving various other skills and abilities such as forging items, special combat moves, sneaking, spells and others. Players can also mix skills instead of focusing on one type of character build.

Materials can be gathered throughout the game world, either found in the wild, purchased from vendors, looted from fallen enemies or recovered from unneeded equipment. Whilst some materials can be used in the forging/upgrading of weaponry and armor, others can be used in the creation of lethal devices such as traps or bombs. Many others however are ingredients for potions that can be brewed by the player themself. These mixtures can either be used to recover a player's health or magical reserve, to temporarily buff their skills or attributes, or to use against foes as poisons. Due to the large amount of outcomes, players can name and document their new creations.

Reception
Upon its release, Two Worlds II received a generally favorable reception. One of the most praised aspects of the gameplay was directed towards the crafting system, many critics noting its simplicity yet variety and depth with Eurogamer commenting that "absolutely everything is worth looting, as the game's superb crafting systems enable you to repurpose every piece of trash in your backpack to useful ends". The spell casting aspect of this was particularly highlighted with Game Trailers calling it "more involved" than the other skills, stating that "there's a great deal to the magic system in Two Worlds II, so if you choose to specialize in spellcraft, expect to be rewarded", a view echoed by GameSpot who called it "fun flexible". On the topic of the ability to constantly be able to customize character skills and abilities, RPGamer felt that "even if players are not happy with the build they have created, stats can be reset for a fee. This helps to not pigeonhole a character into one unchangeable role."

While the story was considered by some critics like Game Informer as being nothing new and throwaway, the same reviewer however enjoyed the apparent comedic style at times that "from subtle references to the first game's poor quality to over-the-top scenarios such as encountering a woman who wants to feed you to her undead husband, the game's self-aware, tongue-in-cheek attitude is infectious," with Destructoid finding "the game's sense of humor is one of its most endearing traits", going on to say "Two Worlds II has a very strong sense of individuality about itself, and that's more than can be said for many games with twice the production values."

On the technical side, many critics noted glitches and despite a significantly more favorable reception than the previous game in the series, the console versions were noted as being worse off, with GameSpot noting an additional con for consoles of "tearing and frame rate stutters get distracting", as opposed to the PC version. IGN criticized the "difficult to navigate" menus and "oddly organized" quest logs as issues that feel "peppered throughout the rest of the game".

In February 2011, Destructoid published an article about allegations that publisher Topware Interactive had put pressure on media to give Two Worlds II high scores. Allegedly websites that rated the game with a score lower than 7.5/10 were threatened to be blacklisted. Further claims are that at least one reviewer was threatened with legal action while others had supposedly based their unfavorable reviews on unfinished preview versions of the game; favorable reviews based on the same version were not contested. GameReactor gave in to the threats and took down their review of the game. Several European websites have allegedly given the game high scores in exchange for advertisements on the sites. Destructoid claims that it had sold advertising space to Topware but only received half the payment. The rest of the payment was allegedly withheld until the game received a review score of 8.5/10. Furthermore, several anonymous sources as well as a former employee of Topware Interactive validated the allegations about the company's business practices with only one person talking positively about it. Lastly Topware was accused of manipulating the game's ranking on the website Gamestats and having employees post favorable comments and reviews under various aliases on YouTube and Amazon.com. Topware Interactive denied all allegations but stated that they had been arguing with some reviewers about scores lower than 7/10 and that this was a mistake. However, no blacklist exists according to the company.