EmP's Risen review

"comb the beech" = "comb the beach"

I can't help but point out errors when EmP makes them. It's like a past time of mine. But it's because I secretly love him and he has yet to return my letters.

Zipp... I've been doing this months before you even knew who EmP was.

Hahaha, I read Zipp's post and then I was like HERE WE GO.

Seems like an interesting, open-ended game. Might have to look into it eventually after the price goes down. The glitches sound annoying, but the world and people in it make it seem like a fun Oblivion-like sort of game, but with more depth in how the people act.

The game sounds pretty terrible to me, in all honesty. It sounds like EmP had fun with the setting, though. I'm not sure I could make it around the bad things he mentions, which include:

- a terrible and lengthy beginning
- a combat system that never gets better than "clumsy"
- glitches in control, execution, command line, and graphics

He mentions a living, breathing, world and that seems to speak to a high degree of potential immersion. But immersion is a fickle thing and I can't imagine it surviving all those sour points.

I guess what I'm saying is that EmP failed to convince me, in this one. He does a good job of describing the terribleness of the opening. Maybe too good a job. Or maybe it's just so accurate that I knew I'd never be able to make it through it. That's good writing.

What's maybe not such good writing is the supposedly great things that save the game. Sure, the final paragraph about the secret room is enticing, but does it counter the overwhelming ammount of paragraphs describing terrible things?

Right next to that big ol' "8" he has this line of explanation: "Hauntingly brilliant when it's not being an aggravating broken mess."

I'm sorry, but anything that is an aggravating broken mess for any length of time does not strike me as a candidate for such praise.

I was sold with the phrase on the main page "spiritual successor to Gothic" because Gothic was awesome.

Har har. I actually don't mind at all Zipp (or anyone else) pointing mistakes in people's reviews, especially not EmP's because not only is it nice, it saves me a lot of work. =D

I was just pretending to be jealous and joking around for the lulz. Anyway, I'll have real feedback later today/this week.

I prefer to think that the way I wrote it and your negative reactions weren't so much a failure to get my point across, Zipp, but rather communicates that you'll find less enjoyment with the title than I. I've always found it easy to overlook cosmetic imperfections and gaming flaws so long as the sum is greater than its parts.

Thanks for the feedback; it makes me think I need to tighten up a few things that I thought were cool (like how the start makes you feel lost and vulnerable -- I took this as a plus) but lets me know I'm on the right track.

But all this talk is moot; the US release for this game on the 360 was scaled right back to 2010. Hahahaha!

I would agree, EmP. I think your writing on this one was pretty awesome, actually, because it created a feeling in me. But I'm not sure that you created the feeling you wanted to create. There was just so much overwhelming evidence in your review of a bad game that I wonder if you meant all of that to be there.

I've played around with some of the phrasing in an attempt to make the things I wanted to sound more possitive actually sound appealing in some way. I also caught a fair number of typos, which should shut WQ up for all of seven minutes. Hopefully, it's a bit less one sided now.

I hope I enjoy the game as much as I enjoyed reading your review.

......

Alright. I'd gone through the majority of this review... had a million typos and awkward phrasings pointed out with suggestions, and... then I clicked a link on here accidentally whereupon returning, I discover that my entire bloody post was deleted!

So no. You're going to have to wait a long while for me to go through this again. Sorry. I'm too damn angry now.

But I will say that despite the mass nitpicking I've been doing, I do really like the review, so good job there. I'll give more in-depth feedback on that regard when I don't want to wring the site's / internet's neck for being stupid.

But this is so fucking stupid. Why is it that it saves my post sometimes but deletes it others? God that makes me so mad... Should've just done this in fucking MSWord...

Two god damn hours... wasted...

.....

.....I'm going to bed. I'll shoot myself in the morning.... God.

I sympathize. I lost a paper for Grad School the other day after 6 hours of work!

But the story has a happy ending. I've gotten in the habit of ctr+a-ing and ctr+c-ing everything in order to post it on the review site.

I'd automatically done this with my grad paper and thus was able to paste it into appleworks even though the document had been lost! I'm telling you, life was so much less awesome before Honest Gamers.

I'm telling you, life was so much less awesome before Honest Gamers.

Ain't that the truth!

Thanks for that, CoarseDragon. I have to admit, Risen has become one of the very few games I remaind interested in post-review. I usually lose all drive to play a game once I've written about it (which I've always found odd, but there you go), yet I'm still sinking uncountable hours into this one.

....which has lead to a third overhaul of the review.

I thought Risen was bloody rubbish, while totally getting why a lot of people are going to think it's bloody brilliant.

Yeah, but you also like Half Life. So you're clearly the minority audience.

^ Most illogical statement ever.

Don't mind him. He actually likes games like Halo.

Halo rules, Half-Life droolz

//Zig

Alright. Finally got around to looking at this one again. For the record, I think this is one of your best reviews of the year; if not the best. I said this already... Still, I think it still stands now that I've read it all.

Anyway, I really like your descriptions. They're very vivid, which allows me to visualize everything very well. It's also quite balanced. THe score feels justified because while you complain a lot, the complaints don't feel overwhelming... or at least like most won't be a huge deal. And the positives far outweigh these, especially the openness and multiple paths aspects.

Still, that being said, I'm very sorry that I must overwhelm you with a list of typos, awkward sentences and grammatical mistakes. However, I don't think there are as many as would have been last time Please don't tatke all of these to mean that I hated the review, because as I said above, I didn't I'm just doing my job. =P

Thanks for those catches; I don't quite agree with some of them, but I've edited away the majority.

I'm sure you'll bug me later as to which ones, so I'll be in hiding for the next few days. EmP away!

No problem. Haha. Sorry for pointing out some stuff that didn't really belong! But yeah; you've done a good job editing the majority of this, and the remainder doesn't technically need changing, anyway; I'm just picky! =D

Anyway, I still think this is a great review. I always like reading about open-ended games, especailly when you're writing about them, because you always manage to make the weight and vastness of the thing carry over.

I also think the huge nest of personal examples is very effective in reviews like these, which you do well.

I feel like I've repeated myself a lot throughout this topic, but I guess that just goes to show how impressed I am with this one. Also, I'd rather like the praise to stand alone; somehow I feel it gets missed when a mound of proofreading edits follows. xP