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| | Genre: Adventure & RPG | | | Min OS X: 10.6 |
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Two Worlds II: Pirates Of The Flying Fortress
January 1, 2012 | Ted Bade | |
Requirements: Mac OS X: 10.6.3 | CPU: 2 GHz Intel | RAM: 2 GB | HD Space: 8 GB | Graphics: Shader 4.0 and 512 MB RAM | Other: Internet connection for Multiplayer Review: Two World II: Pirates of the Flying Fortress (PotFF) is the first expansion for Reality Pump and Zuxxez Entertainment's Two Worlds II (TWII) role playing game. As with the original TWII, the playing environment is just stunning and the movements of the character, the monsters, and the environment are generally very realistic. The game itself is standard fantasy gaming faire: speak with NPCs, get quests, complete quests (and try to survive), turn in quests, then continue, as all the while more and more of the story unfolds. If you played and enjoyed TWII, you will enjoy this version. IMG’s David Allen wrote an excellent review of Two Worlds II, which I suggest you read along with this review. Other then the specific story-line, his comments pertain as much to this expansion as to the original. My thanks to David for his work and making this review that much easier! PotFF expands the main game with the addition of a new story line, new maps, many new features, and an improved interface. According to the developer, issues with the interface that players complained of have been improved in this edition. (Sorry, but I only dabbled a bit with the first edition, so I cannot provide a comparison). If you did play and create one or more characters in TWII, you can bring them over to Pirates of the Flying Fortress to continue their development. If you have’t played TWII yet, I highly recommend that you consider buying the Game of the Year Edition (which includes both the original and the expansion), and start with Two Worlds II. Starting with the base game, you will get a little guidance on how the game works and how to interact with the game’s environment, which should increase your enjoyment of both the main game and the expansion. Pirates of the Flying Fortress will provide you with an appropriately leveled character, with a bag full of useful goodies for both melee and magical battle. However, it won’t provide you with the skill set or personal experience necessary to easily complete and enjoy this game. The environment in this game is complex. The maps offer an almost complete world, filled with a variety of environment types, and loaded with creatures all competing to kill your character. You can wander aimlessly for quite a while, exploring areas that might have little to do with the actual questing aspect of the game. I am certain the game attempts to get you to move along by bringing out often terrible monsters ☺. The environment also provides materials to help you develop your character and equipment. Using the materials you find and loot from defeated monsters, you can improve your armor and weapons, learn and develop new spells, learn to create new potions and salves to enrich your character for a short period, and more. The system isn’t terribly complex, one can gain some information by inspecting the components, but finding really powerful combinations might take a little trial and error. For instance, herbs you find will tell you what attributes they provide. However, it is up to you to figure out combinations of various herbs and other components that enhance what they do. Upgrading equipment is more straight forward. If you have the raw materials needed, you can use them to do the enhancement. Here the issue is locating the components. Luckily, you can disassemble arms and armor you loot into their component parts, then use them to enhance your equipment. Since this is an adventure based around the ocean, you will be better served with the small skiff the game provides then with your war horse. This is particularly true in the beginning, where you need to travel around the archipelagos to find and interact with the various parts of the quests. Later on, you might find more use for a horse. I should mention that PotFF offers impact-oriented horse armor for attacking the enemy. Quite realistic (I didn’t try running the skiff into any monsters, mostly because they are rarely in the water). You get some basic instruction on using the skiff. The game’s graphics failed a bit for me in the boat movement scenes, as there were points where the boat appeared to be under the surface of the water as it moved along. While movement in this game is very realistic, I did have some issues with the interface. Your character can be in one of two states, fighting or moving. Not a particularly bad thing, except that if you are moving with your sword unsheathed the action key doesn’t work, so you can’t climb ladders or open doors until you put the sword away. Not a major thing, except one would expect the interface to change automatically when confronted with a ladder or door. However, if you loot a recent kill while in the fight mode, you are suddenly in the movement mode and out of the fighting mode.
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