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Sometimes you can play a game that’s garbage, but it ends up being one of your favorite games that you’ve ever played. Aidyn Chronicles for the N64 has horrible graphics, awkward dialogue, a confusing interface and awful controls–but I can’t get enough of it. This is because hidden beneath the aforementioned rubbish is a world riddled with secrets, extensive game mechanics, freedom of tactics and a compelling storyline that asks the question “what if the universe forgot to name someone?” It’s these treasures deep beneath the game’s surface that will bring me back to this game again and again, willing to completely overlook the game’s other faults. There are many games out there like this–you probably have a few of these kinds of games in your personal favorites list as well. Two Worlds pretends to be one of these games. Two worlds is pure utter excrement.
In some ways, I am edging over the line of cheating. When Lepcis and I set out to work out our Steam libraries, we agreed to give most games about an hour–as a general rule. We admitted that some games would need more than that (even in a good RPG you might still be in the tutorial after an hour) and some games deserved far less (see Lepcis’s Plankton Review). The idea was to give the game “a fair shake.” Now, I’ll admit that 5 minutes of a Two Worlds cutscene followed by 5 minutes of Two World’s gameplay is hardly a “fair shake.” I don’t care. I can’t stomach another minute playing the game because I know what’s coming. I’ve played Two Worlds II–a sesspool of a game that I devoted 20 hours to before I finally broke down and admitted that it was a lost-cause-piece-of-garbage that I would pay money to not have to play. It is (if I may coin a phrase) an Antigame. A game that is not just bad–it’s offensively bad. It does the exact opposite of what a game is supposed to do. Instead of providing relief, enjoyment, fun or satisfaction, it creates anger, frustration, a sense of loss and stress. The latter is exactly how I would describe Two Worlds II, and I gave 20 damn hours to that game that I’ll never get back. Two Worlds: Epic Edition is somehow, miraculously worse than its sequel. It’s fascinating. It should be studied if it weren’t for the fact that you would have to actually play the game to do so. The only shred of thankfulness that I can muster from the experience is that because I played the sequel first, it only took me the 10 aforementioned minutes to recognize the all too familiar ruts that the original shared with it.
And frankly, that is where the complexity of my review will end. The game is not worth being clever, creative or funny with. It’s simply not worth anything. In line with this, the rest of the review will simply be a pro’s and cons list–for if I were to truly break down the cons, this review would be several paragraphs long and what little time I’ve devoted to the origin game of this franchise is already far more than it deserves. The Two Words games are well beyond an insult to gamers and move right down into being an insult to the history of human invention itself. Never waste your time with this series.
Pros
- The world is big.
Cons
- The graphics are an eyesore.
- The voice acting is some of the worst I’ve ever heard. The game is full of it. 50% of the game is listening to people talk.
- Melee combat consists of you hitting one button.
- Hit detection is atrocious, requiring repetitive swinging, sacrificing a goat to Juniper and sleeping with the game producer in order to get any of your attacks to land, even when enemies are standing directly in front of you.
- There is no substantial reward for exploration, and the world is huge.
- There are more random pointless NPC sidequests in this game than in a lot of MMORPGS.
- In spite of clearly being dressed as a Fighter or a Ranger at best, your character is every fantasy class mashed together.
- Questing involves going from point A to point B over and over and over again.
- The storyline is absolute trash.
- The main character is annoying and comments stupidly on the most mundane things.
- The character creator might as well not exist. Non of the sliders change the character in a meaningful way. There are 9 skin tones and all of them are a different shade of white. You will always have facial hair, look rugged and appear as the stereotypical meat-headed crotch-grabbing male-power fantasy hero. What’s even funnier is that it says “Male Body” on one of the creator tabs. You cannot play as a female character. Did they assume their audience was comprised of paint sniffing football hucking pinheads who were in need of a reminder of what gender they were playing as?
- NPCs in the game only exist to make you do things. There are no developed or important characters in the game. Not even the game’s villain is that meaningful, in spite of the fact that the entire game’s plot revolves around foiling his plans.
- The game is called “Two Worlds.” There is only one world.
- There’s more. I’m done though.
