Risen 2: Dark Waters — PRE-OWNED - PlayStation 3

risen 2 is the most authentic way to do everything in an full Renaissance pirate fashion. Everything from swashbuckling to digging up treasure. Best of all you get the ambiguous character traits of a pirate without pretending you are a marauding mass murderer, or a cartoon clown, both the light and dark of the high seas lifestyle leads to feel like you are playing as living breathing human being. Genuinely you don't feel you are in a Disney movie or a playing Grand theft Auto, though there is a majority of a sandbox element present. Which leads to the game's poor point and really there is one and it's a big one. That big character development, that feeling of exploration, the nebulous moral choices. Those all come from you, the gamers imagination, because while the faceless forgettable hero can do anything in the world and it never feels like a cartoon, you kind of wish it did. The story has less depth then my little pony. The conversation and mission choices have no consequences other then a feeling of what the gamer him/herself draws into it. and the npcs and landscapes while high res do not have even enough cheese or laughablity factor to find unenjoyable. Just a blandness which keeps the adventure in your own head undistracted. Overall the best "pirate" game out there, it just needs more game in it.

This action RPG doesn't offer really anything too different from other games, but it also doesn't really do anything wrong. It's your typical toughish, lady-killer hero who spends his time doing the dirty work for people standing around in-between saving the world. You level up with a skill tree, you kill monsters, you make friends, and your avatar says snarky things. If that is your cup of tea, and it is mine, then you might like this. For the price it's worth trying. One area that made this a bit hard to continue playing was the battle system, which was a bit awkward and hard to understand... maybe that was just me. It seems fairly straight forward, but it's not, it's about timing and shielding, so once you get that, get ready to be the king of very long, dragged out battles with medium level villains. Besides that, everything is fairly good. The graphics are great, mostly lush, but a bit cartoony. The leveling system is decent. And the story is interesting enough to play through.