Oh, Two Worlds, why do you tease me so? I get a vast landscape, an impressive assortment of spells, skills, enemies, armor and armaments, only to be left playing a haphazard port of an already flawed game. PC gamers, if there was ever a console gamer that did not feel your pain, then they will certainly feel it after an hour with Two Worlds. This time around, the console version is the inferior version. The role-playing community weeps.

Despite the back of the box being littered with references to Oblivion, no one will be fooled. About the only thing the two have in common is a large, open world to roam around in and finicky horses. There is one big difference that stands at after just a few minutes of play. Unlike Bethesda’s not-1-frame-a-second baby, Two Worlds does not have scaling difficulty. What that means for the eager adventurer is that there will be territory wandered into that is clearly not meant for them, and the eager claws and blades of nearby aggressors will send them packing in short order. This unevenness is actually refreshing as it accentuates the openness of the game by making the world a more realistic one, because, hey, sometimes a warrior’s eagerness just can’t compete with a giant’s fist. This feeling of an untamed wilderness permeates throughout Two Worlds, and it is one of its more endearing qualities.

It is strange then that Two World removes the very tension it creates by doing away with any and all death penalties. That’s right, death means simply respawning at one of the designated spawn points. The only downside to dying is having to walk. That’s it. There are even spots that replenish health and mana scattered throughout, as well as interconnecting teleportation portals that facilitate quick travel. Running, jumping, swimming and fighting don’t enhance the player’s stats either, so hustling to and fro doesn’t bring any sort of benefit. It’s not like running around facilitates the enjoyment of the environment any more than just standing still, either, because it’s movement that causes everything to go insane. If they were going the immortal route, they might as well have aped Oblivion’s fast travel and done away with the formalities of teleporting altogether.

The erratically ugly-pretty scenery is the most obvious of Two Worlds’ problems. The pop-up and draw-in is so apparent and frequent that it is downright surprising. Seeing some details roll into view with each step isn’t uncommon, but that is a far cry from seeing entire towns and mountain rages suddenly appear out of nowhere. Not only do the objects appear, but they can also appear without detail or suddenly appear when just a few feet away. The choppy framerate doesn’t help, either – it makes travel and combat a pain.

It will become obvious in a manner all sorts of tedious and frustrating that this is a PC game through and through. Map navigation and menu management aren’t just cumbersome: they are a chore. Going from left to right on the inventory screen is a crapshoot as the cursor is not free to roam around but limited to the item panels, sometimes not jumping over to the other section, making inventory management, a significant portion of the game, a huge hassle. Similarly, moving around on the map is also a pain because scrolling has been relegated to the directional pad, which makes the entire process sslloowww.

Then there is quest management. Actually, quest management is just broken. Quests that are completed or cannot be completed will have map markers highlighted while active quests will not. Selecting a quest requires navigating an expandable system where map areas are selected to reveal quest names, and then quest names are selected to reveal details. Aside from being obtuse, there are also inconveniences, such as the cursor often resetting back to the top of the screen and tabs being randomly expanded; this means wading through a ton of junk just to find a small piece of information. In a move I simply cannot fathom, it is impossible to remove finished quests from the log. Completed quests simply turn from black to gray, with tones that are nearly indistinguishable from one another, making the quest list longer and longer. Ugh.

 Two Worlds isn’t completely terrible. Combat, aside from being a choppy twitchfest, still tries something new, with skills that involve kicking dirt into an opponent’s eyes and dodging via a quick back jump. There is plenty of satisfaction to be had by narrowly missing a sword swipe then following up with a one-two combo, or luring an opponent into a trap that involves spikes and a lot of pain. Weapons range from machetes to the typical fantasy fare of swords and axes, as well as the strange, such as the giant wooden rake-staff-thing that did damage greater than most other weapons I came across; and plenty of grizzlies and bandits saw the business end of that timber bad boy, I assure you. In keeping with the genre’s time-honored tradition of theft, crafty gamers with a lock pick and high enough lock pick skill level can go through treasure chests and townsfolk’s closets pilfer whatever items tickle their fancy.

There are also some things that I actually really enjoy and find absolutely refreshing. One is that the game rarely wastes items. In most role-playing games, low-end items are found and either amassed en masse to sell for cash or just ignored, but in Two Worlds items can be combined to become more effective. Crystals are also strewn about, endowed with the ability to cause weapons to cause additional damage in poison, electricity, fire, and so on. The crystals are stackable as well, making weapons far deadlier than in their standard state. Spells and spell boosters are attained and managed in card form, with a slot system set up that allows three spells to be stacked and enhanced with boosters. Numerous spells, along with skills and attacks, can be hotkeyed to one of the eight directions on the directional pad, though. This isn’t always the best method, due to accuracy not always being up to par, but it manages to get the job done more often than not.  Aside from helping with combating the often-superior enemies, these are all also really great workarounds to some standard idiosyncrasies of the genre.

The sense of adventure Two Worlds inspires is nearly unrivaled in the console world. Despite all of the technical problems, the game can be absolutely breathtaking, especially when standing on an isolated path along a forested mountainside while gazing out at a sprawling forest split by a river that has a giant walled city in its fork. Knowing that it’s entirely possible to start walking off the path and directly to the city is an impressive feat that really adds to immersing the player in the game’s world. The cities are also varied, ranging from small hamlets to large fortresses that host a variety of vendors and agents. Running across an isolated town is just the sort of invigorating experience a weary traveler needs to keep the sense of wonder alive. It’s just a shame that the flaws are so jarring that whatever sense of atmosphere that is built up is immediately torn down by the technical flaws.

It would also help if the story were on par with the world provided for it to play in. The main tale, about a mercenary looking for his sister, is generic and often made hilarious by the universally horrible voice acting. It’s not that it’s all that important though, since it’s more of a vehicle to get the player to explore all of the areas in between Point A and Point B, and, by its very dullness destroying any care about progression, it succeeds in that regard. The side quests fare much better with a varied bunch of fetch quests that are gussied up with dash of politicking and fanciful intrigue. There is nothing as engaging as Oblivion’s painting quest, but turning on a clan that had previously been an employer because a passerby beseeches you to right the wrongs they have caused them, well that’s just good fun; and the impressive stacks of corpses left behind, complete with a newely filled inventory bag, doesn’t hurt either. There are also dungeons scattered about that generally range between Hard and Ah, Run!, but they do provide a sense of satisfaction when cleared. The enemies keep things interesting, be they simple bandits, orcs, giant stone golems, or dragons. The ghosts of the recently dispatched are also prone to coming back to life to seek vengeance as well. The content won’t revolutionize the genre, but it does provide a mixture of thrills and adventure.

Multiplayer is also … there. Barely. Admittedly, I haven’t played many games, but that’s because it is a mess. Much like how characters slide around when movement is attempted during the animation to get dirt out of their eyes, characters in multiplayer often stiffly skate around as if frozen and on ice. Fun. The lack of players and the inability to bring over the campaign character also limits things a good deal.

Overall: 3.5/10