Risen 2: Dark Waters for PlayStation 3 Reviews by Gamers

I was hesitant to rent this game because of the reviews on it but I went ahead and rented it anyways....not a great decision. When I first started the game I was very intrigued and liked it, but as the story progressed I kept dying because I could not find a lot of gold to buy weapons and armor. It became VERY frustrating and at points I could not figure out where my next mission was because the maps are terrible. After about three hours of gameplay I ejected the disc and sent it away in the mail.

Also, the graphics were not what I expected. Very glitchy and the text was so small I would have to squint to read it (and I play on a 55' TV). Other reviewers said they felt loading took forever and I will have to agree with them. Every time I turned a corner I worried that the loading screen would pop again.

Overall, if you are like me and don't have patience for a mediocre game about pirates, I would avoid renting this one.

The reviews seem to be clearly divided into two camps, those that love it and those that think it is absolutely horrible. How to know which camp you will fall in before you try it? That is my goal here. Disclaimer: I hated it. Second, games like this justify a Gamefly membership, as you must rent it before deciding whether to own this title. The risk is high that you will hate it, as you can see the "hate it" significantly outnumber the high rankings.

How to be fair in this review, both to the game and to those who love it, when I think this is such an awful title? Tricky. Let me sum up by saying that I disliked it for many of the same reasons I stopped watching Tom Cruise movies in the 80s/90s...basically after you watched one, you watched them all, regardless of whether they put him in a race car driver outfit instead of a fighter pilot outfit. Same plot, same "twists", same theme, same everything, just different appearance. You knew within the first five minutes you saw it already. Same with Risen 2. If you have played any generic RPG, you've already played Risen 2, though with a piratey skin on everything, and little that felt truly innovative.

I was drawn to what sounded like an open world pirate game, but what I found was a shallow, linear RPG that had the "appearance" of depth. Put aside the horrible PS2-era graphics and awkward controls and camera angles that almost everyone can agree on being bad with Risen 2, because those things are tolerable if gameplay makes up for it. Sadly, it doesn't. And yes, I put in enough hours on this to give it a fair shot.

Things I found hopelessly irritating:
1) Seemingly endless grinding to improve stats and items
2) The game is almost entirely "on land". (Really???)
3) Featureless skills. For example, "pickpocketing" is enabled by thieving skills, and is simply a DIALOG choice with characters, and success is automatic based on the numerical skill being better than a certain level needed.