Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

The first Two Worlds title was released back in August of 2007 on the PC, and was suppose to be a great RPG title for both platforms.  However, gameplay ended up being less than promised, and worse, the Xbox 360 version just did not run as well as other games in its genre.  So with all that baggage, I was intrigued to see what Reality Pump and Southpeak Games would have to show me at their booth for Two Worlds II.  I left on a better foot, understanding the issues with the first title, and how Reality Pump had set about to fix them to make the best RPG title possible.

After my arrival at the Two Worlds II presentation, I was asked if I had played the first Two Worlds, to which I replied yes, on both platforms.  Instead of trying to talk up the game and look past its faults, the developer went at it head on, admitting that there were severe issues wtih the title, most notably being the idea of taking a PC game and engine and trying to shoehorn it on to the Xbox 360 platform.  So with Two Worlds II, the first design decision was that the engines would be independent of one another.  What does that mean?  Well, Reality Pump actually created separate design teams so each platform would be customized to its strengths, and no porting from one platform to the others.  While I loved the idea of an engine being independantly designed for each platform, it had to add a ton of work and overhead to the process.  While I could not get an answer to the second half of that question, he did agree that there was a lot of long hours being put into designing for each platform.

Two Worlds II also had a strange path to its full existence.  Originally, the project started off as an expansion pack for the first Two Worlds title.  However, as time went on with development, it seems that there was an epiphany, and that the development team felt that with all the content that was being created, a sequel could be a better fit, and so Two Worlds II was created.

With all of that backstory in hand, we proceeded into our Two Worlds II demonstration.  We first find out that five years has past since the first title, and our character has been imprisoned in a dungeon for that time.  We have been tortured by Lord Gandohar as he continues on his crusade to eliminate the orc race, and essentially committing mass genocide.  This leads to an unlikely rescue, with the orcs breaking us out of our imprisonment.  As we were escaping from our jail, we noted some of the new features that were implemented graphically for Two Worlds II.  New, dynamic lighting systems and texture mapping were on display in full effect in Two Worlds II.  Gone were the flat, uninspired textures of the first game, and in were nice bump mapped dungeon walls and realistic, flickering candlelight.

Optimization of the game engine on each platform also lead to new advancements in the loading, which is now seamless and non-existant.  No matter where we went in Two Worlds II, the game world was one contiguous environment, constantly loading in the background.  It kept the immersion factor in play, and was awesome to exit our dungeon into the world and not have the game slow down or flash to a loading screen for the transition.

Dialog choices play a bigger part in Two Worlds II, with your decisions and choices shaping the path for your character.  It seems this has become the rage for games lately, and when it is done right, it can make for a fantastic experience.  We stepped through a few dialog trees, and it was nice to see all the different options that we hand, but also how the camera was dynamic during these dialog sequences, and the fact that we could still interact during these sequences.  It is such a small touch, but is so much more engaging for the player to feel as if they are in control, and also keeps them feeling immersed in the game.

We moved forward a bit in the game to see some of the customization options for characters, weapons and magic.  With Two Worlds II, you are no longer stuck in a class for the rest of your gaming days.  Now, you can customize your attacks and skills to fit your play style.  Also, you can now respec your character at anytime, with no penalty, allowing you to try new character options on the fly to see what might work for you in combat.  The team also realized that people like to find cool armor designs and tend to want to stick to them, even if the armor or weapon might be weaker than their other equipment.  With this in mind, you now can keep the equipment that looks cool, and then smelt down other equipment, using its bonus features as upgrades to your current weapons and armor.  I love this idea, as I do get complacent with certain weapons and armor due to their look, rather than their functionality.  Spells also get a similar customization system, where you take a base spell and add cards to customize the effects.  So you could have a spell that you add a fire card into, and then mix it with a wind effect to create a flame tornado spell.  You can have up to four different cards and three levels of cards per spell, which prompted the question of how many combinations can you have.  The answer – 10 to the 16th power.  Yeah, that’s a lot of combinations.

We also, got a little information on multiplayer in Two Worlds II.  First off is that there will be a co-op mode, but it will use a separate character from your single player experience.  I am not sure if this was for play balancing, or some other reason, but you will have to roll a new character for co-op mode.  There is also a Village multiplayer mode, where you will work with other players to take on quests and missions from townsfolk.  As you complete these quests, it helps the town grow, and in turn, shops will carry more items, and people will look at you based on your successes and failures.  Finally, there will be a PvP mode of multiplayer that will focus on dueling and on group combat.

After all of this, I did get a few minutes to actually take up the controls and play around in the world.  The interface was nice and clean, and the controls were good.  Switching between combat and movement was a bit awkward at times, but some polish at the end should take care of that.  I loved the spell crafting system.  I sat there for half of my time just playing around with the card combinations and watching the result of my creations when unleashed on the enemy.  I do think that it needs a little more spit and polish at this point in time, but you can see that the mechanics are there for a good game.  Two Worlds II is shipping later in 2010, and if they can put a nice finish on the title, I think it could be a bit hit for Southpeak and Reality Pump this fall.