Short of either an intense desire to see the RPG genre sullied or irrepressible masochistic tendencies, you've got no reason to play Two Worlds. Except for an interesting pair of item creation and character leveling systems, every element of Two Worlds lurks somewhere between "atrocity" and "horror." It's rare we get to simply lay into a title, but Two Worlds for the 360 is undeserving of any mercy.

Verily Prithee Sirrah Nonce Hizzah!

Begin with a graphics engine that looks like it was kept carefully in reserve since the Playstation 2 launch, with identical flora and choppily animated creatures filling its choppily-moving landscapes. Your character's model will reflect what you have equipped, but for the most part it will simply appear that you're equipped with "badly textured sword-shaped weapon 1," or "robe whose fabric your legs keep passing through X." Identical swarms of enemies will attack you, with wolves who are undistinguishable from boars (or any other gray quadruped) as an early warning of the graphical horrors to come.

"Swarms" come up often, as there appears to be no one at developer Reality Pump studios who can balance difficulty. Hordes of enemies wander the world, and while you'll eventually reach a point where almost any enemy is laughably easy, you'll spend most of the game desperately trying to kill even one foe before being killed yourself. Although death has no penalty, dropping you to the nearest resurrection shrine, combat balance shouldn't come in the form of delivering a few hits, resurrecting, delivering a few more hits, resurrecting, and repeating ad nauseum.


Built around a wide-open and original world, Two Worlds casts you as a fantasy hero who speaks with more "prithees," "verilys," and other randomly inserted Ye Olde Englishe words than is necessary or correct. So does everyone else, though. Everyone also shares the habit of babbling like a drug addict a week into an involuntary detox, stringing together bits of dialogue that technically make sense but just aren't worth listening to. The tale of ancient evil and a family curse (that's secretly a power!) is poorly written and poorly delivered to the point where you almost feel embarrassed for the virtual thespians forced to enact the lines.