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Genre: Third-Person Adventure Publisher: CDV Developer: Ascaron Entertainment Players: 1-4

By Keith B (15th Sep 2009)

Sacred 2 has had a later release in Australia than in other regions so we were late getting our hands on a copy, and when we did, it was for the PS3. Playing through to level 18 proved an increasingly difficult path, but not because the game challenged me with its content, but with its delivery. If it wasn't the horrible loading sections while wandering around a village or small town that was grating on the experience, it was the shoddy voice work that chipped in with aural injections sounding like they'd been delivered by someone on Novocaine. Hearing your dark elf moan about being in a village (where they're the root of all evil and other such blabbering) while waiting through plenty of pauses while the towns load helps keep any real enjoyment initially at bay.

Which is a shame, because although the delivery is questionable, there is certainly more than enough here to make this the sort of game that could, potentially, deliver a lot of hours of game play. Slashing though the campaign as each of the different classes certainly offers masses of play.

Perhaps the best picture I can paint for you of the difficulty in enjoying Sacred 2 is by explaining that, after reaching level 18, I requested a copy of the game on the Xbox 360, because I thought that the PS3 version felt like a bad port, something hammered together without much planning and without a level of polish to make a first impression. That's how it felt, like I was playing a port.

Things didn't get much better with the 360 version, although the much-touted menu system did fare better on the Microsoft system. The holding down of the right bumper to bring up the interactive menus was quicker and more precise on the 360, with the PS3 requiring a moment before allowing you to move the cursors around.

Comparisons to the Diablo set of games is probably unfair because those games are a part of gaming history, but the comparison is unfortunately inevitable. The perspective is similar, isometric and aimed down from above. There are fewer dungeons and a more colourful landscape but the hack and slash, loot gathering and quest-completing gameplay are similar. The advancements are quaint and work well but they're not enough to carry the burden of the load of expectation.

Combat doesn't ever feel like it's trying to challenge you, with no attempt made to help instruct the player through the mechanics of upgrading weapons beyond the most cursory of references. Gone too is any form of challenge beyond sitting back and waiting for whatever set piece is unfolding to finish, because of the Playskool level of involvement of the player. Eight slots can have an item assigned, and through clever use of the controller all eight are accessed through the face buttons under the right thumb. While it may offer the chance to have a variety of weapons equipped for any given circumstance, the reality is that merely holding down a button while the game does everything else (aiming, striking, and so on) never delivers any real challenge.



For a game that has a deep level of content, from the character creation and development through to the items, skills, magic and locations on the large game map, it always seems lacking. Strolling across the game world, where it should be engrossing and welcoming, is instead clunky and laughably littered with enemies, with people you have to stab full arrows literally wandering around the land at 50 metre intervals. If you get on a mount and ride with haste through the map, then leap off your mount, it becomes like Dawn of the Dead with a wave of pursuing wolves and bandits breaking over the hero.

The problem with having so much content is that a lot of work needs to go into making it authentic, and unfortunately it doesn't happen. The voice work is pretty terrible, what sounds like a bored housewife reading a shopping list, or perhaps someone who works in tech support for an internet provider.

All of which disappoints because I really wanted to enjoy this, really wanted to want to sit up and put in a few hours getting my hero climbing the ranks and exploring the world. I'm a fan of the dungeon crawling experience and would have pumped in the required hours if there was any incentive to do so. There hasn't been. I just can't face doing it all again on the 360 when all I have is a quicker menu interface to encourage putting in the 10 hours needed to get up to where I sit on the PS3 campaign.



There is a drop-in, drop-out multiplayer component for online, and the aim of getting people over the internet to hook up is reinforced by allowing gamers to play through the campaign together - either in the same room or online - but the bottom line is that if it's not going to play well while alone, it's not going to get much better when you've got a partner complaining in your ear.

Sacred 2 may do a lot, but it does it poorly. There isn't enough general appeal to warrant trying each of the character classes for more than an hour or two, and a total lack of any sense of player involvement aren't going to push things on any further. It's a shame that the brainstorming meetings about content and game world couldn't have materialised through the work of the developers. A poorly executed end result, which leaves us feeling disappointed.

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