James

DO: Play like Diablo but with better graphics.

TYPE: RPG (Diablo with a splash of Baldur’s Gate)

PLATFORM: Xbox 360 (reviewed here), PS3 and PC

PRICE: $60

MEAT: You choose one out of six character classes. Of which the strangest class would have to be the temple guardian,”A Temple Guardian is not fully flesh or mechanical, it is a mixture, half human and half machine.” The temple guardian kind of looks like the egyptian god Horus (kind of) if you choose to go evil or Anubis if you choose to go good.

With all of the different items you come across and all of the different ways you can shape your character there is a good chance you will have a really unique character. I went with an Inquisitor that dual wielded a burning dagger and an ice shortsword. What’s cool about the game is you can choose to use any weapon you want as long as it’s not class specific.

The big let down with Sacred 2 is the parts in between quests which turns into the same thing over and over again. You get quest A and on your way to the location to finish the quest you encounter a plentiful amount of monsters on the main road the whole way there. There is a copious amount of side quests that can lead you away from the main quest which will add playtime to your total playtime. The time spent traveling can be cut down by either using a mount (different kinds of horses or class specific ones like a demon or a sabertooth tiger) or the warp gates which are scattered around the map that are usually near important locales like a town or city.

The multiplayer aspect of the game is where I think that game will shine. Having only played the game hotseat co-op for a limited amount of time I really enjoyed it with another player along for the ride, even though we had to share a screen and couldn’t seperate. Playing online multiplayer will allow the players to be in the same world while being able to roam wherever they want. This gives the game more of an open world feel.

PERKS: Having quite a bit of room to customize your character. My personal pet peeve in video games is when you equip and awesome new sword or piece of armor and then it doesn’t show up on your character, they just have the same sword/armor the whole game through. Sacred 2 did this part of the game right, everything you equip on your character shows up so I had a burning dagger hanging on my back while I rode my horse. Also if your into being into a game for the long haul then this is right up your alley. I’m not even sure how long long you could devote your time to the game but it seems like it could suck you in for a while. The world is pretty huge so the words, “NEVER ENDING!” come to mind. One of the very first things I noticed was how expansive the world was. After searching around for a few minutes in the game world I looked at the the map and only a tiny bit of the map had been lit up showing where I had explored. The world looks great from the grass blowing in the wind to the lush landscapes Ancaria looks good.

SCREAMS: LOADING! The worst time I had with loading was in a town where within 10 seconds the game had to stop the screen from progressing to load the next section of town five times. Now if you install it on the hard drive I’m sure it will help immensely with the loading issues but the game shouldn’t have that many to begin with. How about a boss fight that isn’t just some monster with a long health bar?

Give me a story to care about. The only thing that stands out storywise for the game is that they were able to get the EPIC band Blind Guardian to be apart of it. To have better detail after you zoom out, having the camera zoomed in can give you some great detail with nice graphics but zoom out to where you can actually see whats going on and you won’t be able to tell if it’s the same game. That was a major let down in playing Sacred 2, not being able to enjoy the good graphics the whole time.

VERDICT: Buy. I think you’ll definitely get your $’s worth out of this game. You can play it until you’ve discovered everything in Ancaria which will take you a long time or just go straight through the games main quests. Regardless of whether you’ll be playing the game by yourself or with a friend the enjoyment you’ll get should be the same. If your on the fence about this game I would suggest a rental and you’ll be able to get a feel for the game and whether you want to buy the game or not. I had a good time in Ancaria and I’m pretty sure you will too!