Two Worlds Epic Edition: Now With Less Suck
We have a dilemma here. On the one hand, we love beating down ogres and dragons and would happily do it year after year. On the other hand, we hate buggy gameplay and crippling slowdown. Fortunately it seems SouthPeak might have has found a way to minimize the glitches and maximize the ogres in their standalone expansion pack for Two Worlds, Epic Edition, due out in August.
The first game received wildly mixed reviews, ranging from a respectable score of 7.0 (ok, that was me) to a not-so-respectable “fecal doughnut” comparison. It was a fair game, marred by terrible glitches that were somewhat addressed in a patch several months after launch.
Still, even with the patch, multiplayer in Two Worlds was not the “MMO lite” that was promised ahead of time. Trying to play the game over XBL was nearly impossible, as slowdown and crashes made even the simplest fetch quests seem like an epic mess.
In the Epic Edition expansion, expect to find more multiplayer quests, a new town where players can fight online in an arena, and magical PvP competitions. And for a budget $20, it’s likely to snag a few budget-conscious adventurers who don’t mind if their horse gets stuck in an occasional rock.
My personal favorite moment from the original Two Worlds? Snagging a town’s sacred stone, which destroys the town’s defenses and lets the ogres take over, so you have to fight your way out. See, Two Worlds wasn’t all bad– there were some good ideas in there, you just had to look past the game’s technical flaws. If all these issues have been addressed, there’s no reason why Two Worlds can’t work the second time around.
Update: There’s been some confusion about whether this is a sequel or merely a stand-alone expansion. The answer is that a real sequel, called Temptation, is due out in November, but a few months ago it was incorrectly reported that Temptation would be an expansion pack for the original Two Worlds. The Epic Edition contains the original game, plus two new modes, for a budget price. From the press release:
Two Worlds: Epic Edition will contain the original game and the add-ons “Tainted Blood” and “Curse of Souls”, putting the massive world of Antaloor and countless hours of adventuring into one tremendous package. The original Two Worlds gave players a huge world and hundreds of adventures to undertake. The expanded content of Epic Edition adds over 70 online quests, eight new multiplayer maps, an innovative player-versus-player challenge where opponents battle to control magical orbs within a variety of arenas, and introduces the town of Tharnburg where players can train their warriors in various skills and challenge other players to combat in the Gladiator District’s huge arena.
