G4TV -> 3 stars (out of 5) for 2W2 for all platforms.Shut up and let me play!
Sadly, it’s not all wine and roses in the land of Antaloor. All those great systems listed above? Good luck figuring them out. The UI is confusing and clunky. The tutorial overexplains some things and doesn’t explain others at all. I suppose you could always turn to the Internet for guides and tips, but why force players to put down the game and go elsewhere to learn how to play? And for all your multiclassing skills, combat is a frustrating affair. I can only guess they meant it to be dynamic, but it’s mostly hoping an attack lands before you get mobbed to death.
Oh, I actually liked the game tutorial/story introduction - as it basically shows you EVERY class and aspect the game has to offer. You can get a sense of if you really want to go w/ magic; blades; bows; learn how to craft; learn how to break down equipment; etc - and test them all out before you really start pumping points into them.
On the PC version, I think the Inventory's decent - it gets the job done. I think the problem was the symbol system doesn't seem blunt enough and some of the symbols are just not explained too much at all in the tutorial.
But, go into Gameplay options and turn ON "Replace Symbols w/ Words For Inventory" - MUCH better. It will instead say "Blade Damage"; "Fire Resistance"; etc etc. MUCH easier to understand and MUCH more straight-forward. This feature probably should be on by DEFAULT.
All of the crafting [and breaking-up, in some instances] of weapons, equipment, magic, etc is awesome. It reminds me a lot of Hellgate's system - except magic is also on the list here. And the magic card system is pretty cool - as you can combine spells and elements and change the effects of spells. It's as if spells now have their own sockets/upgrade system, if you want to look at it that way.
2W2 PC runs and looks great on my aging single-core rig. No hiccups or anything on 1024x768 w/ most graphics stuff pumped-up. Though, sometimes, the animations suffer from Bethesda syndrome - i.e. stiffness. The voice-acting and dialogue is MUCH better the original game.
EDIT:
About JarradAdvice from Reality Pump themselves - don't kill Jarrad BEFORE "Elimination Job" quest b/c it'll basically break the game.Yes,
they are working on a patch to fix this issue.
