18 months? Really???

I am one slack bugger, I'll tell you that for free...

Anywho, here's something new.  If I get into the swing of it, I might even post something regular-like.  Who knows?

Rental review - Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

Armed with a shiny new Blockbuster card, I wandered into the games section of my local store, intent on securing a copy of Borderlands. Predictably, it was out. However, sitting on a nearby shelf was a copy of Sacred 2. Being somewhat of a Diablo nut, I had been meaning to check out the original Sacred, but never had the time or the cash to hunt a copy down. So I plonked down the one-night rental fee, went home, and slotted it in.
Now, some people may cry foul when they realize that I only played the game for one night. Well, my reasoning is this: if I rent a game overnight, and it doesn't inspire me to at least extend the rental for another night, then I think that's a fair indication of the strength of the game. Plus, screw you, buddy.
Right here is where I'd plonk down a summary of the game's back-story. However, as time was of the essence, I skimmed that part of the manual. If you insist, though: blah blah blah prequel to Sacred blah blah Elves blah blah T-energy blah twisted mutants ravaging the countryside. Yep, that about does it.
As for the game itself: S2 is a traditional isometric RPG, a style that stretches back beyond the aforementioned Diablo. Advances in game engine and hardware have allowed the view to be pulled long and short, meaning that you can slaughter kobolds from on high, or ride right on your character's shoulder like a button-mashing parrot.
Speaking of which, S2's control scheme is a little different to the usual attack-magic-jump-use mapping. You assign either a weapon or a special ability to one of the ABXY buttons, and use the left and right triggers to switch between control schemes, giving you access to a total of 12 attacks/spells at the push of two buttons. It's pretty good, providing you remember what weapon is mapped to which button - mashing the Sword button kinda sucks when you're trying to hit a knife-throwing dork at long range, for example.
The aforementioned dorks are plentiful, too: bandits, kobolds, wolves, skeletons, mutated turtle-looking things - S2 has it all. One of the good points I discovered about combat in S2 is that the game helpfully colour-codes the target you're currently attacking/locked on to; white-haloed dudes aren't worth your time, while the red-ringed foes provide more of a challenge. Obviously, as you level up, the ratio of white-ringed guys shifts up, providing you with a plethora of crossbow-fodder as you get more and more buff.
Unfortunately, one of the biggest bugs I encountered was in by first boss battle, against the leader of the kobolds - a regenerating giant with the standard throw-the-scenery-at-you ranged attack. Being a Rogue from way back, and playing the ranged-specialist Dryad at the time, I did what any self-respecting blowpipe-wielder would have done: I ran around like a girl, punting attacks at the slower-of-foot boss. This worked like a charm - until I got stuck behind a shrubbery. Thankfully, I had an obscene amount of healing potions to draw on, and I managed to dispatch him anyway, but seriously - a shrubbery????
Anyway, enough of my personal vendetta against scenery. S2 provides a handful of character types to traverse the length and breadth of the land, from the angelic Seraphim to the soulless Inquisitor. While they may have different names and abilities (and, because the majority of them are female, perfectly-sculpted racks), the generic fantasy archetypes are there: Warrior, Mage, Hunter, Priest... and bio-mechanical dog-headed thing.
Yeah.
Remember when I mentioned T-energy back up there? Well, it seems that the original Sacred was missing some certain magepunk, so they introduced T-energy into the prequel to give the designers three things: a convenient plot hook, a way to stick frickin' lasers into a swords-and-sorcery game, and an excuse for the level designers to add some funky-looking T-energy conduits into the architecture. Did it make a lick of difference to the gameplay? Not really, no. But it did weird me out a bunch.
As did the voice acting. I played as two characters - the Dryad/Hunter and the Shadow Warrior/Tank - and while the Dryad displayed a decent if sometimes overlong array of smack-talk for departed foes, the Shadow Warrior's voice actor sounded like he was auditioning for the part of Duke Nukem's ancestor, Sir Broadsword Killzalot. It was novel to begin with, but after a while the humour wore thin.
Which leads me to my next point: humour can be a potent force for good in the RPG. Games like Fallout 1 and 2 can stick in the occasional pop culture reference or absurd, fourth-wall-breaking instance that draws a guffaw from the player - seriously, who didn't giggle when they reached the Bridgekeeper, or the Cafe of Broken Dreams? With S2, they fell back on the oldest trope in the RPG book: the graveyard. Each grave I encountered had text to read, whether it was a simple epitaph, a poem, or something slightly more humorous... But it was every single one. Add to that the fact that I found it hard to read - even on a 32-inch TV - and whatever humour it may have imparted was lost in my constant squinting to check the text on the screen.

So, in summary...
As far as I am currently aware, Diablo III isn't coming to the console, so unless ActiBliz change their minds, Sacred 2 is as close as you're gonna get. Rent it, run it out, and if it whets your whistle, pick it up. It's hours of dork-bashing fun.
Just watch out for that bastard shrubbery.