Such as?

I'm sure all complaints have a basis, but people tend to overstate the importance of certain elements. This is a non-winnable game.

Also, the Xbox360 version was much worse than the PC version.

Yeah the 360 version gave it a bad name to some people, I think. The PC version however was and is excellent on nearly all counts. The only complaint I've heard is regarding the last 2/3 of the game, that and some quest bugs.
My understanding is Two Worlds was buggy and unpolished as hell on release but is pretty good now. Personally I still couldn't get past the horrible voice acting.

Yeah, Risen on the 360 was crap. It's a shame that 90% of game review sites based their review on the 360 version.

Most criticisms of Risen are based on the 360 version, including most "professional" reviews. The same goes for Two Worlds and many other games.

One common "problem" given for either version of Risen is suddenly becoming part of a faction or being ordered to sweep the floors or whatever without any warning or logical reasoning behind it, but in fact these situations are entirely the player's own fault; after the very brief tutorial all important information is conveyed entirely through NPC dialogue, so players who skip it or don't listen will end up with unexpected outcomes. This approach is welcomed by their core audience who hang on every word, soaking up every detail of the game's setting in a natural manner, but it's just too subtle for impatient gamers who expect to be hit over the head by obvious warnings or pop-ups when decisions such as these come along.

And silly of Deep Silver to send out so many 360 review copies.

This is true.

I have often seen it mentioned, and with Risen in particular actually, that the 360 version is the one reviewers get. I assume this has a lot to do with making sure the reviewer can play the game since a PC version might require a gaming computer random reviewers do not have.

When your game is 10 times better on the PC though you would think an exception might be made.

2/3? The last 1/4 of the game at most. Oh I get it, you mean the 2/3 were ok, then hell broke loose? Look, the reality is that portion of the game is pretty badly paced and it goes from "oh, is this the last portion of the game? Bring it!" to "wait, the last boss is just behind that door. You want me to go around the island collecting armor? Shit."

Even though I wrote that, that quest is actually not that bad, only very badly inserted.

Yeah, that's sometimes the case. From personal experience, 2K for example tends to hand out 360 versions since that's what most people have, even if you request otherwise. It's a terrible way to go about things, of course. Our site is pretty coordinated so we just requested a PC copy and got it. The PR company that took care of Risen and other titles have always been good to me about sending PC versions. With Risen I would simply guess most of the reviewers didn't have gaming PCs and requested 360 versions. In Deep Silver's position I simply would've limited the amount of 360 copies to send out.

It was a vague estimate. I hadn't actually made it that far myself.

Ah, that would be it then. I apologise.

Can't believe I missed hearing about this! Pirates are like one of my favourite things in the whole world!!! :D Gonna have to get the first game I see to investigate...

I like the idea of a Pirate RPG, although I've not played the first Risen (or any of the Gothic games for that matter.) I keep meaning check them out :P

I've read the list and it seems to be pretty close to Risen 1 with the usual better looking graphics, larger world, more complex story and more varied terrain. This is pretty much what everybody promises for a sequel and I expect Risen 2 to feel very much like Risen 1.

This is not bad, they can probably re-use alot of their techniques from Risen 1.

What I would like to know:

- how many simple (stupid) quest like (kill 10 wolves and save the virgin, collect 3 parsley blossoms for old grandma and speak with everybody in town (repeatedly) until you find out, who is the monster at night, then kill it)?
- how intelligent will the AI enemies be?
- how much fun will the fighting system be?
- how catching will be the story line?
- how demanding will be the graphics, loading times and how many bugs will result in crashs to desktop?

I only do not fear for the music which will be perfect as usual with Kai Rosenkranz. :)