Mad Lewt
We go hands-on with an early build of Sacred 2 and try our hand at scooping up some goodies along the way.
Published: February 20, 2009
Full disclosure time: when Sacred 2: Fallen Angel came in a few months (yes, months, we've had it that long and are only just now putting up a preview), everyone just sort of scoffed and started what would become a rather lengthy, weeks-long chain of pass-the-build procrastination. The poor little BD-ROM only entered our debug once for about five minutes, where snickers were exchanged all around, and then it bounced -- sleeveless -- from desk to desk and table to table until, eventually we thought the window for previewing the game had passed.
Then the game got delayed by a few weeks (and now, possibly, months, which is probably a good thing given the crash-prone nature of what we have here in the office), and we really had no excuse. We had to preview the game because, well, the good folks at cdv Software were kind enough to send it over -- and at our request, we discovered a few days ago -- and to be honest, there's not really anything else like it on the PS3 right now. In fact, there's really nothing like it on consoles, so it was definitely worth a look, much as we were reluctant to actually give it a chance.
But we did give it a chance. We sat through the laughable pre-rendered opening with the cutely-accented eyeless sage recounting the tale of the world of Ancaria, a gift from the angelic Seraphim to the High Elves of the world, the bitter battle that broke out as a result of jealousy over the power and the eventual corruption of and harnessing of T-Energy, which began to leech out into the land, turning much of into a breeding ground for monstrous creatures.
And then the power metal kicked in (provided courtesy of Germany's Blind Guardian) and -- we shit you not -- an epic fight broke out between some skeletons and a barbarian-looking dude, a chick firing arrows from the back of a quasi-dinosaur and an anthropomorphic techno-jackal whose hand turned into a laser rifle. The intro culminates in the arrival of one a blond pig-tailed Seraphim rolling in and saving the day as the chorus of the written-for-the-game metal anthem plays on top of things.
Let's recap, shall we? Skeletons fighting against robo-jackals with a laser turret for a hand and German metal band providing the soundtrack. Clearly the game doesn't take itself seriously (and if it does, it just became the most epic mélange of camp and seemingly earnest backstory we've seen since witnessing YouTube LARPing videos). Once we realized this, our opinion of the game quickly shifted gears with a simultaneous, "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" response. Now it all made sense.
It also helped excuse the laughable voice acting, camera movement and animation in the game's intro after we'd opted to start out with a Seraphim combatant (with blue-black pigtails, of course), picked a goddess that bestow a little extra healing for us in worst-case scenarios, and launched into the game proper. We were still bothered by the fact that the game's camera either gave us a far-out, overhead shot or a close-in view where we couldn't see more than a few feet in front of us (not so handy for recognizing incoming threats without keeping one eye on the game's map/radar), but eventually we adjusted.
Something to note before we progress further in our impresions: upon starting up, Sacred 2 essentially creates an instanced world that you can leave open for anyone from your people on your friends list to others just looking for a game to join. The entire experience is fully co-op friendly (and possibly even encouraged), though we sadly couldn't find anyone to join our game. Things can be played offline, of course, but it's obvious from the game's menus that everything is meant to be as collaborative as it is a solo experience, we just spent our first few hours in the game in the latter flavor.
Charged with the task of delivering a message to a nearby town, we strode out into the wilderness to better the world through the goodness of light and... um... fighting in high heels. Again, this is a game that clearly doesn't treat the world with a whole lot of gravity. What it does offer, though -- and this is something that we really didn't "get" until about an hour in -- is a massive amount of ground to cover. Even after a few hours of exploration, we'd literally only uncovered a little over 1% of the total map. That, friends, is a huge world to explore.
Then the game got delayed by a few weeks (and now, possibly, months, which is probably a good thing given the crash-prone nature of what we have here in the office), and we really had no excuse. We had to preview the game because, well, the good folks at cdv Software were kind enough to send it over -- and at our request, we discovered a few days ago -- and to be honest, there's not really anything else like it on the PS3 right now. In fact, there's really nothing like it on consoles, so it was definitely worth a look, much as we were reluctant to actually give it a chance.
But we did give it a chance. We sat through the laughable pre-rendered opening with the cutely-accented eyeless sage recounting the tale of the world of Ancaria, a gift from the angelic Seraphim to the High Elves of the world, the bitter battle that broke out as a result of jealousy over the power and the eventual corruption of and harnessing of T-Energy, which began to leech out into the land, turning much of into a breeding ground for monstrous creatures.
And then the power metal kicked in (provided courtesy of Germany's Blind Guardian) and -- we shit you not -- an epic fight broke out between some skeletons and a barbarian-looking dude, a chick firing arrows from the back of a quasi-dinosaur and an anthropomorphic techno-jackal whose hand turned into a laser rifle. The intro culminates in the arrival of one a blond pig-tailed Seraphim rolling in and saving the day as the chorus of the written-for-the-game metal anthem plays on top of things.
Let's recap, shall we? Skeletons fighting against robo-jackals with a laser turret for a hand and German metal band providing the soundtrack. Clearly the game doesn't take itself seriously (and if it does, it just became the most epic mélange of camp and seemingly earnest backstory we've seen since witnessing YouTube LARPing videos). Once we realized this, our opinion of the game quickly shifted gears with a simultaneous, "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" response. Now it all made sense.
It also helped excuse the laughable voice acting, camera movement and animation in the game's intro after we'd opted to start out with a Seraphim combatant (with blue-black pigtails, of course), picked a goddess that bestow a little extra healing for us in worst-case scenarios, and launched into the game proper. We were still bothered by the fact that the game's camera either gave us a far-out, overhead shot or a close-in view where we couldn't see more than a few feet in front of us (not so handy for recognizing incoming threats without keeping one eye on the game's map/radar), but eventually we adjusted.
Something to note before we progress further in our impresions: upon starting up, Sacred 2 essentially creates an instanced world that you can leave open for anyone from your people on your friends list to others just looking for a game to join. The entire experience is fully co-op friendly (and possibly even encouraged), though we sadly couldn't find anyone to join our game. Things can be played offline, of course, but it's obvious from the game's menus that everything is meant to be as collaborative as it is a solo experience, we just spent our first few hours in the game in the latter flavor.
Charged with the task of delivering a message to a nearby town, we strode out into the wilderness to better the world through the goodness of light and... um... fighting in high heels. Again, this is a game that clearly doesn't treat the world with a whole lot of gravity. What it does offer, though -- and this is something that we really didn't "get" until about an hour in -- is a massive amount of ground to cover. Even after a few hours of exploration, we'd literally only uncovered a little over 1% of the total map. That, friends, is a huge world to explore.
