Sacred 2: Fallen Angel Hands-On Preview by Gamespot

[gogoblender 3,069]

Taken from Gamespot:

 

 

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel Hands-On Preview

Ascaron's hugely ambitious role-playing game is in its final stages of development. We flew to Germany for a hands-on play of the PC and Xbox 360 versions.

By Guy Cocker, GameSpot UK

Posted Aug 7, 2007 10:35 am GMT

 

The original Sacred was a massive hit in its native Germany, managing to eclipse even Blizzard's Diablo in terms of sales there. The game may have had less of an impact worldwide, but its domestic success was enough to guarantee a sequel. Offering as huge a game world as the original but running completely in 3D, Sacred 2 is an even more ambitious project for the small development studio of Ascaron. We caught up with the team, which recently moved to new offices in Aachen, as it heads ever closer to the Q1 2008 release, managing to get some play time with the PC and Xbox 360 versions along the way.

 

 

The character design may be slightly generic, but the clothing and animation details certainly succeed in bringing the models to life.

 

The demo we saw revealed some of the different regions in the game, including the cities that Ascaron has modelled on historic European municipalities. Make no mistake: Sacred 2's gameworld is immense, with townships and settlers linked by vast expanses of jungle and desert area. Lying underneath this huge area of topsoil is an equally vast network of dungeons, which combine to practically double the size of what you can see aboveground. Naturally, building this environment has taken a considerable amount of time for the team, who have gone so far as to hand-design every last patch of grass.

 

Sacred was described as a Diablo clone when it was first released, and even though the genre has changed in the interim, players of Blizzard's masterpiece will recognise the influence. Although now presented in true 3D, you still view your character from an isometric perspective, and use a mixture of hand-to-hand combat, weapons, and magic to attack your foes. Most of the combat occurs in elaborate dungeons, where you have to fight off opposition in order to complete the 400 quests in the game. Travelling around the world would take hours on foot, but you're given a variety of mounts such as tigers--and even dragons--in order to cover ground quickly. Mercifully, you can also use teleportation gates to travel vast distances immediately, although the map itself is darkened out if you haven't been to a specific area before.

 

The daily cycles in the game will last around 45 minutes in total, with 30 minutes for the day and 15 for night, and the inhabitants of the world will also adhere to this schedule, going about their business during the day and sleeping at night. Missions will revolve around rescuing people, killing creatures, and collecting gold, and the first quest that we saw involved bringing a dog back to a young girl named Mathilda. The attention to detail in the world is pretty spectacular, with authentic-looking fur for the animals and beautiful velvet materials that cover the female warriors. While spot effects such as fire and dust are yet to be placed, the water effects, structural details, and antialiased graphics are all impressive at this stage.

 

 

While some questions remain about the game's storyline and characters, the intricately detailed world is enough of a draw at this stage.

 

While we'd seen the world of Sacred II a couple of months earlier, it was looking a lot more polished during our latest visit. While both versions had their fair share of glitches and crashes, they were also in a very playable state, allowing us to get to grips with the very different control systems. The PC controls are based around a point-and-click system to move your character around the world, while the artificial intelligence takes care of automatically attacking the nearest adversary. With no mouse on the Xbox 360, you move your character using the left analogue stick, and the camera is taken care of with the right stick. Weapons are assigned to the face buttons so that you can quickly attack with a variety of options, while the potions and spells are mapped to the D pad. You can also use the shoulder buttons as modifiers to offer even more slots for weapons and spells, so there really isn't any restriction in using the control pad. There's also likely to be support for a control pad in the PC version of the game, although this hasn't been confirmed as yet.

 

Multiplayer support differs between the PC and console versions. While the PC version will offer 16-player multiplayer online, the Xbox 360 is limited to four players because of memory issues. Having said that, each version shares the same basic code and will therefore offer exactly the same features in both single and multiplayer. There will be player versus player and player versus AI arenas to play around with, and you can play the entire multiplayer game cooperatively if you wish. Sadly, there'll be no Shadowrun-style support for cross-platform multiplayer, but two players will be able to play on a single Xbox 360 if they wish.

 

 

The cities in Sacred 2 have been modelled on authentic European settlements, thanks to consultation with real historians.

 

While Ascaron was very quick to answer all our questions about the gameplay, the company remains cagey when it comes to the storyline. We know that it will be set several hundred years before the events of the first game, meaning that this sequel is actually a prequel. We also know that there'll be six different playable characters and some 400 different quests, the selection of which will change depending on your moral choices as you progress. As is the fashion these days, you'll be able to choose between following a good or a bad path, and you'll face different reactions from non-playable characters as a result.

 

We saw plenty of promise from Sacred II on our visit to Aachen. The size and detail of the gameworld is enough to impress, while the six characters and 400 quests are enough to provide longevity. Sacred has made a significant leap into 3D for this iteration, and if Ascaron can combine its attention to detail with a compelling storyline, then the game could go on to do even bigger things than its predecessor. We'll find out when it is released in Q1 2008 on PC and Xbox 360.

-GameSpot

 

 

[EvilMale 7]

I so can't wait I am going to be a Evil Toon Controller Muahahahahahaha

[gogoblender 3,069]

Some Interesting Notes:

 

-400 quests

-cities modeled on historic European municipalities

-a complex network of dungeons that runs beneath the surface of Ancaria

-30 minutes for the day cycle, 15 minutes for the night cycle

-capacity for 16 players playing online together for pc, v.s. 4 for the console.

 

 

gogo

[toret 0]

Those screenshots look amazing. It's a long wait to q1 next year.

[gogoblender 3,069]

Yeah THESE pics are great. The ones that have been showing in movies lately have been sort of ...so/so. The third one here is the best. The detail and color are so sharp. If Sacred 2 offers that kind of detail while live...we're in for a treat. It's MUCH higher quality than what I've seen in Guild Wars which I think is the best kind of these games there is.

 

Yeah, Toret...next year's a long way off

 

 

gogo

[Cygnus 0]

It is looking great! I hope it has a smoother and less issues than the original had when it started.

[gogoblender 3,069]

Apparently, Ascaron this time is outsourcing another company to do their quality control for them.

Here's to hoping

 

gogo

[Funkilicious 1]

Has it been qualified yet if it will still remain free to play online?

[gogoblender 3,069]

heh, knockin on wood here Funki. It's been promised over in the SIF many times over that there will be no online fees for this game.

*nervously looks around for more wood to knock on *

 

 

gogo

[Funkilicious 1]

I am a knocking too Gogo

[Funkilicious 1]

Would you pay to play:)

[Schot 407]

Oh I don't think we have much to worry about in terms of pay to play. It's only going to be 16 players max to a server. They'd have a real tough time justifying pay to play on that basis alone. On top of that they tell us that the single player is actually just a lone person in multiplay with the ability to invite others into their game. Those two aspects alone point towards an absolute no on it being pay to play. No wood required me thinks.

 

We also know that there'll be six different playable characters and some 400 different quests, the selection of which will change depending on your moral choices as you progress.

 

Drat! No more looting chests inside homes... Well. I suppose I could always choose to be evol. Hehe. Sure does have its perks.

[gogoblender 3,069]

I'm pretty sure that Sacred's gonna be free, however, if they ever did has some kind of a pay per play thingy with it, it would seriuosly make me reconsider it's purchase.

 

 

gogo