Piranha Bytes Tuesdays
Risen 2
Or, well, not “galore” in the sense of hundreds and thousands and suchlike, but even so: RPGWatch has links to previews of the game from a handful of gaming websites of note. The preview at RPG Gamer even features an interview with Bjorn Pankratz, the project director for the game.
And apparently, if you sprung for the Collector’s Edition of Risen, you already have the key to get in:
Buyers of the Collector’s Edition of Risen 1 might remember that an access code for a “beta test” for the next game by Piranha Bytes was part of that box.
This “beta test” is now entering its next stage. Those who registered their code with Deep Silver received an e-mail today in which Deep Silver announced that the “beta test” will take place from February, 20th to March, 2nd. The e-mail recipients are asked to register again on the website betatest.risen2.com with their personal access code.
If anyone is in on this, do drop by when it’s all said and done and let us know what you think of the second game in the Risen series, eh?
Feast your eyes on THIS beastie:
Yikes!
These disgusting creatures emerge from the hidden depths of the sea and lie in wait for their prey, primarily in sandy terrain. They are not particularly large, but what they lack in size they make up for in numbers by appearing in packs. Once a victim is surrounded by a group of Sand Devils there will be no escape. The helpless prey is wrestled to the ground via lightning-fast attacks and mercilessly slaughtered by the bloodthirsty pack. Even for the most experienced of fighters, these stubborn beasts are a real threat who must be encountered with great caution and determination.
So basically, they’re an air-breathing, land-walking anglerfish. Great.
“Some deep-sea anglerfishes of the bathypelagic zone emit light from their escas to attract prey. This bioluminescence is a result of symbiosis with bacteria. The bacteria may enter the esca from the seawater through small pores; however, this is speculative and the mechanism by which ceratioids harness these bacteria is unknown. In the confines of the esca, they can multiply until their density is such that their collective glow is very bright.”
Interesting that no one actually knows how they generate light.
“In most species, a wide mouth extends all around the anterior circumference of the head, and both jaws are armed with bands of long pointed teeth, which are inclined inwards, and can be depressed so as to offer no impediment to an object gliding towards the stomach, but prevent its escape from the mouth. The anglerfish is able to distend both its jaw and its stomach (its bones are thin and flexible) to enormous size, allowing it to swallow prey up to twice as large as its entire body.”
Frightening in its mechanical logic and efficiency. “Direct prey unobstructed toward and into stomach”.
The Sand Devil in the game acts as a pack predator however, which means it wouldn’t swallow anything whole but rather inflict a series of injuries to bring its prey down (hyena-style). They also mentioned it was small, and size being relative I’m assuming they meant compared to a human or like-sized animal such as your player character.
While wiggling a light-emitting appendage may attract fish, I don’t think most land-based animals would be attracted other than humans out of sheer curiosity. People being social creatures, word would quickly spread that numerous small lights near the oceanic littoral spelled certain doom. Interesting concept though, and I appreciate that it’s based on real animals to some extent.
From the videos in TFA, my main concern isn’t frame rate but the fact that you can run your sword through someone and they just keep going on like nothing happened. The sword is the most powerful weapon conceived by man prior to the gun and the bomb, perfectly capable of killing any animal with a single well placed thrust. On that note, in the video someone got shot who went on to run the shooter through with their sword. Ironic. 🙂
The graphics are good and hopefully you can command sea vessels, but they definitely need to clean things up and hopefully will do so. Fighting with swords just doesn’t pack much of a punch if you have to stab someone through the heart more than once to put them down.
Double posting again, damn… If you’ve seen the G4 video (last link in TFA), you might appreciate this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM4-Yh-qyEQ
Maybe if the captain had just politely asked he would have politely received. Alas, pirates arrrrrn’t typically masters of civility or rapping like Eddie Murphy is.