Risen - Review @ GameBanshee

Brother None pens a review of Risen over at GameBanshee. The game gets some praise but also some criticism - particularly of the last chapters - on the way to a score of 7.4/10. Here's a sample:

But to continue on in the story, Harbour Town is really what the first chapter is about though I should note the experience of players in the first two chapters can be pretty different depending on what faction you choose to approach first. Harbour Town is a good showcase of what Risen's strengths and weaknesses are: it is a well-designed, goodly sized location with interesting human conflict, convincing NPCs and a variation of quests with real choices to make on whose side you pick. Various skills, especially thievery, can come in handy to offer alternative solutions to different quests, and often a bit of quick thinking by the PC can help find an alternate path. Also, the story here really focuses on inter-personal and inter-factional relationships, the strength of which was explained in the setting world segment of this review.

However and this is a big however Risen takes a definite step back from the likes of Gothic 2 when it comes to depth of quest design. Even if you dig around for alternatives, a shockingly large number of quests in Harbour Town come down to beat him up and take his stuff or intimidate him, which is fairly ludicrous considering how often you are warned that this is a well-ordered town that you can not just mess around in (people are generally too forgiving of being beaten up through the game). A good example of this is a quest in which you need to retrieve 5 pieces of armour. If you have the pickpocket skill, you're free to resolve the quest using it. Otherwise, you either have to pay the NPCs an exorbitant amount of money you likely won't have and by paying that money also miss out on free XP and loot given by beating them up or, indeed, beat them up and take it, to no negative consequence. Why am I just allowed to do that and get away scot-free? Why can't I trade the armour piece for a favour or a personal item of theirs I nicked earlier? Why can't I get help in retrieving the armour pieces? Why can't I side with the aggrieved holders of the armour pieces and gang up on their boss with their help?