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SouthPeak Interactive's Two Worlds takes place in the land of Antaloor, a place inhabited by your archetypal fantasy species of orcs, man, monsters, dwarves and such. The story revolves around a bounty hunter who must help a mysterious group find the lost tomb in which the Orc god Aziraal was imprisoned, the final goal to rescue his kidnapped sister. The cinematic cut-scenes feature too much cheesy Old English dialogue, but that issue notwithstanding, the game provides an enjoyable sandbox experience.

The game starts by letting players change the initial appearance of their male main character (females are only allowed in the multiplayer game for some reason). This includes tweaking the shape and color of the eyes, hair, eyebrows, chin, cheekbones and size of various body parts. Like most open ended RPGs, players can either dive headlong into the main story or wander aimlessly about exploring the enormous game world and completing one of the hundreds of side quests.

Bounty hunters work for whoever pays the most, thus, Two Worlds has no rigid class structure. Attribute and skill points (awarded with each level increase) get dropped into any of the many skill categories that best suits your play style. Warriors, thieves, assassins and mages all have a place in the world, and you can learn all of their respective skills. The four basic values for every character are Vitality, Strength, Willpower and Dexterity. The ability to use other skills, weapons, armor and developmental attributes rely on these values, allowing players to become proficient at one thing, or even a jack-of-all-trades. One interesting feature lets players visit a Soul Patcher Mage to reallocate points if they don't like how their character developed. This of course costs money, but having this option available can be very helpful.

Two Worlds is rife with loot (weapons, armor, spells, flowers, toadstools, gems, magic items, etc.), each having an attribute, price and weight attached to it. Some items have limiting factors (such as strength, dexterity or level requirements), and you can only carry so much weight (which grows with each level increase). Another neat feature lets all characters create potions, poisons and weapon power ups via the Alchemy System. Players can place collected items into an alchemy pot in order to brew up their own stat buffs. It allows would be scientists' free reign and adds a very enjoyable facet to the game.

Both melee and magic combat are very straightforward. While melee fighters can use combo attacks (and even kick dirt into an enemy's face), most battles devolve into left mouse button mashing; the type of fighter you wish to become dictates what type of combat skills you'll choose. Warriors may want Strong Hand (tighter grip on a weapon allowing for a stronger strike), Stone Skin (reinforces damage resistance of the skin), Berserking (enemies can't break up your series of strikes with a counterstrike) or Break Sword (a powerful blow that shatters an opponent's weapon). Thieves and assassin types will likely want Lockpicking, Sneaking, Stealing, Setting Traps (a cool skill that lets you set highly destructible traps anywhere) and Death Strike (killing an opponent from behind with one shot). Archers can take their own respective skills like Overdraw (overdraw the bowstring to cause more damage), Precise Aiming, Multi-arrows and other specialty arrows.

SouthPeak based the magic system on virtual game cards. Main cards exist for the actual spells while "booster" cards affect the pack of main cards. The more booster cards possessed the more powerful the effect. Each of the five schools of magic (Air, Water, Fire, Earth, Necromancy) contains a vast array of very different spells.

Fortunately there are no penalties for dying (which happens often, even on the default setting). Additionally, players won't have to run great distances to some out of the way graveyard. Instead, characters automatically re-spawn at the nearest healing shrine. Since Antaloor is a magical world, shrines are plentiful and death rarely slows down the journey.

With a world this vast, traveling on foot can be slow and tedious. Fortunately faster modes of transportation exist. Beasts (horses, lizards, etc.) are available through quest acquisition from vendors, or one can always commit grand theft horsery. Combat can also be done from the saddle, which increases your chance of survival. Sadly, the whole beast riding feature has its quirks. The biggest problem comes with steering properly. Still, it's a feature that adds another fun element to the game. The second form of transportation comes in the form of teleporters scattered across the land.

Multiplayer comes with two modes: RPG and Arena. RPG is best described as semi-MMO in nature because it lets players go online to complete quests with other gamers. Arena mode is strictly player versus player combat. Both modes allow you to create separate characters since both are vastly different animals. Arena mode uses pre-constructed, well balanced, high level characters, so everyone is on even ground. RPG characters start at low levels but can advance, while Arena characters cannot.

Arena mode has three combat variants: Team (each participant has the same number of reanimations, the first team to run out loses), Attacks (defend the base) and Monster Hunt (each team possesses a certain number of monsters players destroy in order to win).

The visual aesthetics and audio are hit and miss. Lighting effects, fog, day/night cycles, and perpetual weather changes look breathtaking, plus the cities and buildings are replete with intricate details. All of this helps create a marvelously fleshed out, living, breathing world. Character animations (humans, orcs, groms and other monsters) are adequate (minus the cinematic cut-scenes, which look terrible). Animals (particularly wolves, bears and boars) are not. Dialog is cheesy, with some poor voice acting, and the background music tends to come and go at odd times.

While the first half-hour of Two Worlds doesn't make a great first impression, the experience gets exponentially better over time. It won't make you forget Oblivion, but that's not its purpose. What this very ambitious and solid RPG does is create an epic adventure that provides hours of entrainment, and any game you can say that about is worth its weight in gold.

- 7/10