Two Worlds has a lot going for it, so what makes it such a love hate relationship? Let’s start with the interface which was apparently designed by two monkeys working between watching Gilligan’s Island reruns. To say the interface is bad would be an insult to all the bad interfaces that have come before it.

Trying to do anything is a chore; moving items off of dead creature into your inventory, using the map, managing spells—you name it. When the game options menu shuts down after making a single selection such as changing the brightness you know you’re in trouble. This game was obviously designed for a keyboard and mouse and just ported to the Xbox 360, but this interface would be rough regardless of the platform.

The sound and voice acting are just south of ‘kid’s theatre’ bad, in fact someone had the great idea of throwing Olde English into the game but they figured going 100% Olde English would just bore people to death so they sprinkle in a few words here and there. It just feels tacked on and kind of silly.

Finally one of the main selling points is the ability to co-op with your friends. Your multi-player character is different then your solo one. Teaming up with friends online does provide a lot of fun and it really gets rid of the unbalanced groups. But you can only visit certain parts of the world map in a session. The ‘versus’ multiplayer works, but doesn’t provide much incentive to play. Besides why would you play it when you have a hundred better options to frag your friends?

So what is a prospective adventurer to do with a game like Two Worlds? It was apparently made on a low-end budget and pushed out long before it was ready. But if you dig deep enough you can find a good bit of enjoyment and some nice systems in the engine. Perhaps a sequel with a bigger budget and more development time will produce an A-List RPG, but as it stands Two Worlds is a rent first recommendation – at best.