Quests consist of gathering items, killing monsters collecting information, shaking down shop owners for protection money, sneaking around, stealing, and general helping out. You can also see two sides of one quest depending on who you speak to. So if you help out one person instead of the other for similar goals, you will never be able to help the other person with conflicting interests.

Character interactions were also enjoyable and realistic to a point. If you robbed someone right in front of them they will likely not talk to you and will remember what you did. This sometimes leads to quests that cannot be finished. Luckily though there are spells that can be cast to force someone to forget any misdeed. Pick pocketing is an enjoyable and useful technique that allows you to recover items stolen from you.  This skill has different levels and has a bit of a learning curve; once you initiate a pickpocket attempt, you only have a certain amount of time to grab what you want. Pick pocketing is also useful if you know someone stole one of your items when you were knocked out to get them back.

Risen takes place in a setting that looks very much like South America. The lighting in the game is rather dark making monitors with high contrasts or deep blacks rather hard at times to see what you’re playing unless you turn the brightness settings way up; unfortunately this washes out some of the great graphics and cinematic lighting. Some parts of the game are intentionally left dark as you need to use torches to see where you are going inside of caves or the catacombs of the ruins. The ground in the light has a lush glow and the city looks great in the moonlight. In fact I rather enjoyed the graphical style, though I wish I could have customized my look a bit more as I look like the main character of the show Prison Break with my ultra short buzz cut look.  The water was also well rendered and the thunderstorms and rain effects at night have to be the best I have seen in a game, with the whole setting going from really dark to super bright all around me when the lighting clashes. The games NPC’s were also more detailed and much easier to tell apart than similar games I have encountered.

The game leveling up is done with experience points, but other attributes like strength, dexterity, and weapon and crafting skills are gained by talking to people and asking them to train you. This, of course, will cost you a bit of gold. There are 3 types of close combat weapons such as swords, axes and blunt objects. For attacking from a distance you can use bows, crossbows or magic. Casting spells will use up Mana that needs to be replenished with potions and the like.

The game also has a cooking system in which you can take the meat off killed creatures  and cook it to regain heath or Mana. You can also obtain special recipes and collect the ingredients to make special foods. The same principles can be applied for the alchemy for potions and smith skills for making weapons and armor.

The combat for handheld weapons is done with the left mouse button for attack and the right mouse button for shielding or blocking by turning your weapon on its side. You can also parry the attack if you press the right mouse button just before the enemy is going to attack. The system for locking on enemies is automatic and very well executed. I rarely found my back turned to one enemy while fighting another. For bow attacks you go into a 3^rd or first person view to fire. The closer you are to hitting the enemy’s head the more damage the enemy takes.  Casting spells can be very useful while fighting in hand to hand combat.

One thing I really liked about Risen was that the enemies don’t seem to fall into too many western RPG stereotypes—sure there were gnomes and ghouls but the majority of them seemed very fresh. The AI was also well done; even though you could figure out some of the enemy attack patterns it never seemed monotonous, always giving a good challenge as these patterns were never set in stone and could always be a bit random.

Blast Factor: Besides some slight graphical issues and lots of trouble with the game’s DRM (which they will hopefully have fixed by the time you read this) I really enjoyed the game and can’t wait to play through it again following a different storyline path.

Risen is available on the PC, and an upcoming Xbox 360 version. It retails for $49.99; a copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

But before you can play a game you have to buy it, and before you do that, sometimes you can even try it.

That’s the news today, as Deep Silver announced that their RPG “Risen” has a demo for PC users, and it’s available right now. It clocks in at an acceptable 1.1GB, but you should check the system requirements first.

The demo, according to Deep Silver, “lets players experience the dramatic introduction of the game where the nameless hero survives a shipwreck in a storm and lands on the shore of the Island of Faranga. Numerous decisions must be made within the course of the adventure, each one influencing the storyline in different ways.”

Start your Risen download over here at the Risen Blog

Developed by Piranha Bytes, the RPG features a nameless protagonists and as the trailer describes “Humanity is Dying,” leaving you in charge of defeating the enemies and saving the land. Well, at least you’ll have Gollum and Gimli to help you out.

Risen releases exclusivley on PC this Friday October 2 with an Xbox 360 version promised for “early next year.” Bummer, this is my sleeper title of the year, I want it now!

Names don’t sound familiar to you? How about Gollum and Gimli from the Lords of the Rings film trilogy? Ahh, there we are.

Serkis will play the role of “The Inquisitor” and Davies will surrender his voice to bring “Don Esteban” to digital life in Risen, but, as is par for the course with Deep Silver and Piranha Bytes, that’s all we know so far.

But wait, ever watch the television Terminator spin-off “The Sarah Connor Chronicles”? If so you’ll be delighted to learn Lena Heady, Sarah from the show, will play the role of Patty in the upcoming game.

Look for Risen exclusively on Xbox 360 and Windows PC October 5.

The website is a mini-game (but not in the Wii sense of the phrase) in itself as you’re given choices of directional travel and, as you’ll quickly learn, the island you’ve been so unfortunately washed onto is not a pleasant place.

Risen is an ambitious project, and one that developer Piranha Bytes has been tirelessly designing for the past 2.5 years.  The game, from the words of early previews, is ambitious, full of moral objectivity, ghastly creatures, rich storytelling, and all takes place in the confines of a Mediterranean island during the Middle Ages in a sort of Fable-esque art style.

Have a look at the new website here, and enjoy the glorious trailer for the title below.