Part Five: Two Worlds.  One thousand points.

With it’s fifty percent Metacritic average you’d be forgiven for thinking that Two Worlds is more lazy 360 shovelware. You would, however, be wrong. It’s ace. Sure, it appears to have been programmed on a yellow bus at times but it’s a fun action-RPG of the same ilk as Oblivion (although, rather unwisely, the game was described as an Oblivion-killer which it really isn’t).

But I come not to review Two Worlds but to whore it.

Once you get past the technical problems (relatively frequent crashes, a sketchy framerate and more pop-ups than Kerry Katona’s bookshelf) this game is really good fun. Sure, it suffers in comparison to Oblivion but, for my money, it handles levelling up and equipment in a far more intuitive way than Oblivion and, most importantly, has vastly better achievements. Well… apart from one of them.

Remember in my first AW article, I categorised the types of achievement whore? Well Oblivion is a good benchmark. Do you, like me, play it through on the default difficulty for the best part of one hundred and twenty hours or, like some gaming version of Divine Brown, drop the slider right down and piss away the greatest game on the 360? Either way, the achievements are the same. Play through the guilds and the main quest until you get your 1000 (or 1250 if you’ve got Shivering Isles).

Two Worlds is far more interesting to whore out. It throws a few achievements at you for going through the main quest (including 370 points for beating the game) but most of the achievements are for doing things in the game like killing a dragon, riding a horse, levelling up and making certain items.

I played Two Worlds in the right spirit by exploring the world and completing as many sidequests as I could find and it only took me twenty or so hours to reach the end of the game. 920 points for twenty hours, a respectable return.

Of course, you can’t leave it on 920 can you? No. That’d be wrong. Easily as wrong as hiding your brother’s stepchild under your bed. To get the full 1000 you need to grind. You need to grind hard and long.

The story mode on this game really takes care of itself and, for the most part, the other achievements are relatively simple to work out (Rode a Horse – Rode a horse at least once, can you guess how this works?).

I’m not going to describe them all but here’s my guide to the less obvious, or more difficult, ones.

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Achievement Guide

Created a Bomb – to do this just mix together any temporary effect items without a health or mana potion in your alchemy cauldron. That should make a trap or a bomb. Either are good.

Created a Weapon Enhancer – more alchemy gubbins. This time just mix a couple of permanents without a potion and you’ll get a shiny gem.

Cast a Chamber 5 spell – Not too tricky to work out except that it requires level 15 of a magic type which is odd as the little dial thing only shows up to ten levels and that’s usually the maximum. Most fifth chamber spells are rubbish from what I can tell. Personally, I’d do this with necromancy anyway as the third chamber ‘Poison Cloud’ spell is absolutely devastating and is all you need along with a well-stacked heal spell.

Defeated the Grand Enemy – Nothing too tricky about this, but make sure you save before the fight as once it’s over, it’s game over! Ridiculous.

Learned All Skills – Here’s a handy guide but, and this is important, make sure you do this as quickly as possible as the cost of training goes up when you level. A level one character can buy training for 100 gold, a level ten or more will need to part with 10000.

To raise cash fast I recommend learning lockpicking and levelling that up. Picking open cupboards and chests is a great way to earn a lot of cash. Don’t waste money on spells, gems and potions. You’ll pick these up along the way.

You’ll need to level up your combat abilities but remember that a few permanent items mixed with a health potion will permanently boost your stats. That is the best way to get like Chuck Liddell.

So, that’s all the easy stuff out of the way… now welcome to the hellish part.

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Visit All Locations – Visit all locations in the game. – 50 gamerpoints

Bloody hell, Lord. This achievement is pain. You know when you’re running around and you find those mana/health shrines, grom camps and towns? They all count. Yes, weep yourself silly.

The main game took me twenty hours, this took another seventeen. It’s not entirely unenjoyable as the (one) world of Two Worlds is quite a lovely place to explore but the last ten or so hours make you weep.

Also, do not attempt this without taking the game online. There is a critical patch needed to make this achievement work. I’d also recommend you play through the entire game first so that you’ll have found the majority of the locations naturally (make sure you play off of a saved game just before you beat the boss, you can beat him to get the achievement for doing so, but then revert to the previous save to do the locations).

So, where the hell do you begin? Well, whilst playing the main game you will have visited large sections of the map. The trick now is to eat your way through those black bits of the map, Pacman-style.

First thing to do is to go to this site and view the teleporters map. Ironically, teleporters do not count as locations but this is the place to start. Having access to every teleporter will make the rest of this achievement a lot easier.

The good thing is you’ll end up in locations that you never thought you’d get to. Up in the mountains usually. But it’s still nice.

Okay, once you’ve got the teleporters out of the way you should go for the underground locations. There are sometimes shrines hidden deep in the caves, so make sure you explore them thoroughly. Thankfully they are all quite small and by this point in the game you’ll be able to outrun all the enemies to save time.

With that out of the way (it unlocks its own achievement) you can either go for the graveyards (for another achievement) or start the main grind of finding everything else.

For this you’ll need this map, preferably on a laptop or a good quality colour print. Start in the top left (A1) and work to I1, then I2 and back to A2. Just zig-zag through.

Handy tips:

If you die you’ll respawn at the nearest shrine. This can save you a lot of time in the mountains. Simply jump off a few high rocks and resurrect at the shrine.

Equip some armour that you can’t swim in. This makes it easier to do the respawn trick in coastal locations.

Stop trying to level up. By this point your whole focus should be getting the locations. Levelling up will make you even harder to kill.

There is a location in I8 on the above map. Buggered if I could find it, didn’t stop me getting the achievement.

Horses, whilst being horrific to control, are very handy for this achievement. Also, if you didn’t know already, sheath your weapons to run faster.

There you go. Not a tough achievement but quite arduous. Mayhap a good grind for thine whores. Good luck! Aye.