Pre-Play and Special Edition Notes

Pre-Play and Special Edition Notes

Assuming that you have not yet actually began your game play, well then before you begin to play the game there are a few minor issues that we should cover  (and if you have already started to play the game it still cannot hurt to cover them anyway)...  Most of this can be thought of as common sense items, but some of it is specific to this game, and ALL of it is important.

-- A Quick Look Inside the Game Case --

Assuming that the version of the game that you bought is the Risen 2: Dark Waters Special Edition, keep reading.  If your game did NOT come in a box marked "Special Edition" you have purchased the  standard retail version of the game, so skip the rest of this part of this section please, as it does not apply to you.  Go ahead and head directly to the next part in the guide!

If the version you bought was Risen 2: Dark Waters Special Edition, which has an RRP of $59.99 US (which was the only version being offered for sale at GameStop on the day that the game was released, which was when we bought it), you either pre-ordered it or you got lucky and bought a copy of the game that someone else pre-ordered and woohoo for you!  Score!

When you open the disc case you will find inside the game disc, a folded slick printed piece of paper that is a map on one side and a poster on the other, a game guide that is rather thicker than the usual game guides that come with games for the Xbox 360, and a pair of small gray-and-white pieces of paper that have 25-character Promotion Codes printed at the bottom of each in a wide white bar.

These two pieces of paper are the Air Temple DLC Mission Pack with code, and the DLC for the Treasure Island expansion with its code.  For games purchased in North America, on the side with the code you will find the information printed in English, while the opposite side of the paper will have the same information but printed in French.  For games purchased elsewhere in the world who knows what the languages will be, but hopefully you will be able to read it!

An Achievement for drinking Rum? Yes, it is that sort of game!

== The Game Guide ==

Let's be realistic for a moment and just agree that the small printed guides that come with games for game  consoles these days are usually little more than a convenient spot for the studio and publisher to print a brief intro to the game, the controller layout and what each button does with circles and arrows and a paragraph describing what each one means, and finally the Terms of Use and a list of most of the people involved in creating the game.  While this is not entirely critical information it can be handy to have as you embark upon your new adventure, so why not read it and become familiar with it?

If they are feeling especially charitable they might even include the names of the play-testers who helped to make the game as bug-free as they could prior to launch, which just between you and I is a pretty cool thing for them to do...  I have mates who are professional play-testers at Electronic Arts, THQ, 2K Games, 505 Games, Zenimax, Valve, Treyarch, Square Enix, and Sony -- people who I know and respect (and for a rare few love) and who for many different reasons have chosen to make the field of professional video game play-testing and bug stomping their profession of choice. 

It is not a job that I would willingly do, mostly because it often comes down to playing the same section of a game over-and-over in different ways as you try to break it to learn what needs to be fixed, and it takes a special kind of person with immense and notable patience to do that job.  One of my best mates was a sniper in the ADF before he completed his commitment and ended up transitioning to his real-world career of bug-testing and bug-stomping games for EA...  He loves his job and I respect him for his abilities and the special skill she brings to the table, so you will probably understand that I consider any acknowledgment of the testers by the development houses to be a good thing.  And with that in mind, I lift a glass of Bushmills to the Play Testers of the world and salute them, and I hope that you will too!

Now where was I?  Right!  In the case of Risen 2: Dark Waters this abbreviated game guide actually contains considerably more than the usual contents for such a guide, and in addition to the above standard content also includes the following:

-- Xbox LIVE Briefing
-- A Summary of the game's Main Menu and its choices defined
-- The Normal Mode Controller Layout
-- The Combat Mode Controller Layout
-- A Summary of Character Traits
-- A Summary of the most important actions in the game
-- An Intro to Thievery
-- The Main Interface Key
-- An Intro to the Main Characters
-- An Intro to Factions
-- An overview of the world including a useless map
-- The Official Game Credits (including the voice talent AND the testers, woot!)

So that is the game guide, some of it is actually useful, and for your first few hours of game play you may want to keep it handy and you certainly will not want to throw it away! 

== The Air Temple Mission Pack ==

Note: We add the DLC strategically in the game as it is played during the guide writing process, so if you have yet to add the DLC to your game and you plan to use this guide as a companion to your primary play-through, you may wish to take your lead from the guide as to when you will add the DLC to your game...

The paper with the code on it contains basic instructions that tell you to log into your Xbox LIVE Gamer Tag and Profile -- you need to do that because the code will be attached to both your Gamer Tag and the Console ID for the console you install it on.  If you do not have a Gamer Tag and Profile -- very unlikely but apparently it can happen -- the paper gives instructions on how to create one.

Once you have logged into (or created one if you do not have one) your Gamer Tag and Profile, hit the Guide Button on your Official Microsoft Xbox 360 Gamepad and Tardis controller (that is the glowing green X-Button in the very center of the gamepad), which will cause the "Blade" Menu System to be activated.  You are now looking at the "Xbox Guide Menu" -- using the D-Pad, go all the way to the left (two clicks on the old menu scheme, but only one click on the new Fall 2012 Menu System), and select "Redeem Code" from the menu page.

This will load a code input screen on which you can enter the 25-character code in the white box at the bottom of the paper insert.  Enter that code to redeem, activate, and download the code for this DLC on your console.  Once that process is finished, return to the Home Menu on the Dashboard and begin the process anew below...

With Patty's help you can take on hogs and gather fresh meat to cook

== The DLC for Treasure Island ==

The paper with the code on it contains basic instructions that tell you to log into your Xbox LIVE Gamer Tag and Profile -- you need to do that because the code will be attached to both your Gamer Tag and the Console ID for the console you install it on.  If you do not have a Gamer Tag and Profile -- very unlikely but apparently it can happen -- the paper gives instructions on how to create one.

Once you have logged into (or created one if you do not have one) your Gamer Tag and Profile, hit the Guide Button on your Official Microsoft Xbox 360 Gamepad and Tardis controller (that is the glowing green X-Button in the very center of the gamepad), which will cause the "Blade" Menu System to be activated.  You are now looking at the "Xbox Guide Menu" -- using the D-Pad, go all the way to the left (two clicks on the old menu scheme, but only one click on the new Fall 2012 Menu System), and select "Redeem Code" from the menu page.

This will load a code input screen on which you can enter the 25-character code in the white box at the bottom of the paper insert.  Enter that code to redeem, activate, and download the code for this DLC on your console.  Once that process is finished, return to the Home Menu on the Dashboard.  You have now redeemed all of the codes that came with the game, you clever little bugger, so well done!

-- Notes on the New Content you Just Added to the Game --

The Air Temple Mission Pack adds additional islands for you to explore in the game, with new characters, quests, enemies, and hours of game play.  We know that because it is printed right on that piece of paper you found in your game case, and they would not print it on there if it was not true! 

The DLC for Treasure Island installs an alternative quest to find Captain Steelbeard's legendary treasure, which translates to an additional 6 hours of game play, the addition of a totally new island with new puzzles to solve, new treasures to find, and new mysteries to unveil.  This DLC add-on also installs a new and exclusive "Legendary Element" into the game for you to discover.  We know all of that because it is printed on the piece of paper you got the Promotional Code from and they could not do that if it was not true.  Really!

For logistical purposes and effective use of this guide you should be aware that the game play that was completed during the writing of the guide (hereinafter referred to as the "Base Guide") was all completed PRIOR to the activation and installation of this new additional DLC based content.  There are two reasons for that -- the first being that while the version of the game that we bought -- Risen 2: Dark Waters Special Edition -- was the ONLY version of the game we actually could buy that sunny day when we rolled into our local GameStop looking for a copy of Risen 2: Dark Waters.

The Special Edition of the game was supposed to only be offered to gamers who pre-ordered the game prior to its release date,  as it includes alternate box art, the Treasure Isle DLC mission pack and the Air Temple Mission Pack, and a double-sided poster -- all three of which are NOT included in the standard version of the game.  With that in mind we chose to complete the guide play-through and write the guide using ONLY the base game content, installing the extra DLC that came with the Special Edition only after having completed the game, and appending that as additional parts of the guide.

== XP and Coin Savings ==

This is only important if the Achievements in the game are important to you -- if not you can safely ignore this and just play as you like.  If the Achievements are important to you and you want to be able to unlock most or all of them though, you will want to take note of the following information:

There are a stack of Achievements that are unlocked for capping the various skills -- the problem with them is that it takes a LOT of XP and coin to do this, and on any given play-through you are very unlikely to be able to unlock more than two or at the outside three of them -- unless you play this smart that is.

Playing smart means using as little XP and gold as you can, so that you save up around 61,000 XP (Glory) and around 17,000 gold coins.  Those are the magic numbers that allow you to cap off any of the skills all the way to Level 10 (Level 11 if you have the Legendary Artifact that is associated with the specific skill).  Once you have the target amounts, you can go ahead and save, then cap-off each skill and unlock its extra abilities to unlock the associated Achievement.  Once you have done so simply reload the save and do the next.

Note that due to the faction system you cannot do ALL of them, since each faction has its own specific skill that is related to it, but you can load the pre-faction save that you made and then unlock the last one once the game has been completed, which will then also unlock the cumulative Achievement for capping all of the skills.  Doing it this way saves you from having to grind each one out, so it really is a good plan -- just saying.