Venetica Review

Reviews still aren’t exactly streaming in for Deck 13’s action RPG Venetica. PC World’s Matt Peckham’s review provides no score but with a “buyer beware” it is not a positive take.

The rest of Venetica’s decent enough. You dash around plucking bits of junk off the ground to trade for money to buy better stuff. Conversations with locals tease deeper mysteries, though the story’s fully invested in medieval fantasy cliché (complete with sylvan village pacifist who doesn’t realize she’s really a superhero). The real lure here may be an eccentric version of sixteenth-century Venice, but I’m still playing whack-a-boulder on the periphery. I’ll let you know when I get there.

Well, if I get there. I’ve been playing the Xbox 360 version and it’s fairly glitchy. You don’t talk much, but when you do, it’s possible to select topics that elicit responses that seem to assume you’ve completed quests you haven’t. Bodies sometimes pop in or out of existence during narrative camera pans. And climbing stairs causes your character to convulse in a way that highlights the lack of fluid model-surface connectivity. If you’ve played Sacred 2, think that, only worse.

Thumb-wriggling the camera into position after dodging an attack tends to get screwed up by close-quarters terrain that bumps the view out of true. When you’re low on health, a darkening red miasma overlays the screen, obscuring the action and all but ensuring you bite it. Other games pull this off without getting in your way. And if you’re already signaling near-death in a way most players now understand instinctively, why include a traditional health bar on the heads-up display?