As I've said before, virtual tomes are all the rage! So I'm pretty glad to see one introduced in the recent patch for Sacred 2, which updates this awesome open-ended action RPG from version mumblemumble to version 2.40. Included in your new virtual tome is a redesigned quest log, which tidies up your quests quite a bit from the way they used to be dumped into the game. The quest log also adds more helpful information. Also included in your new virtual tome is a page for in-game achievements, which used to be all but invisible. When you first loaded a game, the names of all your achievements would flash on the screen without explanation for what they were and with no way to look them up. They were just fleeting words. Now they're all visible, complete with their requirements and how many points they're worth. What do the points do?, you ask. No idea. The virtual tome doesn't seem to have that page yet.

There are also new PhysX effects. Seeing as how the PhysX drivers were an enormous headache for me when Sacred 2 first game out - I had to disable them to play the game - I was curious to see how they were coming along. At first, the effects were minor, but noticeable. In the hilly desert, there were small rocks dribbling downhill. Subtle, but effective. Some characters powers have new effects, such as my dryad's root attack, which kicks up special PhysX dirt. But I didn't really appreciate the change until I hopped through a portal and ended up in a storm. Check out that screenshot up there of the leaves blown on the wind. Now that's some serious PhysX!

In no time at all, I was playing Sacred 2 again. It's an easy horse to get back up on. I dinged up to level 34. And then I remembered to activate barkskin, a magical shield that protects my dryad from damage by covering me in a shimmering green glow built from some sort of fancy videocard effects. The moment I switched it on, I was dumped back to my desktop. Okay, so much for getting ambitious with PhysX. I'd rather have a stable game than one with lots of leaves blowing around.

The patch also adds new items, new bosses with associated quests, and "new death screams for all creatures". Yeeargghhhhgle is, I believe, one such new death scream and also the noise I made when the game crashed.

Here are the patch notes, and here is the actual patch, kindly hosted on Nvidia's site because they have a vested interest in (i.e. own) PhysX.