Greg Tito said:
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Review
A bit of overwrought genius.
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Great review. The demo was okay. I liked most things about it, but to me, saying Ken Rolston is a part of the dev-team is a negative. It was really only the parts that he was obviously a part of that I didn't like about the game.
He has too many annoying or just plain broken mechanic ideas. I didn't actually know who he was until I saw the bit of text in the demo description after I played the demo, but during my demo time I knew that somebody that had designed Oblivion must have worked on the team.
The things that tipped me off:
The success/unsuccessful system of picking alchemy ingredients. I know that once the player puts a couple points into alchemy, it goes away, but really, there is no point for it. That point perk could have been replaced by another perk that would actually be useful like more bonuses to potion making. Ingredients should be a 100% pick up, I'm so glad Bethesda ditched his system Skyrim.
Secondly was the item wear, I don't know why so many people online defend it. It is pointless and it detracts from game playtime, unnecessarily takes away game resources that could be used on better things, and adds another item to waste game time looking for or spending currency on. I'm also glad Bethesda had enough sense to ditch that and not bring it back in Skyrim.
The lock picking system is very Oblivion as well, though I had no problem with that. What I had a problem with was the guard in the next room, out of sight, and out of "real life" earshot, some how knew right away that the chest had been opened. I then evaded detection, but then when I walked into the room with the guard a bit later, he automatically knew it had been me that opened the chest. So, Ken brought over the psychic guards from Oblivion. I mean, what is the point of having a mechanic that lets you sneak around and steal things if the chance of getting caught is 100% because all the guards know what you do, which means the player will have to either spend a lot of time in jail, pay a lot of fines, or if you go the resist route, have to kill all life in the village you steal from because the whole town descends upon you even if you killed the guards in a basement out of sight and earshot of all in the town. You walk outside and the citizen arrest mob is after you.
I'll get the game when it is cheaper. My money is tied up in my Mass Effect 3 Collector's edition pre-order.
Susurrus said:
At any rate, sorry, but the Dragon Age 2 review hangs over this reviewer.
DA2 haters need to just accept that there are more than just a few people that really loved DA2. I felt Mr.Tito did a fantastic job of reviewing DA2. He was one of the few reviewers that judged the game on what it was and what it was suppose to be, not like so many of the other reviewers of the game who were single minded on only comparing it to the "Almighty" Dragon Age: Origins.
I played both games and I only finished DA2, and actually started new characters. Could only get 20 or so hours into Origins, most of the mechanics were just outdated, not fun, or broken. DA2 actually gave me total control over my character and the leveling system was actually fun and rewarding.
The review was almost a year ago, just drop it. It was just a game review, an opinion; it's not like he kidnapped your family pet and is holding it for ransom.
