Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Review

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
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imperialwar said:
A lot of people here obviously have never played many RPGs, the story is pretty much always you being the saviour of the world in one way or another, otherwise it wouldnt be much reason to play the game. If you want to play as Dave the baker then maybe try Real Life or what ever it was called.
I think of lot of people have issues as they cant play the evil option.

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just because somthing is a common convention/theme in a certain genre doesnt mean it cant be explored or outright subverted (for example the elfs in Dragon age are not high and mighy)

again personal conflict that revolvs mainly around the main chrachter I think I prefer (assasins creed..sort of) ...then again "saving thr world" is often substituted with the main charachter getting caught up in world changing events, like the fallout games (kind of)

that said Im fine with common tropes if they are done well and not "eye roll" inducing, for example whenver I see a classic/gritty sci fi story involving off-world activites and hear how earth is covered in pollution...I cant help but roll my eyes
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
18,863
15
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Hungry Donner said:
There are several ex-Bethesda devs working on this that I like, and flipping the "hero with a heroic destiny" trope on its head is quite interesting. However I'll admit the involvement of Salvatore, the somewhat cartoony aesthetics, and the combat mechanic have put me on the fence. I really need to get around and play the demo. I downloaded it when it was released but I've had a hard time convincing myself to try it.

Still, it's nice to hear that the philosophy underlying the story is more than a hook. Hopefully my concerns over the mechanics are unnecessary - if I enjoy playing the game I'm not going to care if the story or graphics are a bit silly.
seriously?

you dont think "styalised" (not cartoony) is a refreshing change to the dull realism of Skyrim/ darksouls? because I think it definetly is

also its got the guy who made spawns name attachted to it
 

Hungry Donner

Henchman
Mar 19, 2009
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Vault101 said:
seriously?

you dont think "styalised" (not cartoony) is a refreshing change to the dull realism of Skyrim/ darksouls? because I think it definetly is
Stylized graphics are fine, but I find the aesthetics of KoA a bit silly. I have nothing wrong with colorful game worlds, but the extra big weapons and the huge combat effects just aren't my cup of tea.
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
18,863
15
43
Hungry Donner said:
Vault101 said:
seriously?

you dont think "styalised" (not cartoony) is a refreshing change to the dull realism of Skyrim/ darksouls? because I think it definetly is
Stylized graphics are fine, but I find the aesthetics of KoA a bit silly. I have nothing wrong with colorful game worlds, but the extra big weapons and the huge combat effects just aren't my cup of tea.
fair enough....the one thing I LOVED about darksiders was its visual style (also comic book inspiried..aside from that I had to suffer the unrelatable charachters) so I guess I prefer this to skyrims style

hell I bet you could call skyrim the "brown" RPG :p
 

Sonic Doctor

Time Lord / Whack-A-Newbie!
Jan 9, 2010
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Greg Tito said:
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Review

A bit of overwrought genius.

Read Full Article

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.
 

TokenRupee

New member
Oct 2, 2010
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Daystar Clarion said:
TokenRupee said:
Daystar Clarion said:
TokenRupee said:
Hm, this is a problem for me. On one hand, I want to support the devs and I did like the demo. But on the other hand, it's published by EA. And I currently freaking hate EA.
When faced with the predicament, ask yourself this.

Is your desire to support a developer who makes a good game outweighed by your desire to not give money to EA?

The former will benefit from your support and, if the game is successful, will go on to possibly make more games you will enjoy.

EA will be in the same position whether you buy this game or not, whether the dev company goes under or not.
You make a valid point, but the fact still stands that I don't want to give my money over to a publisher that screws over people with horrible business practices. I would buy it on Steam to avoid the problem altogether, but I don't think my computer could handle it. Maybe they'll sell it directly on their site later or something..
Like I said, it's your decision, and I respect that you're unwilling to to support EA.

I see EA as an neccessary evil, so I try to support the people who make good games, not everyone sees it that way, and that's fine too.
They're not exactly a necessary evil. I'd say Ubisoft would fall more under that since they have stupid decisions too, but don't go to great lengths like EA. Besides, there are better publishers who try to cater to their audience rather than instill disgust with their decisions.
 

Freechoice

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Dec 6, 2010
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Soviet Heavy said:
Canadish said:
By the way: "New Developers". I've heard these are the remnants of Iron Lore.
They're the guys who made DOW: SoulStorm. That's not a positive sign.
Wait, are you serious? Where's Boreale?
In space. Isn't that obvious?
 

Don Reba

Bishop and Councilor of War
Jun 2, 2009
999
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I was primarily interested in Kingdoms of Amalur, because it has Sean Murray [http://sketchsam.blogspot.com/] on the art team, but this review makes it seem like the game is not only worth looking at, but playing as well.
 

sinboy666

New member
Oct 21, 2008
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Well I finally pulled myself away from Amalur. Oh WOW! That's 12 hours of gameplay. MAN I FORGOT TO FEED MY DOG!
But, seriously, I love this game. It's very well designed and totally sucked me in. People keep saying this is a generic RPG, they do not know how wrong they are. It's got it's traditional, somewhat cliche trappings, but that's not always a bad thing.
Cliches can be used to give us a frame of reference to get into the world. And once you get in... WOW!
The combat is SO MUCH fun and totally engaging. Plus I love that the idea of class is BUILT into the narrative, seriously how many games, truly do that?
As to the question of sidequests, I've built two characters so far, one is moving through the main quest the other is for free roaming and exploring. And I haven't gotten bored with either yet.
 

Faerillis

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Oct 29, 2009
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So, what you said in your review is pretty good, though could have been more informative, but you might want to work on your delivery a tiny bit; lines came off as forced and a little Shatner-y.
 

purifico

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Oct 29, 2009
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Even though the game looks generic as hell and the story is so cliche that it actually hurts (praising Salvatore for a story? Lolwut? He couldn't write a good story to save his own life) I will sill buy it and play it because I really enjoyed the gameplay. And that's the most important thing in games.
 

Hal10k

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May 23, 2011
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Faerillis said:
So, what you said in your review is pretty good, though could have been more informative, but you might want to work on your delivery a tiny bit; lines came off as forced and a little Shatner-y.
There is absolutely no such thing as excessively Shatneresque
 

Ickorus

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Mar 9, 2009
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What's really annoyed me about this game and has put me off buying it full price is the shield.

Who the fuck thought it was a good design choice to have your shield simply disappear when you're not using it, every time I used it in the demo I was just instantaneously dragged out of any immersion I felt because it was so damned stupid.
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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Aug 22, 2010
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I played the demo, a fun time was had. It has the things I seem to like such as nice free flowing combat (for a rogue at least), an art style that doesn't have its mouth wrapped around the cock of photo-realism, and seems large and open world within reasonable constraints of 'on disc' content.

I'm looking forward to it, but I understand it won't be everyone's cup of tea. I've also had the benefit of not hearing its developer jerk his game and himself off in the face of the general public.
 

Susurrus

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Nov 7, 2008
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Sonic Doctor said:
DA2 was undoubtedly exceedingly flawed, and got glowing reviews. And whilst I did like DA:O, that's not why I didn't like DA2. It was the waves of enemies, the hideous redesign (seriously mages would be knackered after being in combat for any length of time), and a mish-mash of other stuff.

Regardless of that, it was rushed, and it showed. Yet it still got an exceedingly high mark. It's in the same genre. I can't drop it, because a reviewer's ability to review games in a way relevant to me is based on all his previous recommendations, and I can't emphasize enough how much I hated DA2.