Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Review

[Vault101]

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]

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]

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

 

[Sonic Doctor]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

SNIP

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.

 

[jawakiller]

Hasn't seen enough to adequately place judgment, does so anyways.

It looks like it could be okay but I know they're gonna fuck it up.

 

[TokenRupee]

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.

Just buy and play the games you want to play. Who cares who publishes it.
I mean you'd rather buy it off steam, via valve?

Valve a company who ships incomplete games to stores
a company that charges ridiculous amounts for meaningless cosmetic items (TF2)
a company that is incapable or unwilling to deliver products on a set time table (see HL2 Episode 3).


The only thing about Steam and Valve is that they've been around for a while, and they give the illusion of control. But I'm sorry there's no illusion when I pay 50 dollars for a game, get home, and discover my game doesn't work because in fact I only have 95% of the game and I need to download the remainder via some DRM program with a storefront. And then I think, "did I just pay 50 dollars for a broken product? Yes, I think I did."

I care about keeping good companies in business and letting bad companies fall to the wayside, yes.

Yes, Valve isn't the best and it may not be fair to force Steam onto people who would rather just buy the disc, but they don't charge you for it. Steam is free.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

SNIP

DA2 was undoubtedly(I and other people that like the game provide doubt, but that's beside the point, "undoubtedly" is a qualifier of somebody who believes they have facts that everybody agrees upon. The problem is you don't provide facts you provide opinions.) 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(Is an opinion, I never had problems with the waves I was fine with it, I can't see it as a negative in my opinion), the hideous redesign (Again, an opinion, I loved the redesign because I found Origins to be a greatly messed up game, so DA2 was refreshing. Combat was finally free and fluid, meaning I had full control, leveling was actually fun and rewarding and I actually could see myself actually getting more powerful each level, the graphics looked better, the story was manageable, the characters were actually interesting and different from each other{unlike the carbon copy cliches of each other that the DA:O cast was for the most part})(seriously mages would be knackered(That all comes down to how you play and manage things. I never had a problem with that, my mage outlasted all enemies, because I managed things properly and had plenty of potions to keep my powers going, and the added bonus of the Spirit Healer specialization that was great extra padding for keeping me and my group alive) 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.

I added some things that need to be said about your comment. The only legitimate flaw in the game is the lack of a variety of dungeons, but even that actual flaw didn't bother me and I didn't even notice it until people started pointing it out, and I was already through 75% of the game without seeing it.

I guess the rest of the game was just so awesome to me that it overshadowed that actual flaw.

DA2 on the professional end(shown on Metacritic) got 137 positive, 34 mixed, and 1 negative, and that is added up all the reviews 360, PS3, and PC. It got plenty of non-positive reviews for people to make a decision on the game. The reason the user score on Metacritic is so bad, is because the vast majority of people giving negative scores, don't know how scoring systems work when reviewing, and they rabidly and wrongly gave the game 0s when such a score is only reserved for games a that are so bad and glitched up, they literally can't be played, even 1s and 2s are invalid as well. Considering how such scoring is suppose to work, and considering legitimate gripes about the game, the lowest score a person can give the game if they didn't like it, is a 3, but even that is a stretch.

The user review scores on Metacritic really do show why the professional reviewers are called professionals.

But really, this isn't the place to discuss this, if you want to really get into a talk about this, message me, or start a thread about it(though DA2 argument threads have been done too much as it is).

The vast majority of reviewing and how to review is based on opinion, one man's awesome mechanic is another man's misery mechanic. And opinion on good things can outshine the bad, and if the bad things are truly and "actually" bad, they can over shadow the good.

Again, PM, or another thread.

 

[Wolfram23]

"...is a beautiful game"

Uh... Bullshit. It isn't beautiful. It has shit textures and a shit-ton of object pop-in and an extremely low polygon count even on characters. It looks like it was put together in 2006.

This isn't a review, this is a love letter.

Recently there's been a lot of debate on piracy (as usual...) and one common thread is that people want demos. There's plenty of arguments that all you need are reviews. Well, if all the reviews of Reckoning are like this, then I can see a pretty solid argument why that theory is idiotic. I love when Metacritic review scores are 8+ and the user scores are like 4. Besides one or two vote bombings, that discord is exactly why reviews are not a worthwhile source to determine whether you're going to like the game or not.

 

[Havoc Himself]

And now I have the joy in saying, it's better on PC. They give you ten ability slots in the PC version of the game, plus the radial menu for potions. I really enjoyed the demo of this game by the way, can't wait to buy it.

 

[Baralak]

"...is a beautiful game"

Uh... Bullshit. It isn't beautiful. It has shit textures and a shit-ton of object pop-in and an extremely low polygon count even on characters. It looks like it was put together in 2006.

This isn't a review, this is a love letter.

Recently there's been a lot of debate on piracy (as usual...) and one common thread is that people want demos. There's plenty of arguments that all you need are reviews. Well, if all the reviews of Reckoning are like this, then I can see a pretty solid argument why that theory is idiotic. I love when Metacritic review scores are 8+ and the user scores are like 4. Besides one or two vote bombings, that discord is exactly why reviews are not a worthwhile source to determine whether you're going to like the game or not.

Then get the demo?