Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Review

[Daystar Clarion]

"...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.

I actually think the game looks great and I don't think the review was touting it's appearance in terms of graphical ability, but on aesthetics. The aesthetic has little to do with polygon counts and textures. The game just looks... pretty.

It's bright and colourful.

 

[Wolfram23]

Then get the demo?

First off, that is where my opinions on this game stem from.

Secondly, a very, very small portion of games have demos.

I actually think the game looks great and I don't think the review was touting it's appearance in terms of graphical ability, but on aesthetics. The aesthetic has little to do with polygon counts and textures. The game just looks... pretty.

It's bright and colourful.

Well, fair enough. It is bright and colourful, I'll give it that. I wrote a review of the demo on my blog, which I got put on probation for linking to before so I'm not going to do that here... (if interested, there's a link in my profile) but anyway, this is my thoughts on the game, graphically (plus conclusion):

Aesthetically, the game is alright. So far, it has a pretty consistent design scheme and everything fits pretty well. Graphically, however, the game is a disapointment. It looks rather dated, kind of washed out, like there's too much bloom effect. I had to force 4xMSAA through Catalyst to be able to watch cutscenes, otherwise it was a blank screen with voices. Even so, aliasing is definitely present.

As I mentioned before, the game is a lot like Fable, but I also think that graphically, they took a lot of inspiration from World of Warcraft. Everything is cartoony and overly proportioned. I don't think this is bad on it's own, but my problem is that the game also has an extremely short draw distance, so textures keep popping in as you run, and objects distort to get slightly more detailed which I find very noticeable in outdoor areas. I hope they optimize the graphics for PCs much better at final release, because currently it runs like a direct Xbox port. My GPUs were practically at idle the entire time, holding a solid 60 fps.

I don't expect every game to push the limits of graphics, and especially not multi-platform releases, but I did expect more than this game offered. Screenshots look ok for the most part, but if I can direct your attention to details, just look at how grass is only showing for a few meters around my character. It's not just terrain, either, but NPCs will pop in too. I recall approaching a group of small hostile creatures - little balls with arms and legs - but at a distance they looked like floating wisps or something. Only when I got close did their legs and arms show up, as well as a proper body. Perhaps I'm a spoiled PC gamer, but I really hope that these issues are either fixed for release, or else worst case scenario able to be modded via a config file or the like.

All in all, I can't really say I'm looking forward to release. I'm definitely not putting my money down until after reading some final reviews and watching some gameplay clips. I think there is potential here, but they need to be able to draw the player in much earlier in the game with something exciting. On top of that, I'd like to see some interface and menu adjustments as well as more demanding graphic options, even just increased draw distances and some anti aliasing.

 

[Kahunaburger]

So in other words it's almost, but not quite, as good as Dragon Age 2?

 

[Frizzle]

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.

Good and bad is a matter of perspective.

EA's been criticized for Project 10 Dollar, which requires people who buy used games to pay an extra 10 dollars to access all the content.

But with Steam you cannot even buy or sell used games.


I've heard people criticize EA for a lack of, or poor, customer support.

Valve doesn't even support their customers on the 360, citing some xboxlive practice as the excuse for not providing their left4dead customers with the same content the PC cusomters have received.


And I've also heard people criticize EA as not the best place to work.

But at the same time, EA's hired a lot of people who are right out of school, giving them the experience they need to obtain work from other studios.


So there's two sides to every perspective.
With EA I bought Battlefield 1943 and 3, the first I never played a game of because the thing could never connect but the second one worked fine. I also bought Deadspace and Mirror's Edge, the latter of which was one of my favourite games this console generation.

With Valve I bought incomplete products from the store, some because they required steam, and some because as a company they've failed to finish their own project (Episode3). They released a sequel to a game before releasing promised free content, then made excuses when they didn't support their console customers (which I'm sure had NOTHING to do with the fact that microsoft refused to allow Steam on xbox, harhar). They also seem to be making less and less single player experiences.


I'm all for supporting good companies but if I want to support, what is in my mind, a good company I'll go to GOG.com, a digital distribution service that lets you download and own COMPLETE games with NO DRM.

I just wanted to point out, that from memory: Valve wasn't giving out extra content on Xbox because Microsoft does not allow free content to go through Live. Valve wasn't charging for all this stuff, so they said that they weren't going to just charge people on xbox because MS was going to make them. That's why they didn't get more content.

MS is very controlling of their products. They probably would not allow steam onto the consoles. It would not suprise me if that was the case.

 

[Frizzle]

Snip for length

MS is very controlling of their products. They probably would not allow steam onto the consoles. It would not suprise me if that was the case.

Of course they wouldn't. Valve has been advocating cross-platform compatibility for a long time, though frankly I think it's just because they want to get steam onto the consoles. They want a piece of everyone's pie basically.

I think I agree with you there. I know it sounds like I'm defending Valve, but I think cross-platform is better for the consumer anyway. If it happened would Valve get a larger chunk of money in their pockets? Probably. But how I see it is: It doesn't matter if a company makes more money off of it, as long as it's better for the consumer (strictly speaking of video games here).

I think there are probably a few companies that would stand to lose some money if things were more open. Having a closed system (including Steam) keeps people paying to you, so you don't have to innovate or offer a better product. I think that hurts us in the long run.

In an effort to keep a little on topic (since i started this) - I played the demo of KoA, and I thought it was awesome. Yes there were bugs etc, but had it come out at the same time as Skyrim, I would have totally picked KoA. As it stands, SSX is coming out in like a week and change, and I really want that game. So KoA will have to wait, unfortunately. That and college is eating my soul

 

[CleverCover]

I have one issue. The combat was ok and I enjoyed the scenery, but when I play rpgs like that with a player character instead of a set group of people I've been spoiled. I need a group of companions to collect to sort of get me into the game and from there I get more invested in the story and the world.

If I can have that, then I will give it a chance. Otherwise, I won't enjoy it no matter how awesome it probably is.

 

[Vault101]

This is one of those strange times where I can't even come close to comprehending why the game is liked so much.

The combat is fun, yeah, but the universe, to me at least, felt so dull and "been here, done that" that I wasn't drawn in even a bit.

thats exactally how I felt....with skyrim

I may pick this up if I ever get the chance

 

[Vault101]

"...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.

.

so? a little styalisation can go a long way

like Darksiders, plot and charachters were dismal but GOD did it look gorgeous, not on a technical level but on a purley styalised/artistic level

anyway textures/polygons aside that doesnt mean it cant look great...styalised graphics often look better in their own way long term compared to "realistic"

 

[Xerosch]

I don't understand why this game is considered 'pretty' in many reviews. From all I've seen it looks pretty generic with nothing sticking out in the visual department. Or maybe I'm just missing a distinctive style, because it all looks like Phantasyworld 101 to me.

That said I'll still give this one a chance to convince me once the price drops. After I've played the 10th sequel to something it's time to get invested in a new IP.

 

[Steampunk Viking]

I found the demo to just be a mish-mash of different games, creating a clunky game with graphic styles that do not fit with the type of story being told.

Are we now saying the full game is completely different from the demo?

 

[IamLEAM1983]

It's an okay game, all things considered. It doesn't rock my socks, but it's fairly decent nonetheless. The problem is that while the art design is competent, it's fairly generic. The story does provide occasional gripping or tantalizing tidbits, but it's presented in such a boring and lifeless way that I found myself pressing X to skip entire dialog trees without having the least bit of care in the story.

The only above-average element in Amalur is the combat. That's literally it. Everything else is just plain competently executed. I'd say the biggest disservice Amalur did to itself was sticking to its initial MMO roots. The overall level design screams of instanced areas, and limiting the playing field to smallish valleys and canyons is a frankly outdated strategy in 2012. It makes Amalur feel like a runner or pedestrian's version of RAGE, which isn't exactly glowing praise.

I'd say it's only worthwhile if you found yourself digging Fable III's combat more than its story and if you don't mind blasting through quests without the least bit of understanding of the plot's contrivances. I've read some R.A. Salvatore in the past (mostly the Dark Elf Trilogy as a teenager) and I can recognize a lot of his quirks. Everything's exhaustively detailed and explained, but the overall feel of the world is fairly turgid.

Skyrim manages to make me care about my character and his place in the province's turmoils. It manages to paint a clear picture of its universe through books and level design, with the occasional NPC providing more details. The problem with Amalur is that literally every ounce of lore is delivered through the dialog system, using entries that are frequently redundant.

There's a key difference between creating a living, breathing world and just flat-out dumping lore on the player with what's fundamentally an indifferent attitude towards its own back story. This is something Salvatore and, I suspect, the other lead or secondary writers to the project, never grasped adequately.

 

[Primus1985]

Thanks for the review. Im actually kinda surprised, I had been following this game since its announcement and was preparing for disappointment. A refreshing change.

However with its initial bugs, and the fact their is sure to be DLC down the line, I'll wait for the inevitable "GOTY/Collectors edition" to come out with all of it on their. Like what I did with L.A. Noire.

I still have dozens of quests to complete in Skyrim, at least two hundred hours or more before I might begin to feel some boredom(thats when I wait for its DLC^^) When I get tired of Sword and Sorcery, I just downloaded all the DLC for New Vegas so Im poised for about another hundred or so hours exloring all that.

 

[Primus1985]

Thanks for the review. Im actually kinda surprised, I had been following this game since its announcement and was preparing for disappointment. A refreshing change.

However with its initial bugs, and the fact their is sure to be DLC down the line, I'll wait for the inevitable "GOTY/Collectors edition" to come out with all of it on their. Like what I did with L.A. Noire.

I still have dozens of quests to complete in Skyrim, at least two hundred hours or more before I might begin to feel some boredom(thats when I wait for its DLC^^) When I get tired of Sword and Sorcery, I just downloaded all the DLC for New Vegas so Im poised for about another hundred or so hours exloring all that.

 

[Broken Orange]

If I were to buy this game, it will be because your user created character doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. It's always annoying to spend a good deal of time on creating only to find out it looks like crap compared to the other character models.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

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.

Dogs bark, fish swim, yadda yadda.

It's console-town for me (when the price drops, natch.) I'm going to try and enjoy this generation as much as possible in the time remaining. God knows the current... prospects... of the next console generation seem geared towards pushing the PC back on top.

 

[Lucrativ3]

The only real problem I have is the odd behavior of the camera. In combat it sometimes zooms out way to much which makes those fights a bit of a pain. Other than that and the lack of a proper lock on I'm enjoying the game so far.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Sounds interesting, too bad I'm unemployed and can't afford to spend much money on games right now otherwise I'd love to try this game.

 

[Zer_]

People praise the combat, yet I found it to be pretty weak. Block timing can be a real pain in the ass when you're being attacked by several enemies, you can NEVER perform more than one or two attacks in such large crowds. Moving onto your third attack you'll just get knocked back. I also hate having to chug potions constantly, it's the one thing that pisses me off the most. Later in the game, there's a talent that lets you take hits without getting knocked back, at that point, combat goes from tedious to bearable. There have been times where I'd get kocked down, and I'd end up getting destroyed to almost no health from full.

Spells, special abilities and combos are really awesome, yet after a while you just stop paying attention. The best part is using the Reckoning finisher on a gnome... probably the single best part of the game.

The crafting system is broken as well. Stack + damage parts on your items (and % damage reduction) and you turn into an invincible killing machine.

 

[duchaked]

I'll definitely get to this game eventually. Just have so many other RPGs and the like to play still (I'm a bit late to the crowd/party)

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

I'm going to skip this for the time being NOT because it's a new IP from a new dev, but because the fantasy world seemed cliched and the gameplay seemed too burdened down by the constant combat. I don't like my RPGs to be God of War thanks.