Zero Punctuation: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

[Random Wanderer]

Game is a perfectly decent RPG timewaster. Nothing truly exceptional, but still a fun way to burn several tens of hours of that spare time everyone has just waiting around. I'm not sure I could recommend buying it for $60, but if you can catch it on sale for $30 or even $40, or wait until the price drops that far, then you'll probably have gotten your money's worth.

There's nothing really innovative about it (the whole deal with fate and you being immune to it is interesting, but I'm sure it's been done before by now), but there also isn't anywhere where they really drop the ball either. Oh, and there are a lot fewer bugs in it than in most modern games.

 

[Kermi]

Baby's first skyrim? Eh. Personally I love KoA:R much more than skyrim and mainly just because it looks a lot better than white black and a red dragon all the time. Oh and the brown samey Nordic dungeons. Although I am running into the same problem with KoA:R, thats for sure. In skyrim I got through the whole story no problem. Then I got so bored that I didn't even do probably half the quest I could have. Same shit happened in KoA:R except I still haven't completed the story because it is long as hell. Now I am bored with it, but I am sure I will pick it back up eventually (yeah right.)

Wait, Amalur has the same problem with samey dungeons as Skyrim AND you can't be bothered finishing Amalur because it's too boring to justify it's length - but you prefer AMalur more?

Want to qualify your statement a little bit?

 

[lysanderprophet]

Totally with this whole "sick of the standard fantasy model" thing. There's so much potential to create new and fantastic worlds and (almost) everybody in the fantasy world from books to games to movies just wants to riff on Tolkien.

1. Read the following authors: China Miéville (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, or Iron Council), M. John Harrison (Viriconium), K.J. Bishop (The Etched City), Jeff VanderMeer (City of Saints and Madmen), Gene Wolfe (Book of the New Sun or the Wizard Knight books), and Michael Swanwick (The Iron Dragon's Daughter).

2. Prepare to have your mind completely freaking blown.

This goes for all of you (Yahtzee included, because he TOTALLY READS THESE COMMENTS RIGHT LOL) who protest the abundance of depressingly generic kings-n'-elves-n'-dwarves fantasy. Miéville in particular has emphasized over the years that his work is in many ways a reaction to the tired traditions of Tolkienesque fantasy, which he dislikes not so much for its milieu and world-building (which remains excellent) as its overwhelming sameness, and the drabness of copypasta works that have followed it.

Granted, literature is a very different narrative vehicle from videogames, and as Therumancer cogently pointed out earlier, there's a way in which the storytelling of generic fantasy meshes well with traditional videogame progression structures, making a change unlikely (there's also the fact that sword-and-sorcery fantasy remains a profitable enterprise; some people, it seems, never tire of elves-'n'-dwarves). Still, my hope is that one day there'll be some spillover. A videogame based on Miéville's world of Bas-Lag would be absolutely nuts, an surrealist RPG-horror mashup that would, were it done well, easily stand as one of the most cerebral and terrifying videogame experiences ever. It would also be unbelievably difficult, given that the monsters of Miéville's world are all horrible abominations, some of whom are essentially Lovecraftian gods who can warp reality at will. It's also not likely to happen, given Miéville's decidedly anti-capitalist views. Still, one can dream.

 

[bluefire4000]

That part about learning a new language immediately reminded me of FF XIII. I swear I opened the glossary thing after every cut scene to remind myself what the difference between a Cie'th, l'Cie, fal'Cie and all the other similar sounding fucking terms. Half the time in that game I didn't even know who I was supposed to fighting against because I couldn't keep the names straight.

 

[SycoMantis91]

It's funny because it was originally going to be a MMORPG until it was bought out by Curt Schilling. I did like the baby's first Skyrim comment though, that summed up my thoughts.

Actually, Mr. Schilling himself has stated that the MMORPG is still in development, and this single-player campaign was created as a way of introducing players to the world of Amalur. The Mamorpaguh is still to be released.

 

[Kahunaburger]

1. Read the following authors: China Miéville (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, or Iron Council), M. John Harrison (Viriconium), K.J. Bishop (The Etched City), Jeff VanderMeer (City of Saints and Madmen), Gene Wolfe (Book of the New Sun or the Wizard Knight books), and Michael Swanwick (The Iron Dragon's Daughter).

2. Prepare to have your mind completely freaking blown.

Above: trufax.

A videogame based on Miéville's world of Bas-Lag would be absolutely nuts, an surrealist RPG-horror mashup that would, were it done well, easily stand as one of the most cerebral and terrifying videogame experiences ever. It would also be unbelievably difficult, given that the monsters of Miéville's world are all horrible abominations, some of whom are essentially Lovecraftian gods who can warp reality at will. It's also not likely to happen, given Miéville's decidedly anti-capitalist views. Still, one can dream.

ALL OF MY MONEY. (Irony)

 

[Di-Dorval]

Meh I prefer Amalur much more than Skyrim... Got bored of Skyrim after the main quest wich was pretty bad..

 

[AgentNein]

Totally with this whole "sick of the standard fantasy model" thing. There's so much potential to create new and fantastic worlds and (almost) everybody in the fantasy world from books to games to movies just wants to riff on Tolkien.

1. Read the following authors: China Miéville (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, or Iron Council), M. John Harrison (Viriconium), K.J. Bishop (The Etched City), Jeff VanderMeer (City of Saints and Madmen), Gene Wolfe (Book of the New Sun or the Wizard Knight books), and Michael Swanwick (The Iron Dragon's Daughter).

2. Prepare to have your mind completely freaking blown.

This goes for all of you (Yahtzee included, because he TOTALLY READS THESE COMMENTS RIGHT LOL) who protest the abundance of depressingly generic kings-n'-elves-n'-dwarves fantasy. Miéville in particular has emphasized over the years that his work is in many ways a reaction to the tired traditions of Tolkienesque fantasy, which he dislikes not so much for its milieu and world-building (which remains excellent) as its overwhelming sameness, and the drabness of copypasta works that have followed it.

Granted, literature is a very different narrative vehicle from videogames, and as Therumancer cogently pointed out earlier, there's a way in which the storytelling of generic fantasy meshes well with traditional videogame progression structures, making a change unlikely (there's also the fact that sword-and-sorcery fantasy remains a profitable enterprise; some people, it seems, never tire of elves-'n'-dwarves). Still, my hope is that one day there'll be some spillover. A videogame based on Miéville's world of Bas-Lag would be absolutely nuts, an surrealist RPG-horror mashup that would, were it done well, easily stand as one of the most cerebral and terrifying videogame experiences ever. It would also be unbelievably difficult, given that the monsters of Miéville's world are all horrible abominations, some of whom are essentially Lovecraftian gods who can warp reality at will. It's also not likely to happen, given Miéville's decidedly anti-capitalist views. Still, one can dream.

Thanks for the tips!

 

[rapidoud]

Ha! Another one for the 'awesome quotes' list:
"That's like breeding a fly that eats rolled-up newspapers." xD

I'm getting kind of interested in this game, but I can already see I probably won't have the time to play it due to piles of extra coursework. Meh.

2nd week in?

Ouch.

Plenty of good games for me in the meantime, and the thought of '200 hours of gameplay' (or so I heard a few months back) reminded me of the Witcher 2 (where I hated the combat), except with a worse story.

Instead, I shall be playing:
Planescape Torment
Skyrim (if I ever get around to it, seems pretty meh)
Mass Effect 3
Stalker series.

 

[Sonicron]

Ha! Another one for the 'awesome quotes' list:
"That's like breeding a fly that eats rolled-up newspapers." xD

I'm getting kind of interested in this game, but I can already see I probably won't have the time to play it due to piles of extra coursework. Meh.

2nd week in?

Ouch.

Actually, the semester break just started, but I've got loads of side projects, such as a 20-page preparatory paper for this fall's geographical excursion to West Canada, or another one due in about 5 weeks on global care chains. Our profs are kinda big on us not slacking off during breaks... ^^°

Btw, I thought Skyrim didn't look all that great, too, and then it took away four weeks of my life on a single playthrough. I say give it a chance.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Maybe they should make a Moomin game!

You don't live in Scandinavia, do you?

For once I'd like to see an Urban Fantasy game, but not like Harry Potter because that's an alternate world to ours (read: taking a train to the opposite realm).

 

[Deathmageddon]

I tried the demo. While it certainly seemed competent, it didn't make a strong case for why I should spend $60 on it.

That's what I thought too, but it gets really fun once you get an hour or two in. Set the difficulty to hard, though. It is pretty easy.

 

[charliesbass]

I want him to do the PS Vita next. I love my vita, but i just want him to tear the s**t out of it. Anyone else? or is it just me.

 

[greyseven]

Hey Yahtzee, can we go to the pub? I'm buying.

 

[Shia-Neko-Chan]

Holy crap. I did NOT expect that. I've been saying how bored I am of "elves, dwarves, chainmail, repeat" RPG's for EVER now and people just call me a JRPG fan, when I only play them because they're miles ahead of WRPG's when it comes to imagination.

If WRPG devs could get out of the "fasntasy = elves and dwarves!" state of mind, I might actually start playing WRPG's.

 

[disgruntledgamer]

To all the people wondering if he liked it he obviously doesn't and I agree with him. Generic story and characters = meh for an RPG.

If Yahtzee likes the game he usually comes right out and says it like he did with his Infamous and Batman AA/AC reviews. He really doesn't say anything positive about the game, and saying you should buy the game if you put a contract on your life and your hitman will be 36h late and you already burned your house down doesn't leave me with the impression I should buy this game. And I shouldn't have.

 

[synthesis]

Yeah amalur sucks, but fae or whatever are not elves, dökkalfar and ljosalfa are elves, it means dark elves and light elves translated from norse, not norwegian it's a huge diff.

 

[misterpeople25]

Am I the only one who wants to tell Yahtzee "The camera isn't fixed"?

 

[Zanaxal]

This game is the best rpg ive played in a while. It does so many things right. Day9 even had the creator on stream about the game without payment and even says this is catered to the gamer. If you don't like this then i doubt any Action rpg would be to your liking, you would be better of with a point and click adventure rpg then haha.