By: Scott Jeffrey
Where did my time go? I picked up Kingdoms of Alamur: Reckoning sometime on Friday, It seems as though a time warp has occurred from now until this moment. From the installation of the game, I was quickly immersed into the 30 hour+ mainquest story line that would have me starting as a dead man and ending looking like a more badass Lord Sauron.
The talent in this game is undeniable. With New York Times Bestseller R.A Salvatore as the head writer, the story was nothing short of epic. Todd Macfarlane (Creator of Spawn) was the lead art director so it looks phenomenal, and the developing talent at 38 Games includes staff from Dragonage, Wizards Of The Coast, And the Elder Scrolls Series. This game, on paper should be the game of the year with the team they assembled to build it alone.
When it comes down to the gameplay, it is fun. The combat is probably some of the most fun I have had playing an RPG in years. It’s fast like an action game, A Devil May Cry or even Zelda. In the way that you feel like your actually doing something while your fighting baddys. You have to think about combos, getting as many hits in as you possibly can so that you can charge up the game’s special ability bar and unleash hell. By unleash hell I mean perform amazing executions, which this game has in spades.
When you do manage to fill up your special bar by performing combos and defeating enemies you are rewarded with extra damage until the bar is emptied and if you sacrifice the rest of your special bar you can have a glorious execution in slow-mo with plenty of gore.
An example of an execution:
I walk up to a wolf, twice the size of my character. I activate my special bar and my character proceed to drop his weapon, batter the wolf in the face with his fists and gouge out its eyes. Then he got on its back grabbed it by the head and snapped its body clean in half. I sat at my computer with my jaw dropped, I wanted to applaud but it was 3am, 3 hours ago I promised myself sleep, Not tonight.
The main fun bit lies in the hack and slash combat. The crafting is fairly simple but can yield great benefits if it is leveled up. The menus are fairly simple and there isn’t quite as much to the crafting system as what there was in a game such as Skyrim.
The talent trees are a bit different in this game, because the story is mostly based on changing fates, there is a card system in place which allows each character to equip a fate card, granting them bonuses to their character. These fate cards can be unlocked through questing but the main ones are achieved by assigning talent points in a regular talent tree similar to a World Of Warcraft Style.
The long dialogue does add to the story but I can see many gamers wanting to skip the long conversations from quest givers in game, just to get back to the action. The story of this game was good, but somehow it doesn't quite add up to a game like Dragonage.
The world is a fair size but I was not in a rush to really explore as many of the side quests just seemed a big grind, for little result as the main quest treasure rewards and pickups were usually high and above anything else I got on side quests.
Visually the game looks quite good, the audio and music was great as well. I wasn’t tempted to throw on my own playlist over top of the score. I liked the voice talents and recognised a few from other RPG series. It is sort of like Fable boosted a bit visually and with Dragonage style blood guts and voice talent.
Kingdoms of Amalur has kept me well entertained for a weekend, but I don’t know how interested I would be to try it out again with a new character. I think I may just wait for a DLC or if they make another sequel to this title.
Sound: 8/10
Graphics 8/10
Gameplay 9/10
Story/Writing 9/10
Replay Value 7/10
Overall: 41/50
Take Away Thought: If you are a fan of Dragonage, Fable, or Skyrim. Pick this up because it has elements of all three of these games. The combat is a lot of fun and the story is worth hearing. Be prepared for a marathon because from the opening cut-scene alone, you will be hooked.
No comments:
Post a Comment