Showing posts with label Amalur. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amalur. Show all posts

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Two Phrases: Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning

I'm a Jim Rossignol fan.  He writes some seriously poetic shit in the form of game reviews and news articles. A perfect example is his Wot I Think piece for Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning.  While the entire post is an excellent read, there are really two phrases that distill the essence of what KoAR is:
The key ingredient, however, and the one that overpowers the other flavours, is the industry-bestriding garlic of World Of Warcraft.
...and...
You can sense of the results of committee conclusions in almost all areas of the game.
These really sum up my experiences with the demo and why I didn't pursue buying the game.  38 Studios, let me know when the Amalur MMOG is ready.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo Reviewed

The Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (KoAR) demo was released on Steam and I had a chance to put about an hour into it. I've been hard on the game in the past for it's very generic nature in the marketing spins produced by it's developer 38 Studios. Having played the demo now, I am still worried the title is a little bit too generic fantasy to rise above the field. However, there were a couple bright spots that gave me some hope for the game.

KoAR starts as almost any RPG starts by providing an origin story for the player's character. In this case, the player's avatar died on a foreign battlefield and their body dumped into the Well of Souls. As luck would have it, the Well of Souls ends up working to restore the character to life. It is a very organic introduction to the game and setting up the player's character. It also gives a blank slate entrance into the world and sets up a plausible re-spawn scenario.

Once resurrected from the pile of bodies in the Well of Souls, the player is whisked through some battles. Apparently the "bad guys" are attacking the Well of Souls. A few combat training scenarios later the player is on their way.

The combat felt very "actiony" (if such a word were to exist). However, after a while I felt like i was just left and right clicking like mad. The controls were as expected (WASD movement, click to attack), but I couldn't quite figure out how to hot key cast spells. It required a button press and then a right click. I'd much have preferred just to press a button.

One glaring problem I had with combat was targeting. Many times it looked like my avatar was targeting a specific monster only to unleash my attack in a completely different direction. Or just the opposite, I was charging an enemy down and attacked only to have the attack choose a target to the side. Fortunately, once hitting a target the game does a good job of keeping the player locked on. The combat varies a good bit based on the weapon selected and it was refreshing to see that spell casters could still handle themselves in melee combat.

Even with the targeting issue, the system showed promise. The move to action combat is a welcome sight for open RPGs and KoAR does a good job to fit the action in with the rest of the RPG goodies. There are still potions and other things to do all accessible via quick menus that work very well. The menus are well laid out and offer mouse click or hot key movement. I found most of the UI intuitive from character level ups to inventory management.

Overall I think KoAR will be a good RPG, but it still feels and looks generic. The action combat helps separate it from the crowd a little bit, but I'm not sure it will be the game's ticket to success. I think the keys to the game are locked outside of the demo. The supposed open world, non linear progression, and complex destiny ( aka class ) system may sell the game to the RPG faithful. I'm interested to see how the game does.

After playing the demo I wouldn't buy the game myself, but that's because I'm pretty spoiled by Steam sales and have a back log of great RPGs to play. At a later date with a good sale I would feel comfortable buying this.

View my screenshots here.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Amalur's class system is exactly like every other RPGs class system

I've commented before about Kingdom of Amular's very generic RPGness and I'm here once again to harp on this point.  They released their most recent developer interview explaining their Destiny (aka Class) system.  The video has a promising start with a developer talking about how they were getting away from the problems of most RPG class systems before promptly showing a video of an RPG class system that is like every other single class system in any RPG ever designed.  The small tweak they made is that your character is a blank slate to start, with no base class such as mage, rogue, warrior, etc.

This is all well in good, but Amalur needs to stop with the EA/Bioware "this game is SO different, but lets show a generic video that completely contradicts that" tactics and start promoting Amalur for what it is: another RPG, just like all other RPGs, but hopefully executed better.  The longer they spend introducing videos about how they are doing things differently, the longer it takes for me to figure out they are fibbing.  

Video below:

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Amalur is a failure

First, watch this:



Next, read this: Amalur? 38 Studios, you just failed.

Look, I want to give 38 Studios the benefit of the doubt.  I want to believe they've assembled this great team and haven't squandered this opportunity.  However, I just can't do anything but laugh after seeing a video as terrible as the one posted above.

The setting is so generic fantasy that it makes Star Wars look like science fiction.

Brooding dark voice?  Check.
Too much plate armor?  Check.
Oversized, unrealistic weapons?  Check.
Skeletons? Check.
Over-sized boss character incoming at end of video? Check.

What a fucking disaster this video is.  Not only is it highly disappointing to watch, but it fails to say a single thing about the game itself.  Plus it doesn't even bother to explain a single thing about the world of Amular.

This was 38 Studios big reveal and it failed; hard.  Amalur, just another generic fantasy setting that fails to impress.


Pro-tip: if the majority of a video game trailer features bylines with "John Doe, X, from game Y" , people may perceive that as the current game being unable to stand on it's own merits.

Further evidence abounds, check out the comments over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
Choca says:
July 23, 2010 at 11:25 am

The trailer looks bad.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Amalur? 38 Studios, you just failed.

Update:  Obviously I missed the fact this article was about the single-player game, but my statements below stand as they are still releasing a fantasy MMOG.

USA Today's Game Hunters are running an article about Curt Schilling's 38 Studios and their upcoming MMO project.  In it, we get word from R.A. Salvatore (an accomplished author) on the lore for the game world:
Salvatore, who has written numerous books based in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, is tight-lipped about Amalur, but says that he has created a Tolkienesque 10,000-year-long back story: "I think we can say that we are talking about a high fantasy world with multiple races."
And with that statement, "we are talking about a high fantasy world with multiple races", 38 Studios has just fucking failed. Really? Another fantasy MMO? Seriously? Really? In a world where we have SW:ToR (Star Wars has always been more Fantasy than SciFi) and Guild Wars 2 and Tera and a hundred other fantasy worlds with multiple races?

Maybe this is a little harsh and premature, but I have this nagging feeling we aren't going to be as "blown away" as they are expecting. I will be amazed if this is received by the MMO blogosphere as anything more than "oh, another fantasy MMOG".