Who'd be an open world RPG in the wake of Skyrim? Hell, who'd be a video game in the wake of Skyrim?
Bethesda's epic is less game-changer than game-ender; a virtual life bordering on virtual prison. Think The Matrix with better beards. Kingdoms of Amalur attempts to follow this towering achievement with something considerably breezier. It boasts the same vast volume - courtesy of Oblivion lead designer Ken Rolston - but delivers in manageable chunks.
Amalur's lighter touch begins with heavier combat. Hack-and-slash is the order of the day, with evasive rolls and shield counters giving our hero a Kratos-lite appearance.
For an RPG it's swift and immediate, capturing a natural flow rarely permitted by the genre's statistical bent. That attacks are spun from a single face button is a nice touch. For one, it frees up other buttons for secondary weapons - letting you quickly swap between lumbering swords and vicious knife stabs or sniping arrows. But more than that, it's a proper step towards tearing down barriers to entry.
Of course, lower barriers too far and you run the risk of lobotomising the combat. Reckoning deftly avoids descending into button-mashing monotony with lots of juicy loot. Not only do different weapon types require the learning of new fighting styles - heaving a hammer is a fair bit different to peppering a torso with faeblade stabs - but their varying elemental buffs add further complications.
Knowing what weapon to use on which enemy requires just enough thought to keep you engaged. And, hell, after Skyrim's 'you bash me, I bash you', it's practically Bayonetta.
It's not all gold. If 38 Studios can school the Bethesda boys about sword-on-head action, they get their ass handed to them the second they step onto the target range. Controlled via auto-aim, Reckoning's long-distance murdering is a tepid affair. As long as you can press a button, you can win.
For the game to put such emphasis on practical swordplay only to steal control for prospective archers and mages is pretty bizarre. Investing in either skill tree ups projectile number and strength, but never delivers a single thrill.
POINTS MEAN DIE-ZES
No, melee is the focus. The more points you pump into it, the better it gets. Good thing, considering the hours spent sticking pointy things into soft things. Amalur is single-minded in its pursuit of violence, offering few strategic alternatives.
Players can placate the odd boss with the persuasion skill and invest in stealth to stab lone guards, but action mostly insists on funnelling you from brawl to brawl. Fun in small bloodthirsty bursts, but too one note for weekend binge sessions. Fact is, there's only so many yarns quest designers can spin when their vocabulary consists of 'kill', 'maim', 'pummel' and 'smash'.
To be fair, 38 Studios do disguise their limited action spectrum with comprehensive lore. You may only be killing spiders in a cave, but you can be damned sure the locals have something to say about the cave, the spiders, the last guy who wEnt to the cave, the sister of the last guy who went to the cave... it's like talking to Wikipedia (Fantasy Nonsense Edition).
And that's before broaching the geopolitics of Amalur's warring factions. Forget hack-and-slash, this is chat-and-slash - and it'll divide action-hungry barbarians and myth-loving nerds accordingly.
It's endearingly old-fashioned, too. With its elves, gnomes and character names that resemble unwinnable Scrabble hands, Amalur's fiction rejects the brittle Norse influence currently in vogue thanks to Game of Thrones and Skyrim.
That said, don't expect a laugh riot. Reckoning is dismally earnest, not helped by a hammy cast of Brit sound-alikes (Almost Pete Postlethwaite! Sort Of Terence Stamp! Not Even Close To Malcolm McDowell!). Fantasy author R A Salvatore allegedly plotted 10,000 years of Amalur history - didn't one funny thing happen in 10,000 years?
Comments
28 comments so far...
TheLastDodo on 7 Feb '12 said:
I found the demo quite charming, colourful and the combat exceptional for an RPG (especially after the aforementioned pathetic attempt of combat in Skyrim) but I need a couple of questions answering before I consider a purchase.
How long did you play KoA before the framerate dropped into single digits? And how many bugs/glitches (minor & major) did you encounter?
I like to know how broke my RPG's are before I buy them these days.
Niknak106 on 7 Feb '12 said:
Another stellar CVG review. I hope you aren't paying these people.
Megatrons_Fury on 7 Feb '12 said:
Yeah once again i have to agree with the DODO....... Sigh..... lol
I love a good RPG, for me its one of the only genres that cannot get tired simply because its the one genre that is completely story related, off the top of my head i cannot think of a great RPG with a rubbish storyline yet i could think of tons of FPS's or platformers that are great to play but the story is complete arse.
However.......
So far these open world graphical powerhouse rpg's kinda suck, yeah they look awesome in still pictures and carefully edited cut scenes in trailers but in reality they are a slow buggy mess, my mate loves to bits things like fallout and skyrim etc but watching him play them is like having a screwdriver shoved in and out of my eyes, they just stutter all the time unless running on a mega pc.
Recently the PSN store (yup im still calling it that, screw SEN) had a massive sale on the final fantasy games and even though i have them all in original formats i bought them so as to help protect discs from scratching and im having a great time playing them, the graphics may look old and dated but the games themselves run so nice and smooth and thats whats important.
For now i am happy to play my old school Link to the past or FF7, chrono trigger and secret of mana type stuff the demo of this kingdoms was in my humble opinion a bit so so and was deleted from the hard drive pretty quickly just like ff xiii-2. My point is that CVG much like quite a few other websites badly review games, all to often things like MP content is over talked about when its the core things like framerate and camera that make or break a game.
TheLastDodo on 7 Feb '12 said:
It read to me like the gaming equivalent of an NME album review.
They touched on parts of the thing they're reviewing (ok so it's not entirely like an NME album review) but found new & prolonged ways of saying nothing at all inbetween.
I really need sleep
Denther on 7 Feb '12 said:
I really liked the demo (which I only downloaded for the Mass effect goodies!).
Would definitely buy... if I didn't have a backlog of about 6 games and Mass Effect wasn't coming out next month, maybe get it in a few months then
Matthew on 7 Feb '12 said:
There aren't any problems with the frame rate, camera or bugs. If there were, I would have mentioned them. I'm not in the habit of wasting words on what's NOT wrong with something. That way madness lies...
moogiesboy on 7 Feb '12 said:
First (and foremost) CVG is THE best gaming site on the net and always the place I go for news....
BUT lately, maybe it's just me, I find the reviews a bit boring. I start out interested, but before I reach the halfway point in the review, I tend to find myself skipping to the end.
Koa looks good - but will be a rental for me. Sony are doing their best to keep me poor this month with another high priced hardware launch.
TheLastDodo on 7 Feb '12 said:
Thats good to hear..........for 360 owners, did you get to experience the PS3 version Matthew?
Matthew on 7 Feb '12 said:
I played the majority of my review session on 360, but we've had the PS3 version on the go and it's a technical match. Plus, lots of other review outlets have focused on the PS3 version - due to the Skyrim screw-up - and report it to be fine. I think you're safe either way! Huzzah!
ingy on 7 Feb '12 said:
I haven't tried the demo, but if you can engage in combat without having to pause the game all the time then i'll give this a look, Skyrim drove me mad with the user interface, and as such i have given up on it.
TheLastDodo on 7 Feb '12 said:
Thanks Matthew.
lonewolf2002 on 7 Feb '12 said:
Already pre-ordered this so as such scores etc do not matter but this:
Downers: Too repetitive in longer play sessions
Isnt that what 99% of games are like?
All in all good review etc.
Dewin on 7 Feb '12 said:
Played the demo and liked it. This reviewer clearly prefers open world games like Skyrim, Oblivion and Fallout. Which is ok, but shouldn't be mentioned in this review. Its not like, if it's not like Skyrim its not good enough. Skyrim is not the "norm". There CAN be RPG's that are not as hugely open world as "that other game". I kinda like the more linear path this game has. Its a lot more streamlines experience with less mindless travel. Reviewers really should leave their biased opinion at the door and review games as they are, on their own terms.
Reegeee on 7 Feb '12 said:
This is the PSM3 review again. Nowt wrong with the review, I've just already read it. What with it being the PSM3 review though this...
...concerns me to say the least.
EDIT - Ah, I see the new bit is the video review, which is top notch. Just a bit confusing there.
B_G_G on 7 Feb '12 said:
Two things!
1: Excellent review. People complaining about a review that lyrically describes how much fun a game is to play and backs that up with examples and references to other games are idiots. If you want a pure description of exactly what happens, read the back of the game box.
2: Its on PC too.
wishface on 7 Feb '12 said:
OXM say it's a technical disaster!
Weezer on 7 Feb '12 said:
Skyrim not yet completed, Mass Effect 3 coming in March, Witcher 2 Xbox360 in April. So for that reason... I'm out.
dicky1993 on 7 Feb '12 said:
hmmmm want to buy it but i have some games to complete, it'll be £20 in a month by game me thinks
Megatrons_Fury on 7 Feb '12 said:
Hi Mathew
Not mentioning something because in YOUR opinion its not worth mentioning and blaming it on a word count for a web page is so wrong its untrue, camera and control and the absolute essential part of any videogame, thats not my opinion thats fact, if your unsure about this contact any games developer and see what the real experts say on the matter, almost every game ever made since the CD age and most especially since the damn of 3D gaming has had most of its budget spent on the game engine that incorporates the playing and viewing angles coupled with the framerate.
On another note full marks for replying to people personally though that does in fact gain a huge amount of respect and is something this website needs to see a lot more golf claps all round to you for that, another person on here mentioned that CVG is the best website around, its not and lets all be honest we all know thats true, but it could be, it should be based on the rich history the CVG name has. A flooding accident aside last year where my early editions were ruined i at one point had every single issue of that fine magazine...... Until it turned into a kids mag very much like gamesmaster is today in the last year or two.
Magazine reviews not nowadays but certainly in the golden age of gaming knew exactly what to focus on at review stage, story and features etc were usually covered in the preview sections so that the review itself was left to focus on the product as a whole, i for one massively miss the days where games review scores were broken down into categories that each got a score plus a description of why it got that score then an overall score given at the end, to not carry this onto a web style review where quite simply you are not limited to space is a real shame.
Also can you please tell your editors that if you decide to do a retroperspective on old consoles please do more than just half a page, a 15 year old could write more than that from using wikipedia so to commit less than 500 words to consoles like the NEO GEO is terrible, hell its possible to write over 2,000 on the Atari Jaguar and we all know how rubbish that machine was (didnt stop me buying one day of launch though eh??? DOH)
I think what im trying to say is please dont pander to the masses with the style of your reviews, if people cant be bothered to read a good sized article thats a reflection on them not you. Im signing off now because holy crap i just typed a lot of stuff and its probably going to look like im having a go, im not im just rattling off whats on my mind and this whole review format thing has been driving me nuts lately.
Oh lastly sorry i promise this is the last part, please can you find the editor of EDGE and punch him in the nuts for me, im so happy i collected every issue of this mag since like 1992 or whenever it was only for it to turn into the male version of COSMO in the last half year, easily the worst games mag stlye ever commited to paper, it already was hated by the majority of the community and now it looks like GQ and has the personality of a fish even i cant defend it, and i love a lost cause.
Reegeee on 7 Feb '12 said:
Don't think he wrote it mate, I think he just did the voice over for the vid.
The text is literally the review from PSM3 so after he said he had been playing the 360 version then I doubt it was him that wrote the review for a PS3 magazine. Well I hope not anyway!
Dunno why he got so offended by that remark if he didn't even write it though. All a bit confusing really.
silent moose on 7 Feb '12 said:
fable 3 was terrible just sayin
lonewolf2002 on 8 Feb '12 said:
No one cares............just saying.
wishface on 9 Feb '12 said:
true though!
Amalur demo's biggest surprise was that it was fun. I expected it to be underwhelming. Visually it's hit and miss, nice colours though. I'd like to play it, but knowing EA it will be around £45 and the reviews are somewhat mixed in places.
IbanezLewis on 10 Feb '12 said:
I got it yesterday through ShopTo. It's actually quite good. I was impressed with the demo and the actual game impresses me further. Sure, it's not got the same amount of depth as Skyrim, but you can craft, blacksmith, etc. Think a visually-better Fable 3 with Skyrim elements and meaty combat. I don't regret it as a day one purchase yet anyway
Lethalized on 24 Feb '12 said:
Great game to bad it's character movement is to consolish for me =/
Kingunitas on 24 Feb '12 said:
This is a great game!! I can't get enough of it. Is Warsworn a good guild to join??
Cocopander on 25 Feb '12 said:
Nice... I was looking for a good review. I downloaded the demo on Steam and was impressed but I didn't really care about my character and his journey. I'm fence sitting on this game... :/
durandill08 on 26 Feb '12 said:
Skyrim is so much better than this !