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General: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Gameplay Impressions
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Recently, MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller had the opportunity to participate in a press day thanks to Big Huge Games and 38 Studios. While there, Garrett checked out Kingdoms of Amalur and even managed to get his grubby little hands on the game. Today, we offer up Garrett's impressions of Amalur. Check it out!
The game play for Reckoning can be described in one phrase “dynamically smooth.” The transitions in the game even at this early stage were very smooth and combat has a very strong feel to it. Movement is easy since we played on an Xbox and the camera angles are friendly enough to explore and fight multiple opponents when they appear around you. There are two main areas I want to focus on when explaining Reckoning’s game play: the combat and the world itself. These two elements really stood out as we did our preview run through combined for an amazing experience.
Read more of Garrett Fuller's Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Gameplay Impressions.
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I can not wait to play this game and am looking forward to more info about the pending mmo based on the same game world.
"Its better to look ugly and win than pretty and lose"
I've been excited for this game for a while now. I'm a big R.A. Salvatore fan and the demos and videos I've seen have blown me away.
@Garrett:
I'd be really interested in seeing a review of the PC controls as the game gets closer to launch and they have more of a chance to finalize said controls. So far, all of the game-play footage and reviews I've seen have been of the Xbox version. I greatly prefer playing on the PC, but only if the controls are easy and intuitive (which isn't always the case with multiplatform games).
DYNAMIC.....
Seems that DYNAMIC gets said with every game review these days. What 3 times in that very short review.
Can you go into detail and explain what is so DYNAMIC about the combat and other features you mentioned? Or at least give me your definition of what DYNAMIC means when refered to a game?
I can expand on that. The combat is combo and condition-based. For example, if you block with your shield and then attack with your sword, you do a different move than if you swing your sword three times. You can also switch weapons on the fly, each of which has a different set of combo/reactive effects. It's all pretty intuitive, too; there are no button combos to memorize, it's all timing.
EDIT: That said, they've stated multiple times that it's very much an RPG, not an action game. Their goal was to make it feel very fluid and exciting, but easy to pick up and play for anyone who's interested in doing so. There are some things more "actiony" than your typical RPGs (rolling/teleporting out of the way of attacks), but stats and equipment still play a huge role in how well you do.
Disappointing, I thought this was about the MMO.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
Thanks for the definition but...there have been rpg's out for year that let you switch weapons on the fly (one hit of a button) and if you changed weapons or equiped a sheild the attack movement changed. So i guess i've been playing dynamic content for years and just didnt know it.
Anyhow, it looks like it should be a great game to play.
The MMO comes later Celestian. But still this single player RPG looks to be shaping up to be a huge hit. I cant wait to play this game as so far everything is pointing toward a solid RPG with alot of replayability like an MMO. Besides I am a huge Salvatore fan (1 of my top authors) and absolutely love Curt's do or die attitude, his World Series Bloody Sock incident espouses the Warrior Code.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Now I know for sure that they bumped the release date to 2012 because of all the other releases at the end of the year. It was originally Novemeber or Decemeber
It seems as if the game is finished and ready for shipping already though, plenty of sites have been posting up their own hands on opinions/videos lately and apparently have a physical copy of the game.
Bad move imo, since I had every intention of picking it up instead of Skyrim and with it's release now being after the holidays I won't have much of any money (or time) to spare on it early next year, so it'll have to be on my waiting list now.
Almost all games are pretty much done 6 months and sometimes longer before they release. This is where people like me come in (QA) and try to break it! I think this is where alot of newer MMOs went wrong, if you look at the credits, they barely have any QA listed. This is what makes a game "polished". Also during those 6 months or so, the producers have to go over alot of loose ends, like marketing, minor balancing, bugs, crashes, etc. There's alot that can go wrong, and all it takes is one misplaced character in the programming. Any good game has at least 4 months of QA after the game is done, most release earlier. However, if you think of any game that is in the top 50 of all time games, they have 6 months or more of QA and testing.
Edit: Movies are even worse. Some take years to release after all shooting and editing is done.
I so hope the pc version doesn't get dumbed down for the consoles !!
Played dungeon siege 3 recently ... hated the xbox camera angles
This game will be awesome and 38 Studios is well into making the mmo version. Lots of gaming goodness here!
Also in a past interview R.A. Salvatore stated the final game should have aleast 100+ random dungeon combinations... Makes it more appealing, at least i won't see dungeons repeating and just opening new paths (cough Dragon Age 2) etc. Since it seems your playing a near final build, they can go ahead and move some of the dev team to the MMO and your right about 4-6 months QA. I really hope thhis takes off, with the mmo leading to bigger & better things...
At this point, all I'm interested in is how it plays on PC. I nearly stopped reading at "X-box", but decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. That won't last unless I hear for certain that they aren't just pushing out another crapola console port. I'm not optimistic.
From everything I've read so far, this game looks like it will be a lot of fun.
Definitely looking forward to it, and the MMO they are working on.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Remains one question on my lips......
Can they capture this type of gameplay in an MMO?
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Regarding the world, is it pretty open a la Elder Scrolls? The reason I ask is that in the older gameplay demos from the gaming shows, the minimap shows what basically amounts to an outdoor corridor. I'd like to know if the player has the ability to pick a direction and just wander off the beaten path.
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
This game does look amazing, I can't help get behind it since I'm a huge fan of the people working on the game.
Yeh, all the videos I've seen have been for the xbox, but 10:1 says that they will sell more copies on the xbox than on the PC even though PC gaming is better imo. I doubt though, that they will skimp on the PC controls. For the amount of love that they seem to be pouring into this, I would be suprisingly disappointed if the controls were lacking.
If this game pans out to my expectations however, I will be most likely dropping any mmo for some time to play theres (depending on a few details of course lol).
Seeing as how this game had http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Rolston as the lead designer, I think expectations were very high, at least from me as I was a fan of ES3:Morrowind.
I would expect the MMO to look quite different from this title though as the constraints will be bigger. I'm hoping this title proves to be popular & I'll almost certainly give it a whirl & maybe gain a bit of insight into the "universe" the MMO will be based in.
"Movement is easy since we played on an Xbox and the camera angles are friendly enough to explore and fight multiple opponents when they appear around you."
Aaargh this comment hurts me. I thought MMORPG.com was a PC games site and yet comments such as that can be printed.
Yet maybe there's some truth in this. I still have nightmares about the 10 minutes I spent in the Dungeon Siege 3 demo where the controls were just awful. Add to that From Dust and Fable 3 (not so much poor controls but just a very 'console' game) and I'm left concerned that KoA:R will be another game designed for the console market and ported over with little thought.
Of course maybe it's just a bad choice of words.
.
Only worry to me was reading on Xbox, but am sure it will have a PC version too. Just hope it plays so nicely and has great depth still.
Does sound good so far.
As far as I know, they only publically answered this in any detail for the first time today (though they've alluded to openness and Rolston's philosophy for "wandering in the weeds" before). They have a weekly Q&A on their forums, and here was what they said in this week's:
Q: Just how "open" is the world? I know it has been said you can stray off the path, and there are five distinct zones. But how will the transition between these zones take place? Is it Elder Scrolls level "If you can see it, you can go to it?" (Within reason) – By Outlander
A: The world of Reckoning is huge, and at any point you can decide to veer off the main roads or take a break from the main quest. We strongly encourage it! The main quest does a good job of giving you a tour of the world, but it only touches on the depth and breadth of the different regions. A lot of care went into giving those explorers out there a vast world to roam and fight through. There are sweeping plains and dense forests that are stocked full of side content, but there’s also a great deal to be found from just free exploration. You might uncover some of our secret nooks and crannies that are hiding some of the best loot in the game, or even extra bits of lore.
There are load screens between the five biomes for technical reasons, but you can spend real-world days exploring the massive amounts of content of each one. There are also over a hundred and twenty hand-crafted dungeons to explore.
All in all, you could spend countless hours just wandering the world of Reckoning and uncovering its secrets. Please tell us what you find! – By Colin "Hugohan" Campbell, Lead World Designer
I have just one question.... why is this the only info about this game I can find on this site? This looks to be a real cool upcoming game but there is literally no news or info here on MMORPG
Well they better develop a separate interface for the PC version or it will be the piece of crap Skyrim is.
What is it about mmorpg.com and their obvious bias for any RPG thsat is american. The only reason they done a spread on the witcher two is because a few reminded them that RPG don't start and end in the US.
How abourt a write up on an european RPG that is set for release Q1 2012 and is sandbox.
How about taking a look at this from the same dev team that bought us the Gothic series of RPG(not gothic 4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOR7cW4262E&feature=fvst
Devs new vids
http://www.risen2.com/media/videos/
http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Jesus/Jesus.htm