Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. [DEMO]

[importaku]

Ok im intrigued going to log onto live & get the demo.

[Adam]

The interface on this is hideus! and there's something wrong with the movement, I can't quit understand what but it's like the frame rate gets a massive boost randomly and I speed up, then it goes away and I go back to moving at normal speed. It's odd. PS3 btw. Does the PC version look any good?

[Finsbury Girl]

Loved the demo. Didn't think I would given the press etc, however this will definitely be a purchase for me. It seemed to work on all levels, open world, nice fluid easy (yet deep) combat, lots of skills customisation, proper customisation of equipment, interesting story and world.

I quite like it when I'm surprised like this. Cannot wait for the full game.

[dataDave]

This feels like a cross between a Rare game and Fable. Loved the demo.

Aided by the Grant Kirkhope (Perfect Dark, Banjo, etc) score, I might add.

[dataDave]

Here are my impressions I posted else where last week:

Whoever worked on this are clearly massive WoW crackheads, just like me. The combat is nice, satisfying, and gives you plenty of creative options to entertain yourself with, even when using magic. In every other game I've played magic feels far too airy and light, practically non-existent physically, here however, blasting enemies with lightning actually feels powerful and devastating, and shares the same slow-down choreography as the melee strikes, hell, even blocking with your shield at the last second does that just to emphasize how awesome you are. You can charge up pretty much all of your attacks for heavier 'NUKE' versions, and you certainly can't just get away with those like a mindless idiot like you can in other games, I tried that and got gang-bummed which didn't really kill me, it just made me look **** and broke my rhythm, which is worse in my opinion.

I created a cloth-wearing Rogue style character which opens big with stealth, then peppers in some melee to create space for myself before unleashing the 'good ****' (big spells and charge staff AoE). Tonight I'm going back to my mindless roots and seeing how pure melee fares. From the limited set of skills I managed to muster last night I could only do so much with the Reckoning mode - I'm hoping for upgrades later in the game which can either extend or give added potency to its destructive capability. After trying pure melee I wasn't as impressed as I was with the limited amount of scope seen in the demo, it was far too mindless and not so creative. I did try a pure magic build afterwards and that was much more fun. When the final game hits I think I'm sticking with magic or a hybrid.

Quests are rewarded by items, gear, progression, and like WoW, a chunky experience points bonus. Now I have reason to do quests and clean-up, unlike Oblivion or Skyrim. Those games never inspire me to do quests.

Some negatives now, and beginning with a personal one, is that so far all the areas seem 'walled in' and given the expanded corridor approach. This is one of the reasons I slammed Fable and never went back to that series (as well as a plethora of other reasons). I favour some truly open areas and hopefully we're offered some more openness later on, although looking at the map I doubt it.

Another is the voice-over audio when activating some of alters/shrines. A pop-up with some text would have been perfect, but instead we get some mindless, seemingly unrelated rabble which at times can be damn annoying and really break the mood. One of them started spewing out some bard song which totally insulted my ears, another had this daft bint that sounded like a ****ty un-funny female comedian scoffing out a ton of nonsense that seemingly went on forever. After subsequent plays of the demo (I'm on my fifth now) these aren't so bad as long as you listen to what's being said.

As for the voice acting in general, it's all quite good with no repetition so far. I think they actually put effort into hiring voice actors unlike... you get the idea.

Speaking of Fable, and even Oblivion/Skyrim, one of the BIG negatives is the fact that when there is some kick-off going down it's impossible to differentiate between allies and enemies. They all get mixed up in the fray and I end up coming out the bad guy because some **** couldn't get out the way of me when I'm the one actually playing the game... In this, when allies are in proximity of carnage you have the option of toggling friendly-fire mode by pressing up on the d-pad. Brilliant. No more pissing people off or killing them by accident. I don't know if this was fixed in the later Fable games, but it's certainly an issue with Skyrim.

I know there are lots of comparisons here, but it's difficult to avoid when they've basically taken all the best bits from various games, taken all the **** bits and thrown them in the bin, then crafted this out of it all. It does work as a whole forgiving the few negatives, and the demo has sold me the game.

Bugs. So far just some shoddy texture pop up, and the shield equip preview in the inventory is totally ballsed up. The shield looks grafted into the torso of my avatar. When initiating dialogue with NPCs the audio can be all over the place if they were already mid-dialogue, it looks like they are removed from game-space and reloaded into their conversation position as well, meaning they instantly vanish then reappear. Another time during some heated action my camera got stuck underground and I couldn't budge it. I'm hoping these issues are with the demo, and/or it being read from my HDD. So far nothing totally game-breaking like in... you get the idea. Actually, on one play through I tried to harvest a plant and ended up running up an invisible wall all the way up high into the sky - then the game totally froze up. Still, hopefully a HDD issue as I plan to play this one from the disc.

They really need to role out a console/PC MMO version of this pronto, or at least after the retail version performs, which I hope it does. I can see some great scope if they add a dedicated healer, and also a dedicated tanking destiny into the mix. 3v3 Arena would be A.M.A.Z.I.N.G if the systems in this game were developed to cater for it. Just throw a GoW/Halo style lobby at it with a ranking system and it's away, then add a PSO/PSU/MH style setup for the PvE drones.

[Flabio]

I don't know if this was fixed in the later Fable games.

It was. The method they use here in Amalur is the same we used in Fable 2 and 3 (tapping the Dpad to go into 'friendly fire allowed' mode)

[rmoxon]

I liked this demo, much more than I have ever liked a fable game, which it felt quite similar too, but I don't know if I can make myself buy it, for some reason I feel like I would get bored of it quite quickly and never finish it.

Also the voice acting is terrible.

[Kaido]

I was really disappointed. Didn't seem to be any new ideas here, just EA polishing up many other games' ideas. Considering the budget, I'd hoped for more. EA sure do like A to B corridors in their 'RPG' games.

[chopemon]

I skipped all the cutscenes as they were really nauseating wanky fantasy and when my character spawned she didn't have a head. When I met the first human enemies one of them didn't react to me until I attacked him. Poor, cliched showing.

[rmoxon]

I was really disappointed. Didn't seem to be any new ideas here, just EA polishing up many other games' ideas. Considering the budget, I'd hoped for more. EA sure do like A to B corridors in their 'RPG' games.

To be fairy nearly every RPG ever made has been full of dungeons that have you travelling from point A to B, thats kind of what the genre is about.

[Shoju]

The interface on this is hideus! and there's something wrong with the movement, I can't quit understand what but it's like the frame rate gets a massive boost randomly and I speed up, then it goes away and I go back to moving at normal speed. It's odd. PS3 btw. Does the PC version look any good?

Haven't played the console version but the PC version runs at a pretty consistent 60fps for me. I think this would control better with a pad though and there wasn't an option for that in the demo.

[Jusatsushi]

PC demo version has full 360 pad support.

[Shoju]

PC demo version has full 360 pad support.

Yeah, I just tried it now. I didn't realize the controls are assigned automatically and that you could just plug it in and play. If I get this game I'd definitely stick with the PC version then as it sounds like the console version is 30fps and a bit unstable in the demo.

[Digfox]

Played the demo on 360 last night. Enjoyed a few things about it, namely the combat and frequent item drops. I do agree that it feels like an MMO-lite although I like the mechanics in a single player game. I'm not sure if I'll buy.

I didn't like the fact there only seems to be 3 different types of armour sets but with different stats behind them. Might just be the demo but ideally you want loads of different looking armour. I thought the time-limit and item bonus was a good way of selling the demo though.

[Kaido]

To be fairy nearly every RPG ever made has been full of dungeons that have you travelling from point A to B, thats kind of what the genre is about.

I like a few dead ends, or multiple paths to a goal, or multiple solutions to a goal along the way.