So much about Reckoning reminds me nothing so much as an over-the-shoulder Torchlight, really. I’m enjoying the painfully retro vibe but I definitely won’t be recommending this RPG to just anyone.
I went hostile in the first town and started killing everyone. It gives you a lot of guards to fight if you want to test out the combat system in a big group. I didn’t pick up anything interesting while messing around though.
Started the demo on the 360 before I had to drop it to attend to the much more urgent business of watching Justified.
Never been a fighting game guy. For all I know the stutter-frame effect you get every time you destroy something (including every. damn. crate.) may be totally necessary for pulling off awesome combos later in the full game. But fighting the first coupla guys it just made fighting feel really choppy.
Other than that, the demo reminded me of the following universal truths:
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Never start off your game with a lengthy voiceover explaining that for lo these many years the kingdom of Grimdang has been at war with the Freeble of Mloxbury over the Treaty of Adsfsdflkjlkj. Nobody cares. And why should they, when they have literally no involvement in your game yet? Instead start off your game with some simple dramatic situation - my plane just crashed and I’m drowning! I’m about to get my head cut off and then a dragon attacks! - and then slowly and gradually explain the backstory as game goes on.
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Things that make for a good tutorial - measured pace, clearly explaining one thing at a time, constantly stopping the action to fiddle with UI screens - make for a terrible demo. Do not turn your tutorial area into your demo.
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Never lead with gnomes.
I’m intrigued by the combat, and I like the colorful and cartoonish environments, but this doesn’t seem like it’s quite up to a $60 pricetag. The UI is unfortunately very console-inspired and the camera needs a lot of work.
It definitely goes on my list though for a Steam sale maybe. Meleeing with dual daggers was a lot of fun.
I thought it was pretty good. I’m not about to hold a two minute intro against a game I’ll probably end up playing 40+ hours. The gnomes, elves and humans look pretty standard, but the designs for the monsters are really great. The environments are also bigger than I expected and are also nicely crafted.
After playing for an hour and a half it sure seems to be exactly what I hoped it would be: a fulfillment of Fable 2’s promise. The combat system was a lot of fun, very much like Fable’s seamless switching between melee and magic. Add on a much deeper combo system with juggles, parries and more and I’m feeling pretty good. Should also be a much, much bigger game than Fable 2. When that game ended it felt like they had forgotten to give me the act 2 and act 3 that was supposed to be on the disk.
Hard to gauge the quality of Reckoning’s writing and quest design over the long haul, but I thought the dialog and voice work of what’s in the demo was at least promising.
Had a couple little glitches on the PC version, including a strange sound issue where it seemed like effects would take a second to load before they started playing. Fingers crossed those will be a non-issue in the release version.
Yeah, after doing a few quests I got that 20 minute warning and decided to test out the theft angle. Got spotted stealing from a chest, failed the bribe check and decided to throw down. Went on a killing spree and tackled wave after wave of guards. Had a great time with my crafted fire sword and scepter shot combo.
The demo played well on the PS3. After playing Dragon Age 2, it’s a little strange to have a mute hero again. Also, the camera control seemed a little touchy, and I didn’t see any way to lock it onto an enemy, which would have been helpful on the troll.
A week ago I hadnt heard of the game, and now I’m somewhat interested. I’ll try the demo some more, since I only got to the time-limited point.
I’m on the side of Bradgrenz after playing the whole 45 mins of the demo. One thing I like is the lore stones, which are neat little audiotape that seem scattered around the place. I warmed up to some of the writing and interested in how they are going to build this world. For example, I liked the immortal elf lady with an infatuation with the small human town.
Overall I’m looking forward to exploring more of the game.
I only had time to play up to the point where they set you loose, but I did enjoy what I saw for the most part. I used M&KB but I think this has to control better with a gamepad. I didn’t really understand the supermove thingy where you build up fate then have to hold down x to do…something? I had three guys attacking me and I had to hold down x with one of my fingers that I use to move, didn’t work out well.
I’m fine with the overall look of the game and am interested to see where the story goes. But not $60 interested. Will likely be a good game for the Steam summer sale.
My biggest problem is that those gnomes from the tutorial painfully reminded me of my own gnome mage and the gnomes of friends from WoW :(.
I thought it was quite fun, but the backlog is frowning at me, so I’ll be waiting for a steam sale.
Played through some of the demo on the PS3, up to the point where I met the head gnome at the top of the well of souls. I’m ok with the look and the story seems ok, but the combat seems a bit clunky and so far it was a corridor crawl. Willing to give it the benefit of the doubt since it’s also serving as a tutorial. I did run into several bugs though including a terrible one:
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Now and then my character would warp positions - one second I am standing in one place, a second later I am 10’ over in a different place. Seemed most likely to happen if I swung the camera around.
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Some of the audio tracks started dropping out partway through the demo. Music would go, everything would go but my footsteps, sometimes it would pop back in for a while, but basically about 20 minutes in, the audio started going bezerk
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When I met the head gnome, everything went nuts. I couldn’t participate in the conversations, it just started jumping as if in fast forward mode through everything, with no audio. This wasn’t a controller malfunction, something was up with the game engine. The audio had dropped out too so I had no idea what happened plot wise here - one second I was saying hello, about 15 seconds later he ran off down the corridor full of grunts.
#3 means I take a wait and see. If I pick this up it will likely be on the PS3 but not if it’s a mess technically. Curious that no one else ran into any of this though, at least that I’ve seen here.
I played the demo until the point they set you loose yesterday and I’m conflicted about my preorder.
I had to get past a few shocks while playing. I play an archer in Skyrim. So the first thing I tried to do when I got the bow was try to aim at something. Anything. It took me a while to realise that this is an action bow and the self reloading bow is just another weapon to mash (until you get special ranged attacks) and let the game do its thing.
I also had to get past the inconsistent UI. Sometimes, within the same dialogue, the chat options are presented as a list and sometimes as a “wheel” thingie.
When fighting, most mobs have a heatlh bar above their head but the troll does not. It took me a while to realise where its health bar was (big screen :) ) and make sure my attacks were indeed hurting it.
That fight against the troll is also an example where the camera let me down. At times, the troll was out of the frame and I was reduced to rolling around to try and bring it back in focus while not staying put in case it attacked / charged.
Also, the lockpicking system felt a bit like Skyrim (find the right pick angle) but not as good (I didn’t get the same vibration feedback before it broke, though I might have missed something). And dispelling wards just left me mystified.
The last main minus for me is the storytelling. My issue is partly with the main character being mute. Added to that, the art direction is pretty simplistic and static, which makes the story parts not overly engaging. Of course, the issue here is that I’ve been spoiled by the most expensive MMO ever made. The quality of the voice acting and storytelling in SWTOR is staggering. The direction of the cut scenes is dynamic and involving. Here we have simple static scenes with immobile characters.
So sure, the difference in budget between the 2 is big. But the fact that a MMO shows off a single player RPG on storytelling is still something that makes me pause.
On the plus side though, the world is colourful and very pleasant to look at once you are out of the tunnels.
The combat system is also enjoyable and the ability to match fighting styles and weapons worked well. My most satisfying style so far is stealth + daggers. Although I’m not quite sure how to pull a 5 hit Shadow Daggers combo.
And if you hesitate between controller and keyboard or want to switch, the game does it seamlessly. Pick up a controller and gamepad controls are on screen. Hit a key and the keyboard shortcuts replace them. At any time, you can choose the most convenient way to play.
Personally, I find the gamepad controls very satisfying.
By the way, exiting from several levels deep in the inventory with a gamepad simply requires hitting Start. I didn’t try with the keyboard. Does that require hitting ESC several times?
The bad:
Between the storytelling, UI, the camera, the archery and the game systems like lockpicking, you can tell this is a second tier game compared to some other RPG’s. It doesn’t make it unplayable, but it did cause me to waver in my decision to preorder it.
The good:
On the plus side, the colourful world is actually quite appealing. The combat is satisfying and you get a huge open world to explore and total freedom to build your own character.
Conclusion:
I’ve maintained my preorder for now. But I’m still mulling it over. I’ve got Skyrim which I’ve only scratched the surface of and SWTOR which really plays like KOTOR 3 in a lot of ways. So is Amalur worth the expense at full price rather than in a sale and will I play it alongside those other 2 games? I’m not sure. On the other hand, it does fill a different niche and I might try to juggle playing 3 games…
Wendelius
Agree with the comments about the story and dialogue with NPCs, painfully boring and tedious. This game seems a competent effort, checking all the right boxes on the Build Your Own Action RPG form, but it comes off as an uninspired rehash of genre tropes I think most of us have played too many times already. Combat is the lone bright spot in this, while it does of course stick to the tired old Rogue/Fighter/Mage mix, combat itself is fast paced and fun and seems to offer a variety of options to mix things up.
I might pick this game up for like 20 bucks if I was in some kind of gaming lull with nothing else to play (and how often does that happen?) but it doesn’t really inspire the kind of excitement that a $60 game should.
There is a meme here somewhere when the game tanks.
Wow, you guys aren’t kidding about the $60 price. I can’t believe they’re trying to hit that on the PC side.
Fortunately, the PC version sells for around £29 in UK, which is more like $44, delivered. So it makes the decision a bit less painful.
Wendelius
I’d be more tempted if it was in that range too. But after getting burnt on Brink and other games last year, I’m trying to keep my “no day 1 on untested brands” resolution.
I have a similar resolution, except it includes even tested brands. I’ve been burned by enough established, well-known franchises (that I thought of as no-brainers for pre-order / day 1 purchase) that I’ve adopted a “wait and see” approach with almost every game. Generally the pre-order bait is worthless anyway and half the time you get the same ‘exclusive’ items with a box copy off the shelf.
In the near future, I think only Mass Effect 3 is a potential day 1 purchase for me. Even Diablo 3 gets the wait-and-see, sadly.
KOA is definitely in that category. I haven’t played the demo yet, but so far nothing about this game screams MUST HAVE IT NOW to me.
I can understand that on PC ($50 is still standard in my opinion), but I’ve seen people saying the same thing about the console versions, going as far as “should have been a XBLA/PSN budget title” and I just don’t get it.
I know almost nothing about American sports, but wasn’t this game financed by the baseball pitcher with the bloody ankle? Don’t you think he deserves your sympathy money?
After DA2 even ME3 won’t get a day one purchase from me. I am down to very few brands that get a day one purchase. Lately its down to The Elder Scrolls and Fallout plus indies from Soldak or Basilisk Games.