Gamespot: In the future, when you talk about Kingdoms of Amalur, the first thing you will probably mention is how fun the battles were. Incredibly, this RPG's combat is so exciting, it could have been used in a pure action game and would have held up just fine. In fact, from a swordplay, loot, and leveling perspective, Kingdoms of Amalur is as good as any RPG in recent memory. This is the role-playing game you should be playing if excellent action and progression are your primary concern.
Eurogamer: Whilst it's designed by Elder Scrolls veteran Ken Rolston (Morrowind, Oblivion) and has many features you'll recognise from BioWare's and Bethesda's games (an obsession with the arts of conversation and thievery, for example), Amalur isn't so flexible. You can't manipulate a complex story matrix of cause and effect the way you can in Dragon Age: Origins. You can't simply do whatever the hell you like the way you can in Skyrim.
IGN: Reckoning proves once and for all that great role-playing experiences don't have to sacrifice what matters most in any game -- gameplay -- while still remaining true to all of the minutiae that makes the best RPGs great. And while Reckoning certainly has its own flaws, I still found myself utterly satisfied with my experience and anxious to parlay the good news to fellow fans of the western RPG. Reckoning certainly isn't a game you should sleep on. Quite the contrary: Amalur demands your attention.
CVG: Question is, do you need another life-consuming world? Isn't Amalur's flighty fantasy fun enough to mark it out from the competition? We might question the need for a dip-in/dip-out epic, but we can't deny its effectiveness in hitting that goal. Reckoning is an epic for the man-on-the-go or, for those currently Skyrimmed, a gateway drug to real life.
GamesRadar: Amalur does a lot of things better than some of the best out there. The combat is stronger than Skyrim’s by a long shot, and the world feels more alive than games like Fable. It tells a good story well, and lays the foundation for a series we hope to see more of in the future, fate be damned.
Joystiq: Please understand, I have no desire to ruin this review for our readers. It's just that I don't want to ruin the game for me. To plow through Reckoning with no regard for the enormous array of tasks and quests, to ignore its hidden secrets, is a disservice to its lovingly crafted world.
Destructoid: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning does not beat around the bush. It knows exactly what it wants to be, what it wants you to feel, and what a Western RPG is when you boil it down to the bare essentials. It is a game designed, from beginning to end, as little more than an indulgent power fantasy, pure escapism where players get to be anything they want to be, and feel awesome doing it.
The average among many reviews I read pegs the game at an eight, a solid debut of 38 Games and perhaps the birth of a legendary franchise. From exploring the demo it appears to be deeply enriched with lore that RPG fans salivate of, and I guess those fans are shelling out user reviews on Metacritic. The current user score is 92.
Looks like I know what game I'll be renting next. Jeff out.
I just wanted to announce my new project, a separate blog featuring sporadic thoughts of mine. The blog is called Crudeverse, so if you are interested in my opinion on other things beyond gaming, that's the place to go. For real this time: Jeff out.
I downloaded the demo for this game the other day and I actually hated it! The graphics looked very poor the combat was dull and repetitive. Unfortunately it just didn't do it for me! Maybe you'll like it more :)
ReplyDeleteI must say, from my early impressions of this game, while it's a really good game, it's disappointing, given the celebrity power behind it.
ReplyDeleteWith the writers, artists and producers involved, I expected this game to be utterly mind blowing. So far, the only WRPG that has truly managed to do that for me this generation has been Dragon Age: Origins.