Dave "ko-zee-ii" Kozicki has completed the epic battle that is Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, EA's latest blockbuster role player. Boasting a huge game world with many hours of entertainment, the game promises much fun - and Dave takes it through its paces to find out if it delivers:

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is all about action and doesn’t want to constrain you to one style. You can play as your classic rogue using the longbow, daggers and faeblades (the coolest weapon around) and get all stabby-stabby quick-time stealthy assassin-ninja style. You can call down the thunder as a mage using staffs and other magically imbued items, or grab a hammer or any other monolithic sharp pointed-ended thing and simply beat the crap out of enemies as a warrior and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Check out our review for all the details. The game is due for release later this week - make sure you check out our game page for the best deals.

I ordered this several days ago from Ozgameshop, glad to see it's getting good reviews and that it's long.

In with the inevitable "How does it comapre to Skyrim?" question.

That question didn't cross my mind once.

In with the inevitable "How does it comapre to Skyrim?" question.

Indeed, exactly what I want to read when I read a review of it. Reviews of Amalur can be summarised with one of two lines:
- It's better than Skyrim
- It's not better than Skyrim.

That's really all I want to know.

On the other hand, I trust IGN reviews more than AGN reviews, and IGN said 'buy'. So I will.

i thought it was well known that ign is the lest trust worthy when it comes to reviews.

deadlyf, you should give the demo a try if you're not sure. it's available on steam. i downloaded it the other day but haven't had a chance to play it yet :(

Don't like the game at all. Retarded design choices for PC with something simple like equiping a weapon. usually it'd be C or I. Instead you have to go through like 5 menus. Mass effect type conversation windows without the options to select choices with numbers on the keyboard. Only made it like an hour in and it shitted me.

I will give it props for cool stealth kill animations though.

Sweet game for console. The menu's work great with a controller, unlike Skyrim.

So yeah I think Skyrim is better than Kingdoms of Amalur ... unless you like being extremely bored whilst not engaging in combat.

I found the combat carried this game for about 5-6 hours , the loot grinding kept me going for about that again, and then I got massively bored and switched it off, never to return.

The combat was too easy imo, the game let you become way over levelled.

Someone turned Tekken into an RPG.

There are 3 main types of RPG;

1. Western style full-RPG. Heavy with character stats and chance. Two sub types:
- Single Character. eg. Fallout 1&2. (Although NPC characters are sometimes available)
- Multiple Characters fully controlled by the player. eg. Baldures Gate.


2. Japanese style full-RPG. Heavy with character stats and chance. Although these tend to include multiple characters with preselected 'classes'
- Single Character
- Multiple Character

3. Action-RPG. Light on stats and chance (item drops excluded) and more revolved around action. Could also be called Action games with RPG elements.
Diablo, and Kingdoms of Amalur, Skyrim to a lesser degree.

I love my Western style RPG's with multiple characters, although my favorite game of all time is a single character based western RPG (Fallout 2).

Gamer, the games for you seem to be Action-RPG. Leave the Western style full-RPG's alone, they don't need more 'twitch', they have plenty of skill in other areas.

last edited by Tollaz0r! at 13:44:21 27/Feb/12

I ended up giving this a try. Potentially long rant inc.

The voice acting in this game is the worst I've heard, pretty much ever. Really ruins the already quite ordinary story and even the non-conversational dialogue is horribly done. You rescue a few hostages and as they run by one says "I have to get out of here" in the most bland, unaffected by months of horrible captivity and sudden elation of rescue ever. They could have been saying "I have to get out of here... and pick up some milk from the shop" with all the excitement the line was delivered in.

The story, at least as far as I've got, seems to be really simplistic. Even during side quests, normally in an RPG I will expect a twist or two but everyone you meet seems to be exactly who they claim to be, I continually doubt they are being genuine though because of how fucking awful the voice acting is. Conversation options seem pretty pointless as well, you get given the option to listen to more horribly delivered information, the option to accept a quest or not and occasionally the option to use an ability like persuasion. All other responses seem pointless and while they might result in slightly different dialogue they end up with the same results.

The exception is the rare occasion where you are asked to make a decision but at this point no decision I've made seems to matter. I mean sure you get to choose to let someone live or die but I tried both options and it didn't seem to have any great effect. The game seemed to care less about my decision than I did and I really had very few fucks to give.

That said the combat is quite fun and the game world itself is actually quite good, not Skyrim good but much better than what some other RPG's might deliver. The graphics are very average but not distractingly so. The abilities you get as your character develops look amazing and make you feel quite powerful and being able to change your abilities and try new things is also a big plus.

If this had been an MMO as it was originally planed, I think it actually would have been one hell of an MMO. Combat would have been really interesting both for PvE boss fights and in PVP. As a single player RPG though, I'm pretty sure that when I get bored with the combat I won't have the motivation to finish the story.