Game Review | March 20, 2012 2:21 pm

By Moo Lissa

When a game like Amalur comes out, the first game out of a newish studio, released without much hype, and with no big name celebrities doing TV commercials for it, it's easy to dismiss it as just another Elder Scrolls clone. Appearances can be deceiving, though, as the players behind Kingdoms of Amalur demonstrate- and I do literally mean players, since the founder of 38 Studios is the 6 time All Star pitcher, Curt Shilling. Besides Shilling, the Creative Director is R. A. Salvatore, best known as the genius behind the Forgotten Realms novels (yes, he's the father of Drizzt Do'Urden), and the executive art director is Todd McFarlane, who was the artist behind a little comic series called Spawn. If that wasn't enough of a team, a ringer was brought in by the name Ken Rolston, the lead designer for The Elder Scrolls 3 and 4.

There's no question that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning had a powerhouse of talent and creativity behind it. The real question is, were the promises made by Shilling when he said “I do believe tons of games have tried to be everything to everyone, and ended up nothing to anyone. We’ve ‘pulled it off’ so to speak," delivered by the finished product?

THE GOOD:

Let's start with the positives, because there are a lot. Unlike the demo, which had some serious graphical and gameplay issues, the finished product is incredibly smooth. The combat flows easily, and allows you to seamlessly trade off between two different weapons and magic without having to go into your equipment menu in the middle of a battle. The game also fluidly allows you to go into "reckoning mode" which slows down the enemies, and drops their defense, then lets you use a button press to boost the experience obtained. Getting huge groups of enemies together just to take them all out in 10 seconds is one of the most satisfying experiences I've had in a video game.

The number of ways you can play are unlimited- ok that's a lie, there are limits, but you have the ability to customize your character's fighting style and abilities to an unprecedented level. This isn't a "Warriors use hammers, rogues use arrows and "well balanced" characters use one handed swords" type of game, and that is probably the best thing about it. With how enjoyable the combat is, and the fact that enemies level with you as you explore, the game remains a fun challenge from beginning to end.

The end is another good thing about the game- or rather, the lack of immediacy of the ending. In plain English, this game is going to throw side quest after side quest after side quest at you. If you're 80 hours into the game with 50 quests completed and more than that still active, that appears to be par for the course with KoA. If you ignore side quests and just run through the main story, of course, the game will take significantly less time, but who wants to do that?

Also in the good category is the art, both visual and auditory. Visually, I'm not, at this moment, referring to the characters but to the monsters you fight, the backgrounds, and landscapes that you play in. When I first started the game, my initial thought was "Whoa- this is a really ugly game... it's like a last gen game," but as I got used to it more, I realized it's actually more complex than it looked, and the cell shaded enemies and backgrounds are very unique. I think it would have hit me sooner had I not been playing on a 17" screen, but it is what it is. The auditory art- voice acting and music, all fits very well with the game, and are pleasant, without being overpowering.

THE MEH:

There really isn't anything overtly bad about Kingdoms of Amalur in my opinion, but there are a lot of "meh" components. In fact (and it's really sad for me to have to say this) the weakest parts of this game can all be traced back to one person in the dynamic trio- R. A. Salvatore. Bobby, Bobby, Bobby- I don't know if you're having an off couple of years, or if this project just failed to spark any of your creative juices, but this is sad, man... The storyline? Standard fare. The side quests? Standard fare. The NPCs? Standard fare. The fact is, you won't care about these people, and apparently, you're not meant to. My favorite part of the game was delivering death notices to people, because at least there was a little spark of personality to some of the NPCs. These... are NES RPG NPCs. You know what I'm talking about, right? Remember in old NES RPGs where you'd click on an NPC, and they'd just repeat one line over and over? Nothing mattered- not how many times you ran into them, not where you were in the story- even if you did a quest for them, as soon as it was over, they went back to their one line, like it's the first time you've ever seen them. That's what these NPCs remind me of.

I could forgive all these things if some of the characters you interact with had personality. Or opinions. Or options. Or anything. None. The entire game, including your own character, has the personality of a bowl of oatmeal. And once you complete a quest, you're out of all of their lives like you never existed. I don't know, maybe I've been spoiled by franchises like Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls, where people had back stories, and you could actually believe they existed when you weren't around. Maybe I just thought the guy who created Bransen Garibond, a selfish, crippled bandit who develops a heart of gold, would create an entire world full of characters that made me feel engaged in some way. I'll be honest, I expected the gameplay to be terrible, but I thought with R. A. Salvatore involved, at least I'd know that the story would be interesting. Funny, but it seems like the opposite, actually.

The world is fairly expansive, while remaining linear, and full of statues that convey some of the story of the world. This may have been done to make the achievement for activating all the statues more fun to grind out. And- while it's definitely better than collecting a bunch of orbs for no reason, the slow pace of the narration combined with the fact that getting too far from the statues cuts the story off, make the back story of Amalur something that you probably won't really be interested in. Actually, in that way, it's a lot like an R. A. Salvatore novel...

It's also a missed opportunity. You're playing as a character who was dead, and is brought back. When you come back, you have no place in fate. That means you can do what you want, change what's meant to happen, and basically carve your own place in the world like no other mortal has ever been able to before. With the right writing, this could have been the most epic game ever. As it is... well, sometimes it's fun to be a jerk to people, but other than that, you'll feel like you're following a pretty linear, bland script.

That's about all I can say on the subject. For some people, it won't be a big deal that there's nothing overtly creative in this game that came from 2 of the most creative masterminds in the nerd realm. For people looking for story and substance, while you'll still enjoy Kingdoms of Amalur, this does add a "meh" factor.

THE UGLY:

Just a brief mention, because there's always an ugly... here's where the characters come in! I am not a McFarlane fan and this game, although a departure from what I'm used to seeing with his name on it, did not convert me. The characters you create, the NPCs, the characters you interact with... all ugly. I do acknowledge that they're done in a certain style, but there was something too "Fable meets WoW"-y about them for my taste. When combined with how fantastic enemies look, it strikes me as a continuation of the blandness of the writing, as if having people ambivalent about the characters was something intentional done by the designers.

THE TL;DR WRAP UP :

Though it suffers from ugly characters, and bland writing, the combat is fun and is enough to carry the game on its own. The massive number of side quests is overshadowed by how dull and repetitive most of them are. It's not a flawless game, but the mechanics are solid, and thanks to the linear nature of the game and characters, there are very few glitches (no game breaking bugs). As long as you're not expecting something equal to an Elder Scrolls game, it's worth the time you spend in Amalur. It does feel a bit like a 2D story in a 3D world, but t's a great way to pass a hundred hours or so... or at least until the Witcher 2 comes out.

FINAL SCORE: 9/10

Reviewed: KoA: Reckoning

Keywords: None