Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly... (Game Review)

Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

03/23/12 7:34 pm | #16

When I get the DLC, I'll turn the sound on and run around for a bit to see how it is.

It's just that, when I play, usually the kids are either watching tv or in bed, so I rarely get a chance to play any games with sound.

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Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

03/24/12 6:42 pm | #17

Honestly, I assumed the lip synching was supposed to be "off" kind of in the way it was in old games, like original Starcraft, where the lips just moved on pre-set animations and were just sort of supposed to look correct but not really.

I figured this was done so that there wouldn't be a whole lot of extra work to localizing the game for non-English versions as this is the developer company's first game.

Anyway, what's more important is that I didn't feel like it detracted from the experience, but people who really like the immersive nature of RPGs will probably be pretty upset with this and other minor issues that make Reckoning a bit less story-centric and immersive as you normally expect from an RPG.

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Re: Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

03/25/12 2:04 pm | #18

Quote by Meta:

Honestly, I assumed the lip synching was supposed to be "off" kind of in the way it was in old games, like original Starcraft, where the lips just moved on pre-set animations and were just sort of supposed to look correct but not really.

I figured this was done so that there wouldn't be a whole lot of extra work to localizing the game for non-English versions as this is the developer company's first game.

Anyway, what's more important is that I didn't feel like it detracted from the experience, but people who really like the immersive nature of RPGs will probably be pretty upset with this and other minor issues that make Reckoning a bit less story-centric and immersive as you normally expect from an RPG.

I didn't really notice a synching problem, like I said, but I did notice that they didn't really attempt to animate mouth movements word for word. Like you, I assumed it was part of the animation style. For how serious and gritty the story can be at times, the animation is goofy and a bit over the top (shhhh, sequences come to mind). That's why the original comparison that was made- going from LA Noire to this game- didn't really make sense to me. It's not even the same type of game, so it's like eating an apple and being mad it doesn't have the same consistency as the banana you ate earlier. (Sorry, I eat a lot- I like food analogies). The bigger issue, I believe, would be the incongruency between story and animation style, as if the 2 teams had no contact with each other during the process to see how they would clash in the final product. But it didn't take away from my enjoyment, and as such only took a fraction of a point off in my review. There wasn't one thing that took it from a 10 to a 9, it was many small infractions.

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Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

04/01/12 2:24 am | #19

I've been skipping through the dialogue because I frankly don't care and just wanna kill people, game's not bad so far, but I hate the fucking lockpicking system. Anyone try the DLC yet/is it worth 800 points?

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Re: Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

04/01/12 10:08 am | #20

Quote by Circus:

I've been skipping through the dialogue because I frankly don't care and just wanna kill people, game's not bad so far, but I hate the fucking lockpicking system. Anyone try the DLC yet/is it worth 800 points?

I was just checking on TA and there is a new DLC coming out soon. Both are 800 M$ points and both give you 150 GS - which is better than most of the other EA title's DLC. Most recently, ME3 From the Ashes, day one DLC, 800 M$ points for 50 GS.

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Re: Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

04/03/12 12:40 am | #21

Quote by Vermillion Haze:

So the storyline is poorly written and all the NPC's are bland drones. Kind of a big deal for a RPG. Should have knocked more then 1 point off.

...so kind of like Skyrim?

it's hard to have an engaging story in an open world rpg like Skyrim and KOA.

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Re: Re: Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

04/03/12 1:00 am | #22

Quote by The Snapple Cap:

Quote by Vermillion Haze:

So the storyline is poorly written and all the NPC's are bland drones. Kind of a big deal for a RPG. Should have knocked more then 1 point off.

...so kind of like Skyrim?

it's hard to have an engaging story in an open world rpg like Skyrim and KOA.

Pretty much. Or Oblivion... The story was the weakest part of that as well. Of course there were some interesting side quests in both of those...

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Re: Re: Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

04/09/12 4:58 pm | #23

Quote by Kat:

Quote by Meta:

Honestly, I assumed the lip synching was supposed to be "off" kind of in the way it was in old games, like original Starcraft, where the lips just moved on pre-set animations and were just sort of supposed to look correct but not really.

I figured this was done so that there wouldn't be a whole lot of extra work to localizing the game for non-English versions as this is the developer company's first game.

Anyway, what's more important is that I didn't feel like it detracted from the experience, but people who really like the immersive nature of RPGs will probably be pretty upset with this and other minor issues that make Reckoning a bit less story-centric and immersive as you normally expect from an RPG.

I didn't really notice a synching problem, like I said, but I did notice that they didn't really attempt to animate mouth movements word for word. Like you, I assumed it was part of the animation style. For how serious and gritty the story can be at times, the animation is goofy and a bit over the top (shhhh, sequences come to mind). That's why the original comparison that was made- going from LA Noire to this game- didn't really make sense to me. It's not even the same type of game, so it's like eating an apple and being mad it doesn't have the same consistency as the banana you ate earlier. (Sorry, I eat a lot- I like food analogies). The bigger issue, I believe, would be the incongruency between story and animation style, as if the 2 teams had no contact with each other during the process to see how they would clash in the final product. But it didn't take away from my enjoyment, and as such only took a fraction of a point off in my review. There wasn't one thing that took it from a 10 to a 9, it was many small infractions.

The point I was making was that I literally went from playing L.A. Noire, that looks like a movie(where technology is now), to KoA where the lip synch was awful(no excuse for that, given the market). I have no intentions of playing Starcraft or most other RPG’s for that matter so to me, in my opinion, it looked bad from a “Gamer" perspective. While a nod to the past is always nice you’ve got to know your audience. I really like and enjoy the game though. To Metas point it’s a bit assumptive for 38/EA to do something like that, given their most likely buyer was more than likely going to be english speaking. This game may have sold 10 thousand copies overseas. It barely charted in Europe didn’t even chart in Asia according to some websites.

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

04/09/12 7:15 pm | #24

Quote by E Rock 31:

Quote by Kat:

I didn't really notice a synching problem, like I said, but I did notice that they didn't really attempt to animate mouth movements word for word. Like you, I assumed it was part of the animation style. For how serious and gritty the story can be at times, the animation is goofy and a bit over the top (shhhh, sequences come to mind). That's why the original comparison that was made- going from LA Noire to this game- didn't really make sense to me. It's not even the same type of game, so it's like eating an apple and being mad it doesn't have the same consistency as the banana you ate earlier. (Sorry, I eat a lot- I like food analogies). The bigger issue, I believe, would be the incongruency between story and animation style, as if the 2 teams had no contact with each other during the process to see how they would clash in the final product. But it didn't take away from my enjoyment, and as such only took a fraction of a point off in my review. There wasn't one thing that took it from a 10 to a 9, it was many small infractions.

The point I was making was that I literally went from playing L.A. Noire, that looks like a movie(where technology is now), to KoA where the lip synch was awful(no excuse for that, given the market). I have no intentions of playing Starcraft or most other RPG’s for that matter so to me, in my opinion, it looked bad from a “Gamer" perspective. While a nod to the past is always nice you’ve got to know your audience. I really like and enjoy the game though. To Metas point it’s a bit assumptive for 38/EA to do something like that, given their most likely buyer was more than likely going to be english speaking. This game may have sold 10 thousand copies overseas. It barely charted in Europe didn’t even chart in Asia according to some websites.

I was not extremely impressed by LA Noire, but that aside, the comparison still fails to me. You are talking about a game that was supposed to be realistic and look like a movie- the entire concept behind the game, and saying that a game whose art style is comic bookish and cartoony should have been rendered in the same manner. It doesn't matter how you try to phrase what you're saying, that's what you're saying. Technology may be to the point that games like LA Noire and Heavy Rain have movie-esque visuals, but games that have that kind of attention to the graphics suffer in other areas. Story length, side quest amounts, ability for exploration... those have to be backburnered for attention to graphics and synching. Open world RPGs like Fallout, Oblivion, Skyrim and Reckoning have so much data that making them "life like" is just not an option. Aside from that, different developers have different budgets and levels of technology... While Rockstar can and does throw money around to gain ratings, smaller and newer studios shouldn't be punished in ratings because they cannot.

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Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

04/09/12 11:14 pm | #25

I downloaded the Dead Kel DLC today and started to head to Rathir (never been there before) and didn't realize it'd take me over 2 hours to get there on foot from the middle/starting areas :rofl:

granted, I DID get sidetracked quite a lot with side quests on the way, but my god is this game massive in a few different ways (world, questing, loot, etc). Been having a blast with it though :yes:

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Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

04/10/12 11:24 pm | #26

The comparison isn’t being made between Noire and KoA. But games made today. But to not be impressed with what was done in that game makes any other statement you make lack credibility. While the gameplay was shallow it was a tech marvel. How my own personal experience fails though is an odd one. I’m all for the "little guy” succeeding but 38/Big Huge is not a small studio by any stretch, the owner is Curt Schilling, a guy who made over 110 million playing baseball, he got heavyweights like Salvatore & McFarlane to sign on and that’s not cheap, this game had serious money behind it(EA as well). To call them a small studio is like calling the Red Sox a small market team.

I don’t think this game would have succeeded on the PC had it gone as planned. When I can play a Mass Effect game from ’07 or an Xbox 1 game(played Indigo Prophecy the other day) with better synch that’s not good. For me in my opinion, should have been done much better and not look like an old school Kung Fu flick! Again I love the game it’s my favorite of the young year BUT that could have been done a lot better, that’s all I’m saying. It’s a small thing for some but to me it meant what could have been a great game is merely above average now.

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Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

04/11/12 12:18 am | #27

I'm new here so I guess I have to come out and ask... Are you a troll?

The art style of the game was not meant to be photorealistic, you don't like it. That's your call, and stating it once covered it. But, as the person who wrote the review, I value entertainment value over polish and that is how I can give this game a 9 and LA Noire a 7 and a yawn. If that makes my reviews invalid to you, so be it.

The reason I ask if you are a troll is that you are arguing how just above average the game is, yet it's your favorite game. So you either love crap, or you're arguing for the sake of argument. Either way, you've stated your opinion. Move on. Stop making me defend your favorite game to you when it's far from my favorite.

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Re: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning- the Good, the Meh, and the Ugly...

04/11/12 12:55 pm | #28

Well I thought the review was great and I personally that it was good game

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