Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning – Five Part Review

 

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Review: Amalur Beckons  |  Basics  |  Game Play  |  Tips and Thoughts  |  Quibbles  
More Topics: Cover Art  |  Location Guide  |  Lorestones  |  My Stats  |  Sets of Armor  |  Stash Locations  |  Unique Armor  |  Unique Accessories  |  Unique Weapons

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - The Legend of Dead Kel

Review: Legend of Dead Kel Review
More Topics: Cover Art  |  Location Guide  |  Lorestones  |  Sets of Armor  |  Stash Location  |  Unique Armor  |  Unique Accessories  |  Unique Weapons

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - Teeth of Naros

Review: Teeth of Naros Review
More Topics: Cover Art  |  Location Guide  |  Lorestones  |  Sets of Armor  |  Unique Armor  |  Unique Accessories  |  Unique Weapons

   

Amalur Beckons

 
If you are looking for an RPG (Role-Playing Game) that provides an immersive visual experience filled with quests, twists, and multiple paths to game objectives in an open world that invites your exploration, then you really will want to have a look at Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning. The game is pretty extraordinary and immediately addictive. It is so addictive that I couldn’t stop playing long enough to write this review last weekend or last week.

To get started, here is game’s launch trailer:

An Extraordinary Game

 
My hat is off to the creative team of Todd McFarlane (writer), R.A. Salvatore (writer), and Ken Rolston (Elder Scrolls III and IV lead designer) for their efforts to provide an engaging and entertaining experience. The game shares some of the attributes of other games and so may feel a little familiar right off. The loot system reminds me of Diablo and Darkspore to a degree. It even uses the same color scheme to highlight the rarity of a loot item as Darkspore. And like Elder Scrolls, there are countless side quests to open up the story.

The game is largely about learning the back story, your character’s place in the story, and equipping you the information to pick your character’s fate and that of the virtual world. You’ll find the story unfolding in dialogs, descriptions, sub-plots in quests, and in the telling of songs by lore stones. And to encourage you to learn the story, finding and listening to lore stones can give you permanent boosts in abilities that will make your character stronger and stronger as the game progresses.

Some reviewers have complained about the dialog, plot, and depth of the game after rushing through it in a week. After playing some 120 hours, I am nowhere near the end and happy about it. Taking the time to wander around, play out minor quests and faction quests fills in a lot of the story and adds considerable dialog throughout the game. My take is that the game is not about a mad rush to the end for the final battle, but instead all about the journey and seeing all there is to see. There are loads of places to discover, hundreds of really good loot items to be found, and plenty of time to practice your combat skills including the awesome fate-shifting ability that slows down all action and gives you some extraordinary visual effects, while granting you boosts in experience points and rewards.

One of the more interesting parts of the game is the combat scenarios. You can develop a tremendous array of skills and abilities to use in combat that get better and better as delve deeper into the game. You go from basic sword slashing to complex moves that increase your character’s ability to mete out tremendous damage to opponents. Depending on the character you have selected and the path for the character your combat can be brutal, magical, stealthy, and more. Some combat is going to be head-on slugging and some is going to be sly and stealthy depending on your goals.

In some ways the game is like an RPG and in others like an MMO. I wouldn’t say that it is a pure breed of either. But that doesn’t seem to hurt the game’s impact. And if rumors are to be believed, there may be a follow-on virtual world for multi-player fun.

I think that most reviewers tend to feel an obligation to point out issues with any new game and that contributes to better development in future games. Later in this series of articles you’ll find what I call my quibbles with the game. In reality they are minor annoyances. We have to remember that developing an immersive virtual world in a game that has to support a wide-range of computing platforms is a non-trivial undertaking. Aside from assuring that the imagery is breathtaking whether viewed on a low res monitor or a newer HD monitor, assuring that frame-rates, game controls, and all the rest work from the start is very difficult. The developer team for Kingdoms of Amalur has turned lose a game that gets all of that pretty much right and better yet one that hasn’t had any deal-breaker snags or bugs during game play. That is pretty exceptional. But then again the game was developed by gamers that love what they do and so we shouldn’t expect less.

Bottom line is that this is an extraordinary game. So much so that I’ve decided to highlight it on my Facebook page with the first image below as my cover image (using Facebook’s new timeline style). The other two were made to give some variety. If you are fan of Kingdoms of Amalur, you are welcome to use any or all of the images on your Facebook page.

If you would like to use the image, please click on the link to download the image without the lightbox effect and then right click to save to your computer: Facebook Cover Image 1

If you would like to use the image, please click on the link to download the image without the lightbox effect and then right click to save to your computer: Facebook Cover Image 2

If you would like to use the image, please click on the link to download the image without the lightbox effect and then right click to save to your computer: Facebook Cover Image 3

More Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning fan art Facebook cover images are available at http://blog.webnme2.com/?page_id=4605

If you have your own fan art, please drop a link in a comment. I’d love to see what is out there and I’m sure others would too.
 

Related Web Sites: More Information & Updates

• Official Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Web Site
• Official Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Forum
• Official Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Facebook Page
• Official Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Twitter Feed
• Official Kingdoms of Amalur YouTube Channel

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Review: Amalur Beckons  |  Basics  |  Game Play  |  Tips and Thoughts  |  Quibbles  
More Topics: Cover Art | Location Guide | Lorestones | My Stats | Sets of Armor | Stash Locations | Unique Armor | Unique Accessories | Unique Weapons

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning – The Legend of Dead Kel

Review: Legend of Dead Kel Review
More Topics: Cover Art | Location Guide | Lorestones | Sets of Armor | Stash Location | Unique Armor | Unique Accessories | Unique Weapons