Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is finally here being published by Electronic arts and developed by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games. The game starts with your death at the hands of the enemy; you are then carted off by two dwarfs and dumped into city’s depths with all the other corpses. You awake with no idea of what has happened or why you are covered by rotting corpses (I see black plague has never been heard of here). You scramble to your feet and make your way down the pile of corpses and your adventure begins.
Something I forgot to mention, while being carted along, the dwarfs wonder who is under the blanket (You) when he pulls away the lining you get to create you character. You get to choose from 4 playable races, the Almain (Noble Humans), the Ljosalfar (Light Elves), the Dokkalfar (Dark Elves) and the Varani (Nomadic Humans). After choosing your class you can then customise their looks from hair colour, tattoos, hair style, facial features like eye colour and lip colour, ear rings, lip rings or nose rings and finally the colour of their skin.I would of liked to of seem some more like age, and character height and size, overall though it’s ok.
Players that love the combat system employed within Devil May Cry or God of War will love playing this game, as you will get to play with an array of melee weapons with special abilities that you gain while levelling up your skill trees and to add to that you get magic spells (Awesome). The ultimate attack move is Reckoning mode; this triggers an awesome matrix style slow motion effect that racks up extra points and what the game calls fate energies which by pressing the mouse button over and over again will perform a devastating kill move. One thing that I forgot to mention we have the over the top blood splatter, mix all that with alchemy and other elements that really make this RPG a game to be reckoned with. With all this in your mind, is this game anything like other RPG’s? In some areas it is like the MMO questing system, however you will quickly appreciate how Reckoning has moved away from the traditional RPG rule book.
Reckoning does not restrict your character path, as you are able to change your destiny whenever you feel like it, if you wish to reset all your points you can go see a Fateweaver in the local towns for 1000 credits. There are a total of 3 classes to choose from with 22 ability’s per tree to climb; these include Might, Finesse and sorcery each class corresponds to the fighter class, rogue class or mage.
If you are worried about money do not be as Amular has loads of ways for you to make money from smashing everything around you, from all the items you pick up from mobs which can all be sold to vendors but be warned stolen items are a no go, as the vendors will not accept these items.
There are plenty of side quests to get your teeth into, be warned though if you accept any of them you will be unable to cancel them once accepted. I found this an issue when looking on bulletin boards, in which it told you about the quest, but it never, told you what the reward was. Sometimes it made some of the side quests a waste of time as the rewards were not up to scratch.
There are a few bugs in the game mostly to do with the camera; however this is something small compared to the overall scale and depth of this game. Kingdoms or Alamur: Reckoning is an original IP and to be honest I have not seen any new concept on the market in numbers years that has impressed me as much as this game has done. The developers deserve a pat on the back for this really impressed me, well done guys and girls.
Graphically, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is not going to break the bank or really push the system to any new levels likes we got from Skyrim, however it is by far better than fable 3. The game starts off a blurry and bland, however this all changes once you get out in the world and start your adventure.
Overall this game has the depth and scale to make any RPG gamer happy with plenty of dungeons to explore, armour sets to grind for and a huge amount of beautiful content which will make you go OOOoooo nice. The story is great from the start, right to the end and will keep you engaged, the mythology used to tell the story has been created very well and the overall gameplay has just the right amount of skills, action and chat.
Kingdoms of Alamur is bloody awesome BUY IT, and a message to developers make an MMO like this, concept the idea is great and would make for a great online adventure with friends.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
