Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning

Anything else I could say would only cheapen this moment.

High-fives all around people.

o/\o

Half done downloading, should have an idea of what this game plays like in 45 minutes or so.

I assume the XBL demo is for Gold only?

Elycion wrote:
Scratched wrote:

I get confused when I see a reaction as strong as this. Did I miss something about Origin?

Perhaps you missed or forgot the incidents where people who got temporary forum bans were locked out of their entire origin library of games? Afterwards EA didn't really do anything to provide assurance that they were taking significant action to make sure such things didn't happen in the future. As things currently stand, getting banned for cheating in Battlefield 3 could lose you your entire library of Origin based single player games forever.

What about Valve locking a user out of their entire game catalog, including non-Valve single player games because a charge got rejected by the credit card company? Is that better? Do you want to leave your entire collection in the hands of an account manager at the fraud department of a credit card company? At least on the EA forums it was the owner of the account that got themselves into trouble.

I love Steam, but have no doubt, if Valve wants to get evil, they have ALL of the power to do it, and we all clicked "Accept" on the EULA/license to let them have it. With Origin, at least there is one more good reason for them not to go evil on us.

Couldn't tell you. I don't know how they get away with that crap though, considering it's on other platforms now for everyone.

Actually, after thinking on it a moment, MS probably doesn't give a damn about the timeliness of free content.

SuperDave wrote:

My stomach just turned.

There's no listing for this game on Steam.

F***ing Origin. I hate you. I don't want you.

I will likely be playing the demo on Xbox.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/102500/

The demo is up on Steam as well.

I played through the demo until I got to a point where it is timed. It seems like a decent game.

- The combat was ok. It reminded me of Fable and God of War in how button mashing is good enough but you can have a better understanding of combat to get a bit more fun out of it. I found that the controls could be a bit more responsive. (I was using a 360 pad)
- Ran great on my comp with everything jacked up (i5 2500k/GTX570)
- Art style is nice and the environments look very colorful.
- UI seems...cheap. I can't find the right words for it.
- Speaking of not having the right words, something was off with the whole demo. It may have just been a lack of polish but the production values on a whole seemed...not great? I don't know, I couldn't really figure out what it was.

I'll definitely play my 45 minutes worth until they lock me out later.

BNice wrote:
SuperDave wrote:

My stomach just turned.

There's no listing for this game on Steam.

F***ing Origin. I hate you. I don't want you.

I will likely be playing the demo on Xbox.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/102500/

The demo is up on Steam as well.

I played through the demo until I got to a point where it is timed. It seems like a decent game.

- The combat was ok. It reminded me of Fable and God of War in how button mashing is good enough but you can have a better understanding of combat to get a bit more fun out of it. I found that the controls could be a bit more responsive. (I was using a 360 pad)
- Ran great on my comp with everything jacked up (i5 2500k/GTX570)
- Art style is nice and the environments look very colorful.
- UI seems...cheap. I can't find the right words for it.
- Speaking of not having the right words, something was off with the whole demo. It may have just been a lack of polish but the production values on a whole seemed...not great? I don't know, I couldn't really figure out what it was.

I'll definitely play my 45 minutes worth until they lock me out later.

I was just coming here to post this.

*SQUEE*

BNice wrote:

- UI seems...cheap. I can't find the right words for it.

In one of the vids I posted the guy playing commented that the UI didn't seem great to him at first, but once he got use to it he realized it does a good job of quickly giving you info in an intelligent manner (ie. when comparing items).

Perhaps more time with it will help, but from the look of it, to me, it seems really gamey. A lot about this game seems really gamey. I'm okay with that. Others might not be.

BNice wrote:

- The combat was ok. It reminded me of Fable and God of War in how button mashing is good enough but you can have a better understanding of combat to get a bit more fun out of it. I found that the controls could be a bit more responsive. (I was using a 360 pad)

They said in the Random Encounter interview that button mashing will only work up to a certain point, after which you'll need strategy. Dunno if that's the case, especially since I haven't played it yet.

I've just hit where they give you the timer on the demo. It's quite meaty and a lot to do.

I agree about a certain something missing from the game, the best I can point at is atmosphere and flavour. It's not quite generic, but it seems to lack a signature feeling to it, there's little character to the characters. I can see where the Fable comparisons come from (I didn't watch any preview videos), in many aspects it's as though they ran it through a photocopier, although the builds will get a bit more complex later on. I know I'm falling into the generic reviewer trap here, but movement and combat do lack a certain physicality and feedback about them too, as though everything's too light and nimble.

Like you say the UI is quite basic and safe, just functional enough but not a joy to use. I played through the tutorial with mouse/keys and while it works, it's a minimum effort console port, and as such is designed around a joypad.

It seems fun enough, but I'm not sure I'm in the mood for this type of game at the moment. I'll definitely keep an eye out for offers on it though, or who knows I might end up really bored in 3 weeks.

This is going to end up being this year's Darksiders.

garion333 wrote:

This is going to end up being this year's Darksiders.

Pre-ordered!

Spoiler:

Wouldn't Darksiders 2 be this year's Darksiders?

garion333 wrote:

This is going to end up being this year's Darksiders.

Not Darksiders 2?

/troll

I thought since EA was publishing this game it wouldn't be available on Steam, so this is a nice surprise. Out of curiosity, has anyone heard anything about this game requiring Origin if I decide to buy retail (I'm assuming the Steam version doesn't need Origin running too as that would seem redundant.)?

Isn't this an EA game?

Where is their hardened stance against Valve's DLC policy? How do they choose which AAA titles are to be allowed on steam, and which aren't? I'm assuming KoA will have DLC for sale.

Swarfigo wrote:

I thought since EA was publishing this game it wouldn't be available on Steam, so this is a nice surprise. Out of curiosity, has anyone heard anything about this game requiring Origin if I decide to buy retail (I'm assuming the Steam version doesn't need Origin running too as that would seem redundant.)?

EA isn't publishing, 38 Studios is publishing as part of the EA partners program. They're free to put it wherever they want.

No idea about boxed copies requiring Origin, but Amazon's download page mentions nothing about it.

Edit: Nope, no Origin.

Yeah EA Partners stuff.

I'm just going to try this out for the ME3 stuff. Whether the demo is any fun or not will determine if this goes on my "maybe later" list or "never" list.

Who knows, perhaps there's no DLC planned for it so it's compatible with both companies' policies.

garion333 wrote:
Swarfigo wrote:

I thought since EA was publishing this game it wouldn't be available on Steam, so this is a nice surprise. Out of curiosity, has anyone heard anything about this game requiring Origin if I decide to buy retail (I'm assuming the Steam version doesn't need Origin running too as that would seem redundant.)?

EA isn't publishing, 38 Studios is publishing as part of the EA partners program. They're free to put it wherever they want.

No idea about boxed copies requiring Origin, but Amazon's download page mentions nothing about it.

Edit: Nope, no Origin.

Thanks garion.

BNice wrote:
SuperDave wrote:

My stomach just turned.

There's no listing for this game on Steam.

F***ing Origin. I hate you. I don't want you.

I will likely be playing the demo on Xbox.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/102500/

The demo is up on Steam as well.

I played through the demo until I got to a point where it is timed. It seems like a decent game.

- The combat was ok. It reminded me of Fable and God of War in how button mashing is good enough but you can have a better understanding of combat to get a bit more fun out of it. I found that the controls could be a bit more responsive. (I was using a 360 pad)
- Ran great on my comp with everything jacked up (i5 2500k/GTX570)
- Art style is nice and the environments look very colorful.
- UI seems...cheap. I can't find the right words for it.
- Speaking of not having the right words, something was off with the whole demo. It may have just been a lack of polish but the production values on a whole seemed...not great? I don't know, I couldn't really figure out what it was.

I'll definitely play my 45 minutes worth until they lock me out later.

Just saw this and promptly canceled my download and closed out of Origin. That was after 20 mins of unsuccessfully trying to figure out what email account I used with an EA game years ago that has control of the "Arovin" id. Yay time to go back to Steam!

I pre-ordered the collectors edition of this directly from the Amalur site. Any one know if we will be able to link it to steam?

Things I took from the 360 version of the demo (so far):

Pros

-The UI seems solid and functional, no frills. Getting in and changing gear is quick enough.

-The combat is fast and varied. The question is, will there be enough variation within each specialization to keep it interesting over the long haul? (Edit: AWW DUDE THE CHARGE DAGGER MOVE IS RAD)

-The contextual kills for certain enemies reward you (bonus experience), which I've only seen in Bayonetta before.

-Voice acting is quality, and I'm intrigued by the plot. The introduction was well done, and made me believe that the world has a history.

-Again touching on UI, some thought has been put toward what other games could do better. For example, when you're looting something you can not only compare it to what you're wearing in that slot (pretty standard), you can equip it straight away (an obvious improvement).

Cons

-Some weird audio bugs. During chatty scenes, sometimes a guy would be on the right side of the screen but his voice would come from the left speaker. Also, the default audio settings seem unbalanced. When present in a cutscene, music would overpower the voice over.

-The graphics are stylized but undeniably dated. I don't recall what Fable 2 looked like, but this is less pretty than Fable 3. This sort of thing doesn't bother me much. (Edit: Actually, now that I'm outside the environment is very attractive.)

-Just a pet peeve, but there's no representation of your shield when it's not being used. Like, nothing there, but depress the left trigger and it materializes out of what seems to be your back pocket.

-Another presentation gripe: say a NPC is in a canned animation where they're standing over someone, tending their wounds. When you talk to them, they don't stand up realistically. They "warp," for lack of a better term, into the position they need to be to talk to your character. Edit: the game seems chock full of wonky graphical inconsistencies. Hopefully it's an issue they'll have resolved in the time between demo submission and going gold. If not, I'll still dig it, but I'll be bothered a little.

I'm going to like this game a lot, but I'm not sure about the community here. Sometimes fantasy games get the generic tag thrown on them without good reason, and this is ripe for the label.

Arovin wrote:

I pre-ordered the collectors edition of this directly from the Amalur site. Any one know if we will be able to link it to steam?

Short answer: who knows. Longer speculation: I wonder if it's like Mass Effect2 on steam, that gives you a cd key you can optionally redeem on origin for digital download purposes.

Scratched wrote:

Short answer: who knows. Longer speculation: I wonder if it's like Mass Effect2 on steam, that gives you a cd key you can optionally redeem on origin for digital download purposes.

Steam page lists Steam Achievements and Steam Cloud, so it looks like there's two builds they're making for the PC.

Would probably be worth asking in their forums or poking them on Twitter?

shoptroll wrote:
Scratched wrote:

Short answer: who knows. Longer speculation: I wonder if it's like Mass Effect2 on steam, that gives you a cd key you can optionally redeem on origin for digital download purposes.

Steam page lists Steam Achievements and Steam Cloud, so it looks like there's two builds they're making for the PC.

Would probably be worth asking in their forums or poking them on Twitter?

Yeah I just asked via twitter they seem pretty active today maybe I will get a response.

I can't find the demo anywhere on Steam. The link BNice gave sends me to the Steam homepage. Did they remove it?

Edit: Nvm, worked now. Weird.

Arovin wrote:
shoptroll wrote:
Scratched wrote:

Short answer: who knows. Longer speculation: I wonder if it's like Mass Effect2 on steam, that gives you a cd key you can optionally redeem on origin for digital download purposes.

Steam page lists Steam Achievements and Steam Cloud, so it looks like there's two builds they're making for the PC.

Would probably be worth asking in their forums or poking them on Twitter?

Yeah I just asked via twitter they seem pretty active today maybe I will get a response.

Just got an official response: "Just Origin"

Just played the demo. I can see myself purchasing this game in the near future.

So, I played for about 10 minutes into the timed part on the pc. There's definitely some jank going on here, but nothing gamebreaking for me. I went all magey and I don't think I'll stick with that when I play for real. The hand to hand combat feels a lot better than shooting magic, but dammit I want to use those throwing blade things the mages get. Too bad I don't think I'll be seeing them in the demo.

Otherwise, I don't have much to add. The game looks even more like WoW while playing than in video, but unlike in WoW I can interact with the environment and smash sh*t. I like that. I hope the game opens up more than it starts out (and I imagine it has to), but I think I'll reserve judgment once I finish up my time limit.

garion333 wrote:

The hand to hand combat feels a lot better than shooting magic, but dammit I want to use those throwing blade things the mages get. Too bad I don't think I'll be seeing them in the demo.

You can buy them in a weapon store when you get to the town. You should have enough if you've been smashing all of the available sh*t on the way and sell most of your extra equipment.

I liked what I played. The combat is flashy and fun. Going from casting spells to dodging to meleeing dudes is fluid and responsive. I only wish I could say the same of the camera. It's really loose for some reason. There looks to be quite a bit of depth and variety available regardless of which combat path you choose. It really looks like a prettier version of WoW. I mean that as a compliment, as I still think WoW has some of the best art direction in the bizz 7 or 8 years after launch. Very colorful with very few hard edges, lots of exaggerated animations. Voice acting seems solid as well. This won't be a day 1 for me because the backlog won't allow it, but I'll likely be picking it up later in the year.