Kingdoms of Amalur, rpg due Feb 2012

[Kulaf]

Cinematics video for Reckoning.

[Nadia]

minor distinction I recently was made aware of

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/329634

The games are being designed at two different studios, also. The as yet unannounced MMORPG codenamed "Copernicus" is being developed by the Rhode Island studio...the team that was originally Green Monster Games and then got renamed to 38 Studios.

The single-player RPG called Reckoning was designed at the Baltimore Studio, which was formerly Big Huge Games. 38 Studios bought Big Huge Games a year or so ago and adapted their already-in-progress unannounced game into 38 Studio's new IP called Kingdoms of Amalur.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Huge_Games
http://www.develop-online.net/news/3195 ... Huge-Games

good read at the Forbes site:
Curt Schilling Enters The Fantasy League With Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/ ... ckoning/3/

Any doubts about 38 Studios credibility vanished in 2009, when the company acquired Big Huge Games for an undisclosed price from game publisher THQ. The studio had several hits under its belt, including 2003′s Rise of Nations, was home to major talent including award-winning developer Ken Rolston, and already owned the tools to make a game out of McFarlane and Salvatore’s world.

“They had been working on a single player role playing game for about three or four years,” says Schilling. “They had their own proprietary engine, they had built this really pretty piece of tech, but they couldn’t get anybody to buy into what they were selling… we had [intellectual property] that was sexy as hell, but we were so far away from the tech.”

The combination of Big Huge’s game engine and 38 Studio’s fictional world quickly gelled into a fully-realized fantasy role playing adventure. “Think about if you had Tolkien walking [computer programmers] through how to build a Lord of the Rings game,” says Schilling. “That is where the magic starts to happen.”

[Kulaf]

Exclusive: A Heroes Guide to Amalur: Fate and Destiny HD

[Nadia]

38 Studios opens a website portal to Project Copernicus' world
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/11/08 ... cus-world/

Atlas of Amalur
http://www.amalur.com/

[Kulaf]

Video highlighting combat:

http://www.gamespot.com/showcases/recko ... erridePid=

[xilly]

Surprised you haven't updated this with this link:

http://limitededitions.reckoning.com/

LOL @ a $275 collector's edition for a new IP.

[Kulaf]

• Signed, Limited Edition McFarlane Toys Prismere Troll figure
• 1 of 300 individually numbered, Limited Edition, Todd McFarlane sketch screen-prints
• Original lithograph signed by Ken Rolston

For two signed collectables? Not a bad price if you are a McFarlane fan.

[Kulaf]

Demo available:

http://reckoning.amalur.com/r/demo

[Nadia]

ha beat me to posting about demo
-- Ive read the demo gameplay is similar to FABLE

demo feedback from others at mmorpg.com
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/338302

[Singollo]

The PS3 demo is slightly buggy.
I had a conversation with a headless Fomorous Hugues. And sometimes when zoning between areas you'll have an invisible ground problem with textures stretching across the screen. I think it's whack that once you're out of the Well of Souls you're limited to only 45 mins game time before it shuts off and tells you to buy the retail version. Come on guys, you've already walled off the starting area and a few dungeons+quests, why limit my game time too?

Curt has explained that EA forced their hand to offer a demo, and that the actual demo was carved from the game code three months ago and done by another team not from BHG.

On a more positive note I really enjoyed it. Hammers are too slow though and I didn't find any great swords. Assassination animation is very cool.
I've replayed the demo about four times now.

[Nadia]

reviews are coming in

IGN gives a 90
http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1218160p1.html

Reckoning's strongest point is its gameplay, but what does that mean, exactly? It means, quite simply, that I've never played an action-oriented RPG that plays better. Amalur's arcade-like, action-heavy slant to combat made me feel like I wasn't playing a rigid RPG at all, a refreshing and most unexpected experience for me. With a plethora of weapons and armor at your disposal, you can create any number of amalgams to best suit your play style. Battles happen in realtime, and with a combination of attacking with primary and secondary weapons, parrying and rolling out of the way, raising your shield to protect yourself and flinging spells at your foes, the utterly satisfying combat of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning simply can't be understated.
..
I'll come right out and say it: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will be discussed when Game of the Year 2012 rolls around. It has brought the conversation about what combat can be in the role-playing genre to the forefront and sets the bar exceptionally high for its future contemporaries in the genre. But don't let its competition-shaming gameplay lull you into think that that's all this game has to offer, because that's just gloss on an overall package that's bound to impress the RPG faithful.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning isn't the perfect game. Its random technical hiccups and inconsistent art style certainly holds it back from even higher levels of greatness. But no matter what you're looking for, whether it be amazing gameplay, immersive storytelling or perhaps a riveting new world to explore as you fully customize and re-customize your character at will, Reckoning has it all

IGN reviewer probably gushed too much
mmorpg.com commentary about the IGN review
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/t ... -9010.html

G4TV.com gave a 2/5 review (based on console version)
http://www.g4tv.com/games/xbox-360/6429 ... ng/review/

Beyond the camera, a shocking lack of polish is prevalent throughout Reckoning. Missing audio, framerate slowdown, a garish menu and incomprehensible maps are among the strange issues that plague the game and make it stand out from its triple-A contemporaries for all the wrong reasons.

Structurally, the game feels bloated as its middle section all but abandons the main quest and leaves the player trudging through formulaic settings and scenarios to little purpose. There’s a sense of the game wanting to declare itself as epic, but only through the virtue of being large. Ambitious as it may be, Reckoning throws in the kitchen sink but can’t find its structure, wildly borrowing from other games, only to fail in the invited comparison.

For the months leading up to its release, I looked forward to playing this game. The early looks at the game and the people associated with it promised great things, and I still regard the world of Amalur as one filled with potential. Reckoning, in trying to be so much at the same time, seems to have lost that essential identity necessary to drive this franchise.

other reviews
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/kingd ... -reckoning

[Kulaf]

Most of the reviews of the actual game, and not the demo, have given it an 8 - 9 rating. Not bad. Unfortunatly my work schedule has not afforded me the opportunity to actually play it yet.

[Singollo]

I don't typically play console games except for the Final Fantasy series so my opinion is going to be limited by NOT having played the bajillion other RPG's from recent years.

Amalur is pretty fun. On the PS3 I haven't run into any of the bug/glitches articles mention. Now I'm 60+ hours into the game and slightly more than halfway done... I think. I've done every quest in Dalentarth and almost done with the Plains of Erathell. Only Detyre to the south remains on the Faelands side of the continent, plus the three areas on the Klurikon side that still need doing.

Some areas are visually superior to others. Webwood is great looking and one of the Plains zones with the giant rock formations poking out of the ground. The rest are fairly generic among themselves, forests look like forests no matter where you go (unless it's Webwood), and the plains are basically the same on four of the five. Granted I haven't even been to the desert or Klurikon yet.

Combat is very God of War-like, but with better weapons. Chakrams are the best.

One gripe I do have is that there is very little harmony between class skills. You can go pure mage and rock. You can be pure warrior and rock. If you go rogue+mage you're still just doing a few rogue skills and then doing a few mage skills, there's no synergy.
What I mean is, if you remember how in original EQ rangers were just warriors with low level druid spells and chain armor , or SKs were warriors with a few gimpy necro spells. It's like that.
I was expecting the skills to change somehow when you went hybrid.
Rogues generally use crit damage and poisons, but mages don't have anything in their tree that enhances poison damage, and vice versa. The Might+Mage hybrid is even worse. About the only hybrid that synergizes well is Might+Finesse, it is an unholy killing machine.

But I won't lie, I'm currently playing a Finesse+Mage hybrid and it's still strong. Poison blink into and out of a big group of enemies to start the poison ticking, charge chakrams into a whirlwind of death, smoke bomb, backstab, poison blink again and everything is dead.

It is a tad easy, even on the Hard setting. And Reckoning mode is the 'I win' button for boss fights. Swallow every potion you have, reckoning mode, hit boss three times, button mash to get max exp, and loot.