Planet Rossco, 'cause i'm in a world of my own

30th April 2012

Question

thelastinterceptor asked: Holy crap, I also watched that show when I was a kid! Man, it looks so weird now xD All those 90's cartoons based on videogames were kinda strange. Good times hahahaha

Haha, yeah tell me about it mate. Did you ever see the legend of zelda cartoon back in the day? That was well weird.

29th March 2012

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I Am Alive:Review

2012, this year the world is rumored to end, as predicted by the mayans and soothsayers the world over. We of course, know this to be complete nonsense. We have however, quite fancied the idea of living in a world torn apart by some disaster or another, well with this little number we can do just that.

Time for RosscoGameFace’s review of…

If I had to give you a quick fire description of I Am Alive in a sentence it would be; part Silent Hill part Uncharted with a smattering of Manhunt thrown in for good measure. An interesting choice of games to be grouped together no?

I am alive is another entry into the post apocalyptic setting, except instead of the world being laid to waste with nuclear weapons, as is usually the case, the world in this game has been torn asunder by something known simply as The Event. The nature of this event is quite uncertain but it seems to be a massive earthquake that has left the world shattered, largely desolate and has also kicked up massive toxic dust clouds.

                             ^The world painted in I Am Alive is a very bleak one indeed^

The story centers around a man called Adam who has just spent a year walking across America to get back to his home city of Haventon. He wasn’t home when The Event happened as he had flown out west for reasons unknown. Now all he wants to do is get back to his wife and daughter.

The game starts with Adam having just made it back to his home city of Haventon. His first port of call is, obviously, his house to see if his family are still there. Rather predictably, they are not, so he sets out again to find them. Back on the streets Adam encounters a little girl called Mei who has lost her mother, having first mistaken her to be his daughter then saving her from some really nasty men, Adam decides to look after her and get her somewhere safe while continuing the search for his own family.

                    ^One of the many nasty guys in the game that you have to face^

The world of I Am Alive is a very dark and disturbing one. The original concept of the game was to show what the world might be like after a major catastrophe when people start getting desperate because of the lack of food and water and just what depths humanity would sink to when they were left to rule themselves, and it manages this pretty well as there are some incredibly disturbing people and places in this game. One line that will always stay with me was when I was taking little Mei through the subway and I was waylaid by a group of thugs, and when trying to back away, one of them yells out “Bend over kid, your ass is ours now.”

The gameplay is quite good being like a mix of the games mentioned above. The graphical quality (and even the map system) is very akin to Silent Hill as it has that grainy filter over the screen and because of the dust clouds all over the city you can never see too far ahead of yourself which can make navigating the city a tad tricky. It has lots of climbing sections as well similar to that of Uncharted, but unlike the PS3 classic, I Am Alive has a stamina bar that decreases the more you do physically tiring actions like running or climbing. The stamina bar continually decreases as well even if your just hanging from a ledge and not moving so you really have to keep a keen eye on where you are going to avoid your stamina running out. When your stamina runs out you go into endurance mode where you have to hammer the right trigger (or R2 on PS3) to prevent yourself from falling off but whilst you are in endurance mode your stamina bar will be continually shrinking leaving you with a much smaller stamina bar when you get back on your feet. There are limited resources scattered through the city though to replenish your stamina and health as well as return your stamina bar back to normal. You also get Pitons which you can use to create a temporary rest spot when climbing to let your stamina replenish, though you can only use each one once and they are in short supply so use them wisely.

^The atmosphere in I Am Alive is very dark and sinister with some disturbing levels also^

Combat in I Am Alive can be a bit tricky until it is mastered. Just like Manhunt, you want to avoid taking on more than one enemy at all cost, but that is not always possible so when you do encounter a group of enemies that set about you all at once some quick thinking and sharp eyes are a must. As far as weapons go there aren’t alot on offer in the game. You have a machete and a pistol (with no ammo). Occasionally you will find a bullet or two but it is rare that you will have more than that at any one time unless you are very skilled in the fights. Having an empty gun though still has it’s advantages as you can use it to blag your way past some people, others though will call your bluff (Sometimes even when you have ammo) and charge you, forcing the battle in another direction. If intimidation with your gun is successful you can order guys to back off, carefully manuevering them into a pitfall or fire or something you can kick them in to. Later on in the game you will also find a bow with one solitary arrow, the upside to this is the arrow can be retrived everytime you fire it. You can also hold people up with the bow as well but you must ensure the arrow is drawn or it wont work.

When the enemies spot you initally you will go into the bullying phase, where the enemies crowd around you and one will step up and start pushing you about. From here you can launch a surprise kill with the machete, then you probably want to get your gun out straight away to hold up the others and decide where to go from there. When you’ve whittled them down to just one man, go in with the machete and run him through, easy peasy. It’s all about trial and error and observing your surroundings. A skilled and keen eyed survivor will make it out of most engagements with barely a scratch.

Dotted about the city are 20 victims out there that will need your help, some of these need saving from thugs or themselves while most will require items of some kind, like medkits or booze. Saving these individuals will reward you with an extra life or retry as they’re called here, as well as rewarding you with some backstory on the event and clues as to where might be a good place to look for your family. The items needed to save them can be found all over the city, well I say city it’s more of a town really as it’s not really that big, anyway, just explore as much as you can and you’ll be fine, you have to be careful though as the toxic dust clouds mean you cant stay on street level for long you have to climb up often to avoid over exposure. There is one particular person who will request a large number of items, I suggest you give him them, that is all I will say.

The game is rather short what with my first playthrough clocking in at 7 hours 14 mins and that was with lots of exploring the city. I was fairly impressed with the game overall until after my second playthrough. Not that I now think it is a bad game, far from it, there are just certain bits that make it feel like an unfinished game and that it was rushed slightly. Can’t really say too much about it though without giving spoilers. Let’s just say there are some questions left by the games ending.

I Am Alive has changed somewhat since it’s conception, which is another reason why I think it’s a largely unfinshed game. I Am Alive lacks a lot of backstory in certain places, like why was Adam all the way across on the other side of America? And what was the event all about? what caused it? All these questions and more just left unanswered kinda left me feeling slightly disappointed afterwards. Below is a trailer for I Am Alive that was released quite a while ago, before it changed it’s appearnce and style, it shows something that i’m guessing was a kind of trap style gaming mechanic that I assume they dropped from the game at some point. check it out and you’ll see what I mean.

Overall, I Am Alive is a great concept that was executed fairly well. It’s just a shame that it wasn’t realised to it’s fullest potential. Maybe someday in the future they will finish it off properly.

Score? I’m gonna give it a 7.5/10 purely for the fact the game is quite clearly unfinished. But for 800 Microsoft points it is still a bargain. Go and play it, i’m sure you’ll agree.

As always, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it!

                                                                   —-RosscoGameFace—-

Tagged: gamesgaminggames reviewsI Am Alive

27th March 2012

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Mass Effect 3: Review

Time to grab your rifle and strap on your N7 armour as you make your last stand to save the galaxy and put down those Reapers in…

As always in my reviews, I will strive to keep this as spoiler free as possible but I will be posting a vid at the bottom that does have spoilers ahoy and I will be discussing the endings in a non-specfic way…

You have been warned.

Mass Effect is probably one of the greatest gaming franchises of all time, and i’m not just saying that as the massive fanboy that I am. In terms of what it has accomplished, the amazing stories it has told and how it has executed it all, is nothing short of spectacular. Lets take one single element of the game; the multiple choices. This is a feature that has been used in many games over the years, one of the better ones to draw an example from would be Quantic Dreams Heavy Rain. In Heavy Rain you could make countless choices that could drastically alter the story in so many different ways and it was a great game. Quantics boss David Cage had said right from the outset that there would be no sequels to the game because it would be far to difficult to make a sequel that can account for all the different possibilities that there could be.

Bioware has managed to create three Mass Effect games with each proceding sequel carrying over most if not all of the choices you have made from the first game right through to the last. At least for the most part anyway but i’ll go into that later. Mass Effect tells an epic story that spans three whole games, that is no simple task, especially when they have to keep it all consistent with your playthrough and make sure all your choices in previous games add up. ‘Cause thats what Mass Effect is all about isn’t it? Your choices, your Commander Shepard. This is one of the other simple yet hugely effective features of the series, is having your own Shepard.

Character creation is nothing new, it’s been featured in games for well over a decade. Mass Effect though, has managed to tell such a great story, that by having you create a character at the begining of ME1, you take this character on a massive odyssey. The result is each individual player of the series gets used to their Shepard, attached even. And it’s with this concept in mind that for some of the screenshots i’ll be using will be that of my own Shepard going through his own story, enjoy.

^My Shep enjoying some R&R with Joker at the Citadel club; Purgatory^

Mass Effect started out as an action RPG with more similarities to Biowares other success Knights of the Old Republic, with each sequel however, they shaved off more parts of the game, which i’m guessing other fans of the series thought to be too arduous or boring. After ME1 they took out the exploration sections in the Mako, the games version of an armoured ATV and the admittedly overwhelming amounts of weapons and armour. I’ll be one of the first people to say that constantly upgrading your crew in the first game after every mission with all the gear available was more than a little tiring. After ME2 they removed the planet mining feature another slow and at times boring process of the second game. As well as removing some of the lesser enjoyed features Bioware seemed to shape the series as it went on into a more specific shape, with ME3 resembling more of an action game with the RPG elements taking a bit of a step back, only a little step but a step none the less.

So to recap the story, in Mass Effect Shepard discovers that the Reapers, a sentient race of bio-synthetics are planning on making a return to the galaxy which they do every fifty thousand years to wipe out all organic life in the galaxy. Culminating on an attack on the Citadel, Shepard and his allies manage to destroy one of the Reapers, A sentient ship two kilometers in length called Sovereign. In ME2 The reapers are using an alien race known as the collectors to harvest human colonists. The Collectors were later revealed to be harvested Protheans, the last elder race to rule the galaxy when the Reapers last showed up and were believed to have created the Citadel and the mass relays. Shepard now temporarily aligned with rogue agency Cerberus, takes his crew on a suicide mission into the collector base to destroy them once and for all. ME2 was cool in that depending on how you played the game lots of varying things could happen from some members (or all) of your crew dying to you being left stranded at the collector base because your ship is ruined. By the end of the game the Reapers begin their invasion of the Galaxy. There is a DLC episode for ME2 called The Arrival, where the Reapers are attempting a direct invasion through a mass relay in Batarian space and to stop them Shepard must go and destroy it, doing so causes the relay to go into super nova wiping out a nearby Batarian colony. Even though his actions are justifiable, Shepard must return to earth and explain why he had to let thousands of innocent people die. This is where it sets up for Mass Effect 3.

Mass Effect 3 begins on Earth where Shepard has been temporarily grounded while the alliance review what shepards been up to from working with known terrorist agency Cerberus to blowing the crap out of a Batarian settlement by destroying a mass relay. It is during this time that the Reapers reach earth and launch a full scale assault. Shep barely escapes with his (or her) life and has to go on a massive journey to bring together the various races of the galaxy to stand together and destroy the reapers.

^A returning character from ME1, if you had the right DLC^

Gameplay wise ME3 plays just like the others albeit with a slightly larger penchant for action this time around. Shepard now has a new melee weapon in the form of the omniblade, a disposable instantly-fabricated-on-the-fly blade created by your omnitool that you can use to stab into the face of your advesaries. Weapon wise they have taken out the big power weapons you got in ME2 but they are available as temporary weapons on some missions where you can just pick them up on the battlefield and when the ammo’s used up just chuck them away and go back to your other guns. Also there are lots more of large scale set pieces which are very easy on the eye also making the game alot more cinematic and accentuate the desperate actions that must be taken to win this war. There’s always a main enemy to fight in the ME games, first it was the Geth then it was the Collectors, now it won’t shock you to know it is indeed the Reapers but probably not in the form you originally thought. See, I thought the Reapers were those massive ships you see, like Sovereign and Harbinger but in terms of their ground troops you’re looking at harvested variants of the galaxies different races. I would go into exactly what you get but it’s more fun to discover them on your own.

The other main enemy of the game is Cerberus. Having turned your back on them and The Illusive Man at the end of ME2, you are now at the top of their most wanted list. Cerberus troops will show up on most of the missions you are on either trying to stop you and what you’re doing or looking to get something for themselves. Unlike in previous Mass Effect games the human troops now have different enemy types. You get your normal troops obviously, and you get other with shields that advance on you slowly pushing you back while others file in behind them. Also new to the series are the engineers that deploy and repair turrets at random locations on the battlefield as well as repair any other damaged equipment in the field. There are other enemy types as well ranging from nimble wee ninja troops to snipers to the hulking mechs known as Atlas’.

Here’s a cheeky wee hint for you if you didn’t already know, you can hijack the Atlas mechs by shooting out the glass then dispatching the original pilots then clambering in. The glass takes quite a bit of shooting to break open but persevere with it and you’ll get there.

^Husks and a cannibal, just two of the Reaper variants^

New to the series is an online multiplayer, there is no versus modes which I think is a shame it would be nice to have a match where one side were the good guys and the other team were Reapers. Alas, it is all co-op which is no bad thing mind you. the co-op takes the form of a wave style survival game similar to Gears of Wars’ Horde. There are only eleven rounds though as oppossed to GOWs whopping fifty. Personally I prefer this though as games are shorter and it’s more refreshing when they’re broken up like that. Just like in the main campaign, you get to create a character, or several in fact,(I have about five now) and you can customize your characters appearance or choose certain classes, races and even their weapon loadouts. The maps are few but you get three different enemy types to fight; Geth, Cerberus troops and the Reapers, you also get three very different difficulties in the form of bronze, silver and gold. So far i’ve only done bronze and silver and let me tell you, there is a massive difference between the two. I thought bronze was fairly challenging when I first played it, then I moved up to silver and thought it was impossible, I persevered though and finished silver eventually, after many, many deaths, I then went back to bronze for a quick game with just one mate, as oppossed to the four we usually had, and we were just breezing through it.

One other thing worth mentioning about the multiplayer is it affects your galactic readiness rating for the main story. Basically the higher this rating the better the chance Shepard and his allies have of standing against the Reapers in the final battle. The rating does go down every day so you have to keep playing multiplayer to keep on top of it if you want the highest rating.

^I tried to take decent screenshots of the multiplayer but it proved quite difficult^

This is obviously the concluding chapter of the Mass Effect series so it has to wrap up all the loose ends of the game. And for the most part it does that very well. You should, again depending on how you play, encounter most if not all of the characters you have dealt with before that aren’t dead, in some form or another. Obviously like the previous ME games how you deal with the situations you are faced, and ultimately, The Reapers, is completely up to you, and deal with them you will, in one way or another. The reason I used the term for the most part when talking about how it all wraps up is the endings. Now I am not going to go into what happens in the endings in any way as those are for you to discover. I just want to discuss how I feel about them and how they made me feel in turn.

^Another of my own screens not depicting anything relevant I just really like it^

As it all unfolds right in front of you it’s all very dramatic and just like the rest of the game and the games before that, it draws you in and it holds you, captivating you with whats happening and it’s good. It’s only when you get to the end credits you seem to feel a slight pang of disappointment. Mostly brought on by a distinct lack of closure on certain things and also what seem to be quite a few plot holes in certain places too. But the immediate ending where you’re still making choices etc, is very dramatic and still quite cool. Some of the choices you are faced with as well are a bit hard to choose from there were quite a few times during the game I had to sit and think for a few minutes to try an decide what would be the better of many bleak outcomes. As far as moral choices go in games, ME3 has provoked the most thought from me. My first ending I sat for about five minutes trying to decide what outcome to go for as I didn’t fancy any of them and when I finally chose I still felt quite distraught watching it all unfold.

^The multiplayer lobby (and a weird reflection of my lamp in the TV…)^

One of the other elements to the endings I felt kind of disappointed by was they’re lack of variety. They are all very similar despite all the choices you make and the fact they were supposed to be the results of very different options. It’s hard to believe that Bioware could have dropped the ball so much on this one like that, it doesn’t make any sense though does it? Bioware Have always been on the ball with their storytelling, and not just with Mass Effect, all of their games like KOTOR and Dragon Age have all had very well thought out stories with detailed backstories too. So how is it after the better part of three massive games of great stroytelling could they fluff the story right at the end? Maybe they haven’t…

^Random screen of the multiplayer vs Cerberus (not mine)^

There is a fan generated theory circulating the interwebs at the moment, i’m not going to mention what it’s called because I don’t want to be responsible for ruining anything for any fellow fans out there. I read up on this theory and watched a vid about it, I went into it with an open mind. I’ve got to say there is a lot of evidence to suggest this theory may actually be true, and I am not one to go for things like this, but this theory has been put together by some very eagle eyed (and eared) fans. The theory draws from many sources, mainly the game obviously but it also draws from the Mass Effect novels as well, which is certainly considered official Mass Effect canon.

^My shep sorting his armour out^

If this theory proves true in the end. It would cement the fact that Bioware did not fluff the ending at all and were in fact all the time being incredibly clever. The downside to this though is if it proves true means that to find out exactly what the score is we are going to have to wait for some DLC to be released and have to pay for it just to find out exactly how the story ends.

Even though the endings let me down a bit, I am not gonna let that ruin what is another exceptional addition to a truly amazing series for me and neither should you. Even if you do finish the game and are let down by it never forget the great storytelling that has come before you throughout the series and the arduous journey you have taken your Shepard on. The Mass Effect series has been one of the best ever in the Sci-Fi genre for me and will always remain fondly in my heart and the series’ final entry is a spectacular one indeed. I have enjoyed it throughout and, endings aside, is a fantastic way to say goodbye to shepard and to the series as a whole.

My score? I give Mass Effect 3 a 9/10 I would’ve quite happily gave it a 10 were it not for the endings. I don’t know if the theory is true or not but either way, even if it is they should still have included that in the original game.

Below is the video of the aforementioned theory, if you have finished the game and were among the many disgruntled fans then watch it, keep an open mind and make up your own opinion on it. If you haven’t finished the game you may want to avoid watching this for now as there is spoilers aplenty in there.

WARNING!!!

If you haven’t spotted it yet the following vid contains many spoilers about the end of Mass Effect 3. If you don’t want to see anything you might regret seeing later, stop now and come back to it when you are finished with the game. If you go ahead and watch it and ruin it for yourself don’t come crying to me…

So comes the end of our time with the Shepard, he will be missed.

Thanks for reading, I hoped you all enjoyed your Mass Effect experience as much as I did. If you have any experiences you want to share feel free to do so.

                                                   —-RosscoGameFace—-

Tagged: gaminggamesreviewsMass Effect 3N7Reapersgames reviews

8th February 2012

Post with 22 notes

I always feel sorry for Big Boss when I see him standing in the oval office…

Tagged: MGS3big bossnaked snakesnakemetal gear solid

20th January 2012

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Preview: Kingdom of Amalur:Reckoning (Demo)

Hey there, I just finished playing the demo for the upcoming action RPG Kingdoms of Amalur:Reckoning and thought i’d write up a wee preview for it to tell my experience with it. So, here we go…

Normally when I do these, I do a bit of research on the game and their devs etc just to have a bit more information to give you but with K.o.A not even being out yet then there’s not too much to go on. It’s being published by EA and it’s being developed by 30studios and Big Huge Games, I haven’t really heard of them before now. The vague jist of the story (As much as i’ve gotten so far) Is there’s a war going on between mortals (Humans etc…) and immortals called the Fae, of the Fae there are two types the Summer Fae which seem to be quite peaceful and the Winter Fae, or, Tuatha, which seem to be the aggressors of the game.

Now, i’d like to start off with how I heard about this game. A month or two ago I seen a video about it with the designer Todd McFarlane (Creator of the awesome comic Spawn, as well as McFarlane toys) And he was talking about how he’s creating this unique special RPG with standout designs to really capture the imaginations of the fans of the genre as they’ve seen so many titles like this before blah blah…I watched the rest of the trailer, and to be honest, it all looked fairly average at best.

Being really honest, the only reason I even downloaded the demo was because I heard today that if you play the demo you get unlockable goodies for the soon to be released Mass Effect 3, which I am looking forward to very much. The actual demo of this game I couldn’t have cared less about.

After loading up the demo, you get lots of story cutscenes and the like, all quite lengthy. Normally I quite dig these things but today I was only in it for the DLC so I skipped it all as I really wasn’t interested. When you start the game you automatically get most of the DLC straight off, no real need to play the game right? Well I thought i’ve come this far, might as well see what it was all about.

My experience

You get a wee introductery cut scene before getting to do anything then it moves you on to the character creation screen. I’ve got to say it was not too bad. You get a fair few things to tinker around with, the usual stuff like face, hair, eyes, facial hair etc. But you also get things like facial piercings (Which really add to that tribal warrior look) and facial tattoos/war paint. In the end I ended up making a dude who looked a bit like Arnies Conan. (There is even a hair option that has the headband thing that Conan wore in the arena at the start of the film.)

After creating my hero I started running about exploring the tutorial bit. You start off in rags with no weapon. It was pretty standard affair, running about smashing crates and barrels to get slivers of coin, that was my first negative point, smashing barrels…in this day and age of gaming, really? Then not too far along I came into contact with a few invisible walls, another thing I hate in games, I think it’s just lazy programming in my opinion.

I’m not gonna lie I was tempted to turn it off about five to ten minutes in. But I kept going for some reason, I think mainly to see what different types of armour I could get throughout the demo as there was quite a few bits so far, and I love customisation in games. I kept on pushing through the tutorial bit where you’re in some kind of tower under siege by these goblin types, the Tuatha…anyway, the opening bit itself seemed an awful lot like the opening to some MMO’s out there, particularly Allods Online, just the whole kind of feel to it I guess. I pushed on anyways and got my guy kitted out with a nice wee suit of armour, I still had a really shit sword though. Along the way I had also picked up a pair of daggers, a bow and a staff that I could use to cast fire on things. By the time I was getting to the end of the tutorial bit I was kinda getting into using all the different weapon types available, picking guys off with the bow from a distance ans sneaking up to stealth kill with the daggers. I didn’t use the staff much except to burn my way through webs blocking my path. As you attain the weapons it tells you of the class suitable for using them (Staffs for mages, daggers for rogues etc, the usual) but there had been no option of choosing a class thus far, maybe there wasn’t any and you just get those tips as a point of reference for playstyles? Moving on and you get a wee boss at the end of the tutorial bit, it was really easy and a tad flawed it was one of those hit him into a corner and keep slapping him jobs, but when his health was down you get to do a cool finisher where you pull this crazy electric javelin out from somwhere and stab him with it.

Then you get to leave the tutorial bit and you’re out in an open area, which is very bright, very colourful, very different from the dark and dreary tower you just left. outside there are gnomes to speak with, who have really horrendous, although incredibly amusing, scottish accents, honestly they’re terrible, it’s the terrible kind of stereotypical scottish accent that an american actor would do, and it’s funny cause thats how americans think we talk, it’s all quite amusing. But getting back to the enviroment, I was quite taken aback by how it all struck me. K.o.A has a very nice art style but I will go into that more later on. The game still reminded me of an MMO just with the way the game felt. A little while exploring later and you come to a guy who says he deals in fates he tries to read yours and says he can’t see your fate, it’s here you get to pick your class wether you want to be a brawler, rogue or a mage further looking down the list showed many ways in which you could multi class too, so lots of options to choose from there. It was a neat little way to explain how you’re class (Read destiny apparently…) could keep changing thus you had no real fate in the world. A fight ensues here and it introduces the Reckoning mode, where you build up the fate bar and unleash all kinds of powerful attack on your foes. After this point a notice comes up informing you that you have got 45 minutes left to explore the game but the timer will, rather kindly, stop counting down when paused and while you’re speaking to people. which is quite cool, other demos don’t do that for you.

A little while on some more and you come to the first village there was a few things going on and a number of quests to get but I decided just to go for the one and wander about. I found the blacksmith, spent all my money on a big fuck off sword that swings really slowly, walked 3 feet opened a chest and got smithing materials, then used them to make a sword that was stronger, and faster, than the one I just spent all my money on…such is my luck at a new RPG. Moving on again and I solved a few quests, explored lots of caves and leveled up a few times all before my time expired and I unlocked the final thing for Mass Effect 3. I also forgot to mention as you continue playing the demo you also unlock cool items to use in the final game of K.o.A which is also very cool.

Graphics

The graphical style of K.o.A Is quite cool. It immediately struck me as being very similar to World of Warcraft in that it’s very brightly coloured and has that kind of big and bulky character design to it. Also it all seems a bit cartoony too, not unlike the first Fable, which is also no bad thing.

Combat

The combat is very basic, you can equip two weapons at a time (e.g. a sword and bow etc) and it’s very straightforward to begin with, with basic attacks and blocking/dodging but you get cooler moves/skills as you level up that you can map to various buttons then use while holding the right trigger. Again, just like the graphics, the fighting mechanic is very similar to the first Fable.

Overall feel

Overall, i’d say the game fails to deliver on it’s uniqueness that Todd McFarlane had said it was all about as, in my opinion, the game seems to borrow heavily from other games such as WoW and Fable, again though i’m not judging it for this as it throws alot of it’s own meat in there too. For a demo I couldn’t have asked for anything more, you get alot to play with and a fairly large amount of time to play it in, sampling lots of different quests weapons and armour. I didn’t encounter any more invisible walls which was great and the enviroment was huge and there was just so much to do in your little piece of the game with hidden items and other such things too. There was a few glitches in the demo, a few bits with severe texture pop up when you rotated the camera at certain angles (I took a screenshot of it below) and there was three or four instances where when speaking to a character there was no sound and it just skipped right through all the dialogue, like I actually seen the text just whizzing by, so for those that I spoke to I had no idea what had been said, and some of those were quest related too. So far the game is very flawed and I really do hope they manage to iron those little bugs out, as I actually, rather annoyingly, liked the demo very much in the end. You know when you really don’t want to like something as you have already come up with some kind of pre-judgement in your head? Well it was like that, but for me the game had so much charm it was just impossible not to like. It’s crazy how much the game feels just like Fable though, it’s actually unreal, you can decide for yourselves though if that a good or a bad thing, I personally am all in favour of it. I think it’s good that people are trying to emulate Fable as they are a fabulous series of games and there should be more like them out there. There are some screens below which I think capture the fable feel about it, but have a look for yourselves and see what you think.

So to sum up this incredibly lenghty preview, I think Kingdoms of Amalur:Reckoning is looking very good at the moment. I went into that demo with a bitter attitude only wanting to snatch up th M.E.3 goodies and ended up actually becoming a fan. There are a few bugs to work out which hopefully they improve upon, but otherwise i’m actually looking forward to this rather basic, but very charming little game.

^The texture pop up glitch I was talking about…^

^The ME3 DLC you get for downloading the demo, designed by Todd himself^

Thanks for reading. (Sorry it goes on forever)

                                                     —-RosscoGameFace—-

Tagged: gamesgamingpreviewsreviewskingdom of amalur rckoning