Reviewed On: Xbox 360
Available For: PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: 38 Studios and Big Huge Games
Genre: Role-Playing Game
Age: 15 (BBFC)
If Fable and Elder Scrolls shared a night of passion – Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning could be the result. It’s a borrowing of ideas from both series, a lovechild of gameplay, visuals and general semblance.
A third-person role-playing game, Reckoning is as grand in ambition as it is in size. An epic adventure that sees your character freed from the clutches of death, and set fourth on a journey to help bring peace and prosperity to the Faelands.
As with many role-playing games, the initial task is to create your own character, and here, the options don’t fall short. With four races and a bunch of aesthetic attributes to play about with, there’s no shortage of customisation options.
Combat will be instantly familiar to fans of action role-playing games, although Reckoning has one of the biggest move lists I’ve encountered for a game of its type. There’s a lot to get your head round, especially with the inclusion of the need to mimic on-screen button presses.
Levelling-up your character doesn’t come easy or often. A hard slog is usually required, with experience being earned not just from the fighting of trolls, murghans and other vile creatures, but from discovering places, picking locks, spell warding and almost all other activities.
Experience points can not just be allocated to skills, but can also be reallocated for a fee. This means that if you decide to change your fighting style, you can. If you’re fed up with being a knuckle-headed brawler, fear not, you can change yourself to a more studious mage or a fast-paced rogue.
The system also caters for a mixture of styles.
As well as having the capacity to use two weapons as well as magic, a ‘destiny’ system provides status boosts for certain attributes as well as a whole new skill tree.
A role-playing game with a heap of potential and a bundle of quests, the missions can lead in any direction and at any pace. With a huge amount of main quests available, along with sidequests and faction quests, there’s a mass of things to throw yourself into and a wealth of locale to be seen.
Blacksmithing and alchemy play a large part in the struggle for survival, as does dialogue choice. Chatting with people in the right manor can lead to all kinds of spoils and missions.
Like a slow cooker on low – Reckoning takes a few hours to get warmed up. Going from linear storyline straight into a massive open world can be amazing but daunting. It’s the exploration that really is the key element to Reckoning.
Faelands is a beautiful and huge place. It’s not your usual bunch of corridors and pathways to walk through; instead it’s massive open areas that work as hubs to labyrinths and mazes. There’s very few other worlds I’d like to wallow away my time in.
SCORE: 8 / 10
PROS: A myriad of missions, open-world gameplay.
CONS:Take's a while to get warmed up.
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