Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Previews
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VideoGamer:
Thankfully the demo soon shows hints of living up to its pedigree. The plot kicks off with you waking up in a mortuary (Planescape: Torment, anyone?), returning to life atop a pile of discarded corpses. As a member of the recently-deceased you're the only person in the world without a Destiny, a situation that allows you to start afresh as a clean slate. There's a choice of four races to pick from two human, two elven while an Elder Scrolls-style set of sliders allows you to tweak your appearance in pedantic detail. Shortly into your quest to solve the mystery behind your resurrection, you'll also get to choose your class: Warrior, Mage and Rogue. And as common as these archetypes may be, their implementation brings a smattering of new ideas to the party.
In short, Kingdoms of Amalur takes a step back from the traditional limitations of its well-worn classes. The Mage can mix things up on the melee front, battering foes with his staff, and absolutely everyone can use magic via enchanted jewels that fit into slots on your weapons. Bung a Gem of Combustion onto your sword, and suddenly your blade will gain the power to set people on fire. There are three tech trees associated with each of the combat styles - Might, Sorcery and Finesse - but as there's no obligation to rigidly stick to them, there's plenty of opportunity to create your own hybrid warriors. Whereas most RPGs force players to stick to the strengths of their class, here it seems that everyone has a wide range of strategic options for a given situation. For example, a large slug-like enemy has a habit of spawning several minions to aid in its defence. When confronting this critter, the Mage might bog down these helpers an area-of-effect spell - a fairly traditional attack. The Rogue, on the other hand, might use a smoke bomb to render himself invisible, pick off the powerless assistants, and then strike at the summoner's back.
Strategy Informer:
What RPG, even an action RPG, would be complete without character customization? Players have a choice between four races (two human, and two eleven, apparently), and along with the usual facial customization, you can even choose your own patron God, which gives its own bonuses. That's it from the front-end, the rest - such as your character's '˜class' naturally evolves as the game progresses, so there's no set archetypes. This actually ties in somewhat with the game's lore and story - as someone who starts the game dead, you lack a set '˜destiny' that everyone else has. As such, depending on which of the three skill trees you spend your points, you can create any combination of '˜destiny' (read: class) to a highly personalised character.
Considering the game engine being used was last seen in the likes of Catan and Rise of Nations, it's rather impressive to see how the company's proprietary 'BigHugeEngine' has come a long. They hope to dazzle us with a wide range of high-quality locations and assets, and we're told there's a lot of visual content in the game that helps bring it to life and to create a world that'll make you want to protect it. Big words, and whilst it certainly looks impressive, what we've seen isn't necessarily striking in any particular way - but with plenty of time to go, perhaps that will be improved.
And IncGamers:
The standard stat-heavy RPG staples of item crafting, blacksmithing and looting are present and correct. A Diablo-esque randomised loot generation system is in place in an attempt to keep things fresh and varied between playthroughs and, presumably, to give you and your friends something to compare and discuss.
An emphasis seems to have been placed on these sorts of '˜organic' systems throughout the game; picked flowers grow back over time, NPCs react differently to your presence depending on your status and achievements in the world and a day/night cycle impacts quests and inhabited locations.
