Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Preview
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Reckoning occupies a space somewhere between the Elder Scrolls games and Fable, leaning perhaps a little more towards the latter. The former's trademark open-ended adventuring has been artfully combined with Fable's fast-paced, action-gamer-friendly combat, full of acrobatic leaps, evasive rolls and special attacks. The opening sequence even culminates in a good old-fashioned boss battle, of the learn-the-pattern, exploit, rinse, repeat style.
In more ways than one, in fact, Reckoning is steadfastly traditional. The setting is high fantasy, in essence, with a spiritual tint, but peopled by familiar friends and foes: the Dokkalfar and Ljosalfar races are elves by any other name, and the gnomes and kobolds haven't even been rechristened. Not that I'm complaining: with elves that sound like Icelandic volcanos I'd argue sticking to "gnome" is probably a step in the right direction.
In its story too, Reckoning looks to be a fairly standard hero's saga: you begin the game dead, only to awake in a pile of corpses, having somehow been returned to life by the influence of a gnome's green fountain not a euphemism. Naturally, before you can ask all the obvious questions, the fountain is attacked by an army of fiends. Unperturbed, you hoist a sword that some idiot has left lying about and carve a path through your foes to daylight, where some wise old guy who will probably die in a bit informs you you are now the Fateless One a hero who has cast off the bonds of destiny, and holds the power to shape the future of the world. So far, so literally any RPG .
