Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Video Review

This is a seriously addictive game.  It should have had a higher rating and romantic interests.  I'm looking for games with adult situations which would make the game more interesting.  However, the combat system is great.  Highly recommend it.

Warning, this game may cause serious addiction.

@Humorguy_basic Games aren't called "action-rpg" just because they have combat, obviously. All of these games have combat systems. It's the "style" of said system that makes the difference. "Action-RPGs" are, at heart, action-based. You actively swing a melee weapon or shoot a missile one in real time, while moving, dodging, etc. From Diablo to Elder Scrolls, and now, apparently, Kingdoms of Amalur are examples of these, and they tend to be the most popular nowadays. Regular "RPGs" (or sometimes called "traditional" or "pure RPG") follow the original method that was born back when Dungeons & Dragons was popular, like, turn-based combat, full character creation (as opposed to pre-generated characters), and ability to go solo or in a party when tackling any quest. The original Fallout or Baldur's Gate are good examples of these. "Strategy-RPGs" are pure turn-based combat, with most of the other RPG elements thrown out the window. Characters are usually pre-generated, and the story develops with hardly any input from the player (so, mostly cutscenes, and the occasional multiple path choice). Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem or Record of Agarest War come to mind. Hope that helps.

I agree that the story and side quests were rather poor, but the combat kept me going.

KoA:R = best game since either red dead redemption or borderlands: game of the year edition. flat out awesome game.

Gamespot wtf is wrong with your reviews? You used to be the best site for reviewing games, but now your just too harsh on all the games. You jugde the games based on hype and popularity(take CoD for example). This is a great game that should easily get the same score as skyrim. Sure skyrim has better graphics than Reckoning, but Skyrim's gameplay quickly gets boring as hell.

It wasnt that bad. But the story could have been better..

@Warningx13 indeed the game had many strong points, nice combat and really satisfying quests were part of it,but the game had also 2 main negatives...the first one is the bad to decent graphics,which personally its the last thing i care,but some people give a huge basis on that and second was the repeatitive encounters you had in the game as far as monsters are concerned which really made me feel uninterested....You travel from woods,to deserts,lakes and mountains yet every area has almost the same monsters with just upgraded stats...it felt really lame for me at least

Sounds amazing to me even with the review sounding not so hot, but its strong points really call to me so I'm gonna have to get this for sure.

still on the fence.

8.2/10 for me. I'm 30 hours in and the pluses for me are the fantastic and grand feel of the environment, interesting and rich art style, and combat. I am also enjoying the story, love the stealth element, and very much enjoy the character development. 90% of the side quests are redundant (the other 10% are quite interesting), however, so that's a minus (though still great and mindless fun), and I have the difficulty ramped up to hard because combat was getting too easy on normal. All in all exactly what I was looking for in a game. Something I could play for a couple hours and provided simple fun and entertainment without becoming way too addicting. I need to have a life after all, not like what Dark Souls did to me!

The world is so F***** gorgeous and has a fresh variety of different hand crafted areas, the review straight up lies, Lamespot.

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Terrible review. I just finished the game and can say I enjoyed everything about it. Doing quests, faction quests and the main story line. All the locations and art design look stunning. Also the combat system makes you feel like an actual warrior

For the first time in my life, I am disagreeing with gamespot's review and agreeing with IGNS. 7.5, really?! This game deserves AT LEAST a 8.0..

@Shahnil "Jesus I never understand Game spots ratings and pretty much just given up. The review Sounds nothing like the actual rating given." I'll try and help you understand. Unlike IGN and other like minded game reviewers the score system is more balanced. So the ratings don't equate to: 10=Great 9=Good 8 and below=poor. Instead it utilises the full spectrum of numbers available so it's more like: 9=Amazing 8=Great 7=Good And so on. So as we can see this review is very good but not quite great, a fair description of the game. If all games get the same score 9+ then numeric scoring becomes insignificant. Try not to get upset if scores don't match your personal expectations, and don't rely too heavily on subjective opinions.

I dont understand the blocking system in this..A shield appearing from nowhere and you sheathe weapon to block with bare hands if u dont have a shield equipped ? lame thing

Jesus I never understand Game spots ratings and pretty much just given up. The review Sounds nothing like the actual rating given.

Is the PC version's interface usable? Or is it a wreck like Skyrim was?

One of the best RPG's ever in my opinion. It can easily compete with Skyrim in my books!

Furthermore, I would suggest Kevin has been a bit harsh in his judgement of this game, specially his "vanilla" comments and quest related negativity. I think the game has a distinct look and "feel", and the quests aren't any more generic than Skyrim or any other RPG on the market. Add to that the fact that this game is practically bug free, freeze free, and runs super smooth during combat - so why the 7.5??? Not a bad score mind you, but 8.5-9 is closer to reality for me.

@spexwood - GET IT! It's nothing like The Elder Scrolls Series - nothing. Great combat, powerful weapons and abilities and a flipping ton of loot. Personally I really like the visuals. I suppose it's a bit Fable/WoW visually, only much better. It reminds me of Divinity II in it's RPG elements and combat style, with a bit of Darksiders thrown in, but - again - much better. As for the story, it's just fine. I'm only 11 hours in, but have enjoyed most of the quests. This is the most fun I've had with an RPG for a while, and I loved Skyrim.

My only complaint about the game is that there is so much loot that you get full quick and often have to destroy items to loot more unless you feel like going to sell, salvage, bank it in you house in the middle of a quest. I realize that I am a hoarder and need to not even pick most of it up but I cant help myself lol. The game is fun and rocks. I can hold 90 things now and soon 120 so the being full is getting better as I buy backpacks

crapy rpg for people who don't want to play a rpg bit like fable aimed at 10 year olds who want to push 2 buttons to win ..

That's what I'm talking about for Skyrim. The combats in Skyrim are so bad and unrealistic (you swing the air, and somehow the enemy gets hit??!) that I don't understand all the hype around it.

wtf with the review?

Wait... there isn't a storyline? (besides the whole, "you're dead" thing) I was looking at getting this after toying around with the demo for a bit, but if it lacks a story, then maybe not. I like games with good storylines and thought that because I was playing the demo, they just were not revealing everything to me yet storywise. It's fun to do quests, customize your character, and beat up on baddies, but I personally like to do all that while involved in some sort of story. I am also starting to wonder if I will enjoy this after they mentioned its similarity to World of Warcraft and Elder Scrolls... I don't find those games enjoyable :( (well, I do for a couple of hours... I get bored of them REAL fast for some reason) Based on all that... does anyone think I will like this game? (I know its a hard question to answer, so forgive me)

GameSpot's scores don't ever really seem to reflect what's said in the reviews...

KoA:R is the best game that I have played since RDR. Finally a game that is actually fun and exciting!

it is one of the best games i have played,totally fun it delivers what they showed in the trailers not like most games do , it deserved at least 8.5 in my opinion i would give it 9.0

Warning, game may cause erections lasting longer than 4 hours.

The camera is weird at first, but once you play the game for a few hours you learn how to move around and it becomes unnoticeable. The fact that a game was released with an awesome amount of playtime deserves over 7.5. Not to mention, it's fun.

i dig it , and that's all that matters . party on!

Sorry @Kevin-V, that was rude of me, everybody has their opinions, but yeah, I was right, everybody likes Reckoning despite the low score.

I found this game more immersive than Skyrim, mind you I turned off all those compass points on the map and didn't fast travel! So I explored instead and found so many cool places and cool NPC's and cool monsters and cool loot!

When every RPG has combat, why is it, that since Mass Effect was called an "Action-RPG", every RPG is now called an "Action-RPG too? What has this or Skyrim have to do with Mass Effect? You might as well start calling "First person Shooters", "First person First person Shooters"!

Bad show. This game wasn't amazing but 7.5? That's a bit ridiculous. Especially considering this guy has given better scores to some games that were lacking much more... *cough*darksouls*cough*.

@WhiteTigerXL225 said: @XanderZane I played this game Day 1. What I got was a game trying badly to ripoff Dragon Age 2, Fable, and ride Salvatores generic fantasy writing to fame (You do not need 3 constanants together to make an old name) As an RPG, this game fails. There is no Role you can choose to play, all the decisions are just copy pasted (Be Rude, Be Nice, Be Meh) that take no thought to write. If this game dropped most of the "RPG" Elements (Stats do not define an RPG) and went straight out Action Genre, I bet you GS would have given it a higher score. Also, the game is piss easy, never died once my first time on Hard. Go Magic, win. ************************************ Well, opinions vary my friend. One mans crap is another man's treasure. Remember that. Gamespot doesn't know how to review games, which is why many gamers have questioned their scores. A 10 for MGS IV & GTA IV? Demon's Souls GoTY over Uncharted 2? lol!! Are you kidding? At least their score of KoA:R wasn't that far off. Not like their 7.5 Zelda: SS score. Yikes, that must have been embarrassing when it has a 93% on Metacritics. So you can side with Gamespot if you like, but their ratings are rarely accurate to the masses. Yes, KoA:R is somewhat similar to DA & Fable is some ways, but the story is different. Characters, weapons, magic, land, skills map, etc.. are all different. The game is still very fun and a bit easy for hardcore gamers. It's still better then a 7.5 in my eye.

Is this game hard, I prefer challenging games and the video makes it seem like its easy.

Everybody hating over GameSpot.com's good reviewers, like Kevin here, do you want an intelligent review or do you want some bull@#$%?

@XanderZane KoA:R got a perfect score and a 9 on the only 2 sites that matter. Joystiq and IGN

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First off having played Skyrim for months and this game for days now I can say that the points brought up in the review are not really there. 1st off they're Characters I do care about however there are many I dont give a rats as for either, But this is also the case with Skyrim, I only really cared bout Lydia for a major portion of the game. Some side quests are Meh but most in Skyrim are also Meh. Combat IS quite easy indeed and if u hav a single action bone in ur body u'll probly be unstoppable. I must agree with WhiteTigerXL225 in that the game feels more like an interactive Action game with RPG elements than a true RPG and I've not come across any world changing choices thus far. Honestly this game deserves an 8 not a 7.5 but its down to my opinion. This is a great game deserves a "8-Great" score and as for fun its top notch

@XanderZane Yes, see, Gamestop doesn't suck the proverbial EPeen of rich developers. I played this game Day 1. What I got was a game trying badly to ripoff Dragon Age 2, Fable, and ride Salvatores generic fantasy writing to fame (You do not need 3 constanants together to make an old name) As an RPG, this game fails. There is no Role you can choose to play, all the decisions are just copy pasted (Be Rude, Be Nice, Be Meh) that take no thought to write. If this game dropped most of the "RPG" Elements (Stats do not define an RPG) and went straight out Action Genre, I bet you GS would have given it a higher score. Also, the game is piss easy, never died once my first time on Hard. Go Magic, win.

Ugh... talent trees, personally I prefer when you can just choose new moves when you level up.

@hXcShock an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.

Kevin, you have committed a serious crime against gamers everywhere! -Bribe ( 40%) -Persuade ( 2%) -Change the score(100%) -Run

@buccomatic Well if you think about it, ME1 was basically a thriller while ME2 was a heist story about recruiting badasses. ME3 is a war story so they might thought less color meant more serious, kinda like what apocalypse games/movies do.

The game is great for me. Definitely a 8.0-8.5 score. I haven't completed the game yet, but it's definitely better then a 7.5 to me. Seems most reviewers agree. [url]http://www.gamerankings.com/xbox360/991144-kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning/index.html[/url] [url]http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning/critic-reviews[/url] It's always funny to see Gamespot have the lowest score of the bunch. It is their opinion and no gamer has to agree with it.