It is the question that drives us...
Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67 GHz
6 Gb RAM
eVga GTX 550 Ti with 1Gb of Memory
X360 Controller for PC (definitely is needed for this game)
I've never really explored with the Elder Scrolls games much. The combat in them really left me wanting more and I just couldn't understand the story in them that well. I don't knock those enthusiasts though because it has brought some amazing graphics to the Western RPG games. Point of fact is this game.
The first few areas took some time for me to understand which kind of character I wanted. I started out with a rogue/ warrior build because it seemed to be the play style that I thought I would like the most. I put most of my points into the rogue build to start with and was amazed at the fluidity of the combat within that. Some of the mechanics are definitely a miss until you figure out the workarounds. The most major bug that I had was that the game would crash every time I would change the active quest. Finally after browsing the forums quite a bit I stumbled on how KoA: R is made to work with just two cores and once I fixed that (affinity set for Core 0 and 1 in properties) I have had no issues whatsoever with the game crashing. Just this morning I noticed that there was an update so hopefully that is fixed properly now.
It seems that a lot of people are having a hard time embracing the storyline within the game. It takes quite awhile until you start to get a glimpse exactly who your character is. Yes, you have your standard kill these creatures, destroy those boxes, and save the fae creature from dying. What I have a feeling (still too new to know exactly how this ends) is that the starter quests and especially your decisions will play a much larger impact later on in the game. For instance, I know from the forum community that saving the Fae creature opens up the ability to go to the hidden Fae city later in the game. Also, without giving too much of a spoiler, your reckoning plays a HUGE part of the story in that you actually change with other people's fates. The best thing that I can say about the game is that (borrowing from a famous movie involving the Wachowski brothers :P) "It is the question that drives us..." For me, that question is who is my character and why do I have this ability.
In terms of the abilities of your character, there are a lot of things which a person can do. I have spent time gathering herbs, lockpicking, dispelling (which can be annoying but never put too many points in it yet), finding hidden stuff (a MUST HAVE now that I've seen what it can do), armor crafting/ salvaging, messing with jewels for weapon sockets, and those are the first few ones that really seem to play a major part of the experience.
You can choose different factions depending on the type of character you want to play as (Travelers for Rogues, Warsworn for Fighters, a school (haven't found that yet) for Mages, and there are a total of 5 with a promise of a 6th later on from the developers. So any quests with Factions are listed separately.
Next, you have standard quests for areas such as this land where the town is being besieged by spiders and they ask you to help them to stop their oppression leading to a fight with the queen of the spiders. Another is a town fighting plague carrying boggarts since their cave was overran with these huge lumbering beasts called ettin. There is even a nice storyline with why those boggarts were "evicted" from their cave which was a fun fight.
Next you have tasks which are simple money missions and a way to explore the area more indepth.
Finally, and this is where the real storyline plays a major part, is the main quest. Some of the really surprising twists about your character come from that and I am meeting some more interesting characters finally. It takes awhile to start to get into the meat of the story and it starts when you find a fateweaver dead in his cottage. A woman that was there intrigued me when she said that she knows me. Despite the main fateweaver character you meet after leaving the well of souls who seems to be a mess (I believe that he turned into an alcoholic who couldn't deal with seeing people's deaths every time that he gave them their fate), she seems to have a much better understanding of your purpose in being "reborn." As I progress in this game it is the story and definitely the combat which has made this such a memorable game.
I did not give this game a 10 mainly due to the technical problems and glitches I've experienced in the game. Obviously, the game crashing when I first started playing it really upset me. Next, I've noticed some glitches in the character creation screen with rotating the character with the 360 controller. Thankfully, I am able to use my mouse but it is a glitch nonetheless. Finally, when I fight within a narrow area I can't see what I am attacking at times so I have to move into a wider area to properly view the action/ monsters I am fighting. Overall, though, the experience and the story in this game is truly building (as any role playing game is supposed to) and the fighting makes this a wonderful game to play. While I am only at the relatively beginning of the game (level 10-11 out of a possible 40) the question of who my character is and what controlling fate in this world means will make me continue to explore Amalur in all its glory.