Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

This review has taken a while to get to, as I originally planned to write it about 3 weeks ago. I just didn't feel right about posting a review of a game that I didn't sink as much time as I deemed necessary into it. So, here I am, after a considerable number of hours, ready to tell you what I thought of this title.

STORY
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning takes place in the Faelands, one of the Kingdoms of Amalur, as it is caught in the grip of war between the mortal races of Amalur, and a renegade sect of the immortal Fae, known as the Tuatha. Your character wakes up in the "Well of Souls" after a minor case of death only to discover that, in this world where everyone's fate is written, you are now free to choose your destiny.

The main questline is essentially there to explain why your character has no set fate, and how that affects both the world in which they live, and their particular skillsets etc (more on that later).
Overall, the narrative structure is something quite similar to The Elder Scrolls games, in that the main quests are but one aspect of a game that can be thoroughly enjoyed without touching them (past the tutorial stage, of course). I mean, you ARE Fateless, so you can do whatever the hell you want, in theory.

PRESENTATION
KoA: Reckoning has a very distinguishable visual style, that feels like a mixture of a few different fantasy games, but also works as it's own style. The world map feels large and epic like the Elder Scrolls games, but the actual usable areas are somewhat restricted, and feel like the fable games. The vibrant colours, and somewhat cartoonish people and creatures certainly help keep KOA very memorable, and while not the slickest graphics in the market, they do the trick.

The voice acting is generally pretty good, with lines upon lines of story related dialogue, as well as unrelated history, is almost always kept interesting by the varied voice actors. And I have to say, not one voice seemed out of place for a particular character. On the downside, the lip syncing ranges from acceptable to awful. That said, however, it doesn't really leave that much of a bad impression.

The soundtrack consists of your typical "epic" fantasy orchestral arrangements, and theres really not a whole lot to talk about. Other games have done it better, but Kingdoms of Amalur does it well enough.

GAMEPLAY
The meat of KoA: Reckoning is most certainly it's gameplay, which does what most other RPG's fail to. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning provides a deep and intuitive upgrade system with high quality action combat, the likes of which would normally be restricted to action games such as God of War or Darksiders.

While the combat isn't quite as complex as God of War, the mechanics are surprisingly deep, considering you have 2 buttons for attacks (1 for each equipped weapon), a dodge button, a block button, and 4 powers used via a simple, customizable shortcut.
Many of the advanced combos are achieved by pausing between attacks, or holding the attack buttons longer, and it's quite enjoyable having such a basic combat system that can become quite deep.

There are 3 separate class trees of the standard mage, warrior and rogue fare; but KoA's Fateless premise allows for some mixing and matching. As points go to the different skill trees, fate cards open up, allowing certain class specific bonuses. If players were to choose from different skill trees, mixed fate cards open up, even the 3 class "Jack-of-all-trades" card, if you're feeling up to it.
It's nice to see an RPG that doesn't shoehorn you into a role before you have a chance to play it.

Aside from going places, killing things, and talking to NPC's, there isn't a whole lot to KOA's gameplay. Nevertheless, it certainly leaves an impression, in the already crowded Fantasy RPG market of recent years.

My one biggest complaint, is that while the world seems big and epic, there really isn't that much freedom. While the gameplay is very good, a jump button would have been welcome, as would a deletion of all invisible walls.

REPLAYABILITY
The large variety of weapons, class abilities and play styles should be more than enough reason for most players to keep coming back to the Faelands. And if that's not reason enough, the quests (main, faction and side variety) all have intriguing stories, and many of them delve into the rich history of Amalur and it's races. The story doesn't change much, as far as i can tell (concerning multiple playthroughs), so gameplay changes would be your biggest selling point for a second play-through.

OVERVIEW
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is an Action RPG with a simple, yet deep combat system, a vibrant and varied landscape, and a very colourful visual style. It's main story is a good enough way of explaining the world, and why your character is important, but it's just as easy to ignore it, and play how you want. Is it worth a full price purchase? I think so. While it may not have the freedom of Skyrim, it has a charm all of it's own, and the world is just too interesting to completely pass over.

That's another game down, and I'm not sure what I'll be doing this week. Perhaps the downloadable game "I Am Alive"? I'll try to let you guys know before then. See you next week!

Mass Effect 3

There's a lot to cover on this one, so I'm just going to get straight into it. I just want to say, however, if you're looking at playing this game, don't listen to any particularly negative comments about one particular part of the game. While a lot of the arguments surrounding the ending are valid, they don't "ruin" the game, or the series.

STORY
Mass Effect 3 continues the story of Commander Shepard as he/she fights across the known universe in an attempt to avert the inevitable galactic extermination by the cold, synthetic hands (or tentacle things)of the Reapers, a race of sentient warships programmed to eradicate all highly evolved races every 10 millenia.
To save everyone, Shepard must recruit as many allies as he can, in the form of singular squad members, and the war assets of every alien nation that he/she can possibly get.

The story of Mass Effect 3 has been set up for two full games and the execution is near perfect. The hopelessness of the galaxy's situation is well established, even in the first scenes, as we see Skyscraper tall Reapers bare down on Earth, killing soldiers and civilians alike.
The characters have always been a high point of any Bioware game, and Mass Effect 3 is no different. Recurring faces, such as Tali and Garrus are as lovable as usual, while new characters like James Vega and Steve Cortez are certainly easy to warm up to, despite the muscle-bound jock look of Vega. And the characters who are meant to be the antagonists are the the sort of characters that we love to hate.

PRESENTATION
Mass Effect 2 already looked fantastic, so to say that the 3rd installment looks even better is certainly something. The engine change makes animations seem so much more lively, and everything has a nice crisp look. The colours are almost always bright and vibrant. One complaint I do have, is that there always seems to be a lens flare on screen.

The soundtrack is a mix between high bass techno (often found in the clubs) and some orchestral tracks, which create a nice contrast, as well as set the tone of each environment quite well. For instance, the music whilst on the galaxy map has a very mellow, spacey quality to it.

Last, but certainly not least, the voice acting is amazing. Big name actors like Martin Sheen and Freddy Prinze Jr provide their talents to the game, as well as IGN's Jessica Chobot and video game mainstay Jennifer Hale. I can't think of any main or recurring characters that had sub par voice acting.

I must say, one of my only concerns with the presentation is the recurring problem of the Bioware face. That blank expression that characters hold in between lines. But this has been going on since before I can remember, so no amount of nitpicking will fix it.

GAMEPLAY
At it's core, Mass Effect 3 is two things: A third person shooter, and a Role-Playing game. And alone, these two aspects are really quite enjoyable. Together, they make one of the most compelling experiences in gaming today.

The cover based shooting works as well as any other game involving the basic mechanics, though doesn't excel at anything in particular. I like how easy movement between cover is, and the shooting feels different depending on your current loadout, adding variety to the way you can play. The basic squad movement commands you can perform work well enough, though are entirely unnecessary, but being able to control when they switch weapons or use special abilities adds another layer to the barebones cover based shooting.

Also spicing up the cover-hidey, shootey fun are the RPG elements. These usually manifest as upgrades and special tech or biotic abilities, adding to the strategy behind most gun-fights. The RPG side to it also provides the player with a lot of story decisions, normally giving Shepard a good (Paragon) or bad (renegade) way of dealing with situations. These can deviate the story along different paths, adding to the variety of each playthrough.

A new addition to the Mass Effect 3 is the Galactic Readiness mechanic, which gauges how ready your allies are, and the percentage directly affects your usable war assets. War assets are acquired through story missions, and are key to winning the reaper war.

While the gameplay of Mass Effect 3 is pretty awesome, as I said earlier, the core mechanics (3rd person shooting) don't match up to the best in the field (Gears of War/Uncharted). They are solid, however, and combined with the stellar storytelling and RPG additions, it makes for a unique experience.

REPLAYABILITY
As with the other Mass Effect games, it's entirely possible to play the game twice and not do any missions the same way twice. It's somewhat gratifying to do a paragon run and save as many people as possible, and then play again as a total selfish dick. Plus it lets you play around with different powers.
Aside from that, there's a new multiplayer addition, where players cooperate with each other to survive a horde-mode style game. It works well and ties in with the galactic readiness meter, which directly affects the outcome of the Reaper war. It's surprisingly fun, considering you miss out on all the story aspects.

OVERVIEW
Mass Effect 3 is a game that takes fantastic storytelling, characters we care about, and a believable world, and add in solid gunplay and intriguing RPG elements, and come out with a huge success. If you've played the previous games, Mass Effect 3 will please you until the dying moments of the game. To sum it up, ME3 is a huge fan service on Bioware's part; with it being improved upon in almost every way you can think of. There are massive highs and lows, and the game is genuinely epic.

And then it ends. But I'm not here to comment on that. Just know that 99.9% of the game is brilliant.

So next week, definitely Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. I promise. See you next week!

Catherine

I seem to be getting later and later with these, but I've been really quite busy lately. Strange I know, but the point is: I managed to drag myself away from Mass Effect 3 long enough to type a coherent page. I recently played Catherine (which was released overseas last year), a pure puzzle game. And it's strange to see a pure puzzle game have such lastability. But is it also fun to play? Find out now!

STORY
Catherine follows a week in the life of Vincent Brooks, a middle aged man with a fear of commitment. This happens to be a big week, as his long time girlfriend, Katherine, starts hinting at wanting a marriage, as well as some other life changing events that could be around the corner for Vincent. As he drowns his sorrows at the bar one night, Vincent is cornered by an attractive, promiscuous girl named Catherine, and Vincent's inner turmoil begins as he tries to figure out what is important in his life, and where his morals lie. These struggles all manifest themselves as nightmares about falling.

To make matters worse, there are also alot of mysterious, cheating related deaths happening at the same time.

Catherine is a game with a surprising story; not many games can base a story on a man's relationship and have it work so well. Sure there's a side story about mysterious deaths, but the main focus is Vincent's inner turmoil, trying to figure out if he wants to stay with Katherine and live a consistent life, or stay with Catherine and live a life of chaotic freedom. The characters that Vincent meets each night before his dreams are mostly quite likable, and Vincent himself has a quite goofy charm.

PRESENTATION
The most striking feature of Catherine is most certainly the cell shaded graphics during the gameplay and in-game cutscenes. At other times, the game uses anime style animation cutscenes, and these not only look great, they look very distinct compared to other game cinematics.

The music is suitably frantic during the nightmare puzzles, contrasting with the games downtime in the bar, The Stray Sheep, which has soft jazz music. It's a good way to change the feeling the player gets when play through either section.
The voice acting is also pretty good, with none of the characters being particularly boring or over the top. Most NPC's hit the sweet spot.

GAMEPLAY
This is where Catherine really shines, as we've seen few games that function the same way. Catherine's main gameplay feature are the block puzzles that Vincent encounters in his nighlty horrors. Each nightmare requires Vincent to climb an impossibly tall tower of blocks, by way of shifting and stacking the blocks in the proper form.

This mechanic is surprisingly deep, as moving a block isn't as simple as it sounds. Blocks can be pulled so long as there's a space for Vincent to stand, and multiple blocks can be PUSHED at the same time. Impossible staircases can be created using the principle of edge connecting where, so long as the edge of two blocks is touching, gravity does not apply normally.

As Vincent climbs ever higher, new kinds of blocks are added to the mixture. Ice blocks force you to slow down and plan your climb better, while bomb blocks may force you to climb faster, away from the blast. It's difficult to imagine a game with such a basic premise with some much variety, but I honestly found it to be quite entertaining from start to end.

To top it off, there are boss levels, where Vincent not only has to climb, but he has to out-climb a monstrous creature that embodies his current fears. This is where the player really has to think, and use all the techniques they learn up until that point.

And before I forget, you'll often see sheep climbing the towers. These sheep are the representation of other people having the same dream as Vincent. These men can also be interacted with in the bar, during Vincent's down time. Just a sort of side thing I'd like to mention.

REPLAYABILITY
I've been told there are actually multiple endings to Catherine, which would explain the use of a morality meter, but that's not the best reason to play Catherine over and over again. No, the best reason to play Catherine over and over is to keep yourself on your toes. The block puzzles are some of the most challenging tests that I've seen in a game, and while some of them verge on infuriating, when they get beaten, you get an immense sense of accomplishment.

OVERVIEW
In summary, Catherine is a damn good game. I easily spent over 15 hours playing Catherine, and while a lot of those hours were spent tearing my hair out, the sense of accomplishment you get from beating a difficult puzzle is entirely worth it. The story is interesting (and different), while the presentation is really different to the rest of the games industry, it may not appeal to many gamers. It almost requires a previous appreciation of anime and the culture surrounding it.

Next week, definitely reviewing Mass Effect 3. Trust me, however, it's AWESOME. If you can't wait a week, take this as my summarised review. Mass Effect 3 is the fitting end to an epic trilogy. Like the other games? You'll love this one too. See you next week!

Asura's Wrath

While working my way through the unbelievably thick RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur, I got sidetracked by alot of other games. One of which was Asura's Wrath, a game that, after finishing it, I had severely mixed emotions about. Read on, and I'll explain why.

STORY
The narrative of Asura's Wrath follows Asura, an ex-guardian general in this worlds army of demi-gods. The world is infected by a destructive force known as the Gohma, and the world's Demi-Gods take it upon themselves to save Gaea (the earth) and it's inhabitants by going to war with this evil force. After a huge battle, the victorious Asura is betrayed by his fellow Guardian Generals, and thrown from the heavens to his supposed death.

He awakens twelve thousand years later, only to find that the 7 Guardian Generals that betrayed him, have now appointed themselves as the 7 Deities. Fueling Asura's lasting rage is the knowledge that his daughter is the source of their powers.

The game is a huge departure from the current gaming landscape: no space marines or military soldiers, instead we have a story where Chinese mythology and sci-fi collide in an insane, bombastic adventure of betrayal and wrath. It's worth a look, if only for it's completely out there story.

PRESENTATION
Asura's Wrath is a beautifully colourful game, with a lot going on on-screen at any given time. Fan's of anime show's such as Dragonball will probably appreciate the colour and speed of everything, and the crisp graphics certainly don't hinder the game.
The game's music is suitably epic, fitting for a tale of a fallen god seeking vengeance. The voice acting is also very reminiscent of an anime, with some truly absurd, over-the-top characters with voices that reflect these qualities.

The actual Presentation of Asura's Wrath is much the same as an anime, say for instance, Dragonball. At the end of each chapter is a sneak peak of the next, and at the start of each chapter. This gets somewhat annoying when you play all the way through, as the narrations start repeating information over and over. Maybe this would have worked better for an episodic downloadable title.

GAMEPLAY
This is where my enjoyment of Asura's Wrath hit's a little bit of a wall. The main gameplay sections of AW are 3rd person beat-em-up (i.e. Bayonetta, GoW) or bullet hell shooters, which work fine as they are. The fighting mechanics aren't particularly deep, but they have the effect of making Asura feel like a godly badass. He also wreaks havoc across the battlefield while the player control's his deity blasts, tearing through opponents.

The problem, however, is that while these sections are somewhat fun, that's all the gameplay there is to Asura's Wrath; unless you count constant quick time events that don't really affect all that much anyway. The interactive sections of the game come in either gameplay sections mentioned above, or button presses during cutscenes. While I enjoy the cutscenes, AND the story they convey, the lack of variety or contrast in the actual GAME really get to me, and taint an otherwise enjoyable experience.

To summarise, I think the game, Asura's Wrath, would be better with more or less actual GAMEPLAY. With less gameplay, I believe Asura's Wrath would have worked well as an anime mini-series. With more AND more varied gameplay, I believe Asura's Wrath has the potential to be a God of War with a Chinese/sci-fi spin. Which would be awesome. As it is, it doesn't hit the mark.

REPLAYABILITY
I honestly don't think Asura's Wrath holds much replay value for many gamers. Yes, the story is entertaining, and the cinematics are colourful and really out-there, but it'd be just like watching a movie over and over again. Nothing you do will change anything, there are no different approaches, and theres almost no point at all.

OVERVIEW
I'm fairly confident that I'd be saving you all a decent amount of money if I said DO NOT BUY this game. As enjoyable as it is, it's just too short without enough variety to warrant spending a large sum of money on. I would, however, suggest renting or borrow this game from a mate. Buying second hand (for a severely discounted price I hope) would also be a choice. But with Asura's Wrath, you aren't getting your money's worth for a brand new purchase.

This Sunday, either Kingdom's of Amalur: Reckoning, or Catherine. Then MASS EFFECT 3!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! See you next time!