Kingdoms of Amalur

Ah yes, I've been lost in the Kingdoms of Amalur as of late. I haven't completed the game yet, so this won't be a true review, I'll get around to that later. However, I thought I'd share some of my musings on the game...

The story is your average RPG scenario, Amnesiac Protagonist whose origin is linked to the crisis/villain/etc. It works a little bit better here because your character has been brought back from the dead, but it's still cliche. There are a couple hundred side quests (and let's face it, the best stories always come from the side quests). I have over 20 of them active right now. There are also Tasks which equate to simple fetch quests and of course, we have Faction quests. The Factions are interesting and slightly varied from, say, the Elder Scrolls series. I've practically forgot the Main quest at this point, focusing solely on all the Side and Faction quests. Ooops :)

Combat is fun and engaging, stealth mode is actually fairly decent, and spell-casting is similar to most action-RPGs of this day and age...but, I have a complaint. The. Blocking. Sucks. Balls. Yes, using a shield is only about halfway effective in my opinion, you're much better off dodging. For some strange reason the character never wants to block when I press the button...even if I'm standing still and doing absolutely nothing else. Seriously.

Voice acting could use a bit of work. Oh sure, there are some stand-outs so far, like Agarth the Fateweaver, but I keep hearing the same 5 or 6 males and 5 or 6 females and it's a bit annoying and bland. The music is alright and will pop into my head at the most random times when I'm not playing haha.

The class system is handled in a unique way, but is still a bit confining. You can be a swordsman, a rogue (thief/assassin), a mage or a combination. The combinations come in duals and a "jack-of-all-trades" that combines all three. I'm going with a melee/assassin build and pretty much ignoring spell-casting. Now, if you find that to be limiting just wait until you see the list of races you can choose from...Generic human 1, Generic human 2, Generic Elf 1, Generic Elf 2. Yeah. It's a bit disappointing. When I booted up the demo and was only given those four to choose from, I thought "There'll be more in the full game, I mean, Skyrim has like 10 fucking races including lizard and kitty people." Can you imagine my disappointment when I discovered those four races were it? Sure, there's a ton of customization you can do (blonde mohawk and reddish-brown curvy moustache anyone?) but, I was hoping to play as something a bit more unique.

I'm still having a lot of fun with this game and can't wait to explore the first DLC expansion (plus there's another one coming out next week!) and I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys action-RPGs and/or having big open worlds to explore and dick around in.

Oh yeah, on to real life subjects...I've got a new phone, there's an engagement party coming up very soon, and it's already too damn hot outside. Friggin Texas April. I'll try not to go so long between posts after this, wish me luck haha.