Thanks, and keep the impressions coming! How's the graphics and art style?
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Kingdoms of Amalur
- Thread starter Domingo
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Thanks, and keep the impressions coming! How's the graphics and art style?
Cartoonish almost but not "kiddie." Lots of nice color.
Good voice acting. Again I mention: The music is gorgeous.
Character creation menu is solid. Lots of nice options.
As was previewed in the Gamespot video, you can switch between KBM more PC style setup and controller for an instant more console like UI and setup. Seamless. Nice. A lot of people will have fun seeing which they prefer.
Overall art direction is excellent. Already in the early goings I'm looking in the background and seeing some really gorgeous looking effects.
Same here. Don't worry about it. If you got all the unlocks you hit the x on the upper right
of that prompt box and just start playing. Screw the servers.
You can press escape to pause game at any time and have a choice of either resume or skip cinematics if you pause during a cinematic.
EDIT: Looks like you can remap the controls pretty much to your heart's desire. That's excellent. I know I'll be refining some things when I get the final game which I'm leaning towards.
Camera appears fixed. Wouldn't mind pulling it back a little more and coming off Skyrim I keep hitting that mouse wheel to do it and nothing happens. Hit the tilde button and there's no in game console by default thus far.
Kinds of remind me of Risen in a few ways which is good.
Using default controls for now with KBM:
C is default for toggle stealth but I can't do that at the very beginning of the game which is where this wisely starts you. The tutorial level area.
There's a sprint button but the default is fairly fast as is IMO.
The character apparently can't slow walk so that would kill this game's immersion for Wabe.
Space button is your dodge and roll. No actual jumping.
Menus are clean and straightforward. Happy with these.
The game definitely comes together as something that's unique and it's own flavor which is a good thing.
You can loot and all the usual stuff like that. Got my first sword and it's just like we saw: This will be real time, straight up action fighting and so far it feels good. I have a sword and I'm using the left mouse button and he's using it all over the place.
Basically this is an action game with pretty nice and deep RPG elements that I'm seeing. I'm leaning towards buying it so far but I'm still early in.
First enemies you fight: Rats, of course. Skeevers if this were Skyrim.
Hacked them up with sword nice, clean, and fast.
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The Steam pre-order exclusive for this is...wait for it...TF hats
LOL, that's pretty silly but stop for a moment.
This is a game under the EA umbrella on Steam. You folks catch that? Let it sink in.
There's a bunch of cross promotion stuff (game unlocks) between this game and Mass Effect 3 both ways both on demos and final products as well.
More impressions: Took down to enemies, they went down, you loot with F (default interact button.) Sometimes there's areas that prompt you to hit the interact button and you'll jump down, use a lever, etc.
Flash that sword around. Explore. Try to interact with some things. Smash things.
Combat's going to be a blast with this. Items and menus run well and easy. I think I'm going to buy this.
Textures look pretty good close up although we're not talking Crysis DX11 High rez or Skyrim 2k Textures 2048.
The game reminds me Beyond Good and Evil with a dash of Dragon Age in terms of the menus and a few other things. I stress again though: It's unique and has its own flavor.
limitedaccess
Supreme [H]ardness
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Q-BZ, is the character creation fully demoed? Mine is still downloading from Origin.
By the way the demo is now also available on Steam.
I would think it is much cheaper for them to create TF2 hats and offer that then to contract with the developer to create bonus content, and even more so then offering a direct discount on purchases.
This basically attracts those people that want to collect TF2 items or speculate with them. The latter of which is why I suspect is large reason why they've fostered this virtual economy.
The cheapest place to preorder this at the moment is Amazon DD at $50.99.
By the way the demo is now also available on Steam.
The Steam pre-order exclusive for this is...wait for it...TF hats
I would think it is much cheaper for them to create TF2 hats and offer that then to contract with the developer to create bonus content, and even more so then offering a direct discount on purchases.
This basically attracts those people that want to collect TF2 items or speculate with them. The latter of which is why I suspect is large reason why they've fostered this virtual economy.
The cheapest place to preorder this at the moment is Amazon DD at $50.99.
Hmm hadn't considered that. I guess I'm out of touch with this newfangled hat economy -- forgot there are actually chumps out there who will trade you gifted copies of games for your rare hats
.Just saw a buddy fire it up.
HEADS UP ATI USERS!
You have to turn off post processing in the options of the game. If you don't you'll be greeted to a black screen with hud only.
The menus are heavily consolized as well as inventory management. Graphics options are very limited. No AA option, unless that's post processing(which ati users can't use in the demo). Combat looks good. Saw a buddy running it on a c2d and a 4850 @ 16x10 @60fps with occasional drops. Looks good. I think this will be a solid console port, but you can definitely tell it was designed with consoles in mind. I just cannot stand the consoley menus, with inventory being the worst offender. I would have loved to see a diablo/mmo style equipment/character screen instead of this bullshit(think Mass Effect 2 style lists). Oh well. Unless I see something mindblowing I'll wait for a sale on this one. Stay tuned.
HEADS UP ATI USERS!
You have to turn off post processing in the options of the game. If you don't you'll be greeted to a black screen with hud only.
The menus are heavily consolized as well as inventory management. Graphics options are very limited. No AA option, unless that's post processing(which ati users can't use in the demo). Combat looks good. Saw a buddy running it on a c2d and a 4850 @ 16x10 @60fps with occasional drops. Looks good. I think this will be a solid console port, but you can definitely tell it was designed with consoles in mind. I just cannot stand the consoley menus, with inventory being the worst offender. I would have loved to see a diablo/mmo style equipment/character screen instead of this bullshit(think Mass Effect 2 style lists). Oh well. Unless I see something mindblowing I'll wait for a sale on this one. Stay tuned.
limitedaccess
Supreme [H]ardness
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Hmm hadn't considered that. I guess I'm out of touch with this newfangled hat economy -- forgot there are actually chumps out there who will trade you gifted copies of games for your rare hats
It is quite a big industry (well relatively speaking) from what I could tell, not sure if it has cooled down or not. I know someone on here mentioned for instance they traded their hats for a copy of Skyrim (new).
To give an example, the DXHR preorder on Steam gave a lot of TF2 items, but had a price of $45. People were actually speculating what the value of those items would be and estimating from $10-$30+, and weighing it against other distributors who were offering DXHR preorders for $28-$34. As you can see this is a huge advantage to Valve, as with their sales volume the actual cost to offer these types of items per unit sold is likely negligible.
This has also been traditionally why large retailers (Gamestop, Bestbuy) have paid developers for specific content as a preorder bonus. Because the one time large fixed cost is much less spread out of the large volumes they sell.
chockomonkey
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What? No Jump?
Rubbish! (i never jump IRL, but for some reason not being able to hop around is a big negative in my book)
Rubbish! (i never jump IRL, but for some reason not being able to hop around is a big negative in my book)
Have you played the Mass Effect games by any chance? How about old school Tom Clancy games like Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six?
I didn't jump in those and miss it and I don't see a situation where I'll miss it in this, either. I like having jump ideally, of course, but it's not a critical problem here in this game.
I *think* so.
What I see here is pretty good. Shoot, if there's more that'll be REALLY impressive.
limitedaccess
Supreme [H]ardness
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There is no AA option, not related to post processing.
Yea I guess it would be hard to gauge that
But I was mainly wondering if they just threw you in with a preset char or actually let you play around with that, which sounds like it is.But anyways can check it out myself since it just finished
chockomonkey
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Actually I have not, even though my friend always raves about the ME series. Tried Rainbow Six as a kid, but remember it being too complicated with setting up your team's waypoints and such so i never gave it a fair chance.
I looked at bulletstorm when it was in development, but haven't looked again since i found it also had no jump lol.
Guess i'm just weird.
I missed having jump in KOTOR, but admit i got used to just running after awhile. In general though, that games controls could have been WAY better, though it is still an epic game.
All I can say is that if a game doesn't have jump it's usually designed in such a fashion you won't miss it. Honest.
You're missing out on some good games and I think this is a good game, too.
EDIT: Got a set of twin daggers. The tutorial area puts you through just about every kind of situation so I had an opportunity to do a little stealth killing with those bad boys. I like it!
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I just saw my buddy die twice...He resurrected with full health, in the same spot he died. Tell me that's not how the whole game is. I can see no death penalty type thing, but rez'ing at the very spot you just died at with full health? Also, I believe that fully open world is a little misleading for this game. Example, you can explore to a certain extent, but you are being funneled in the direction they want you to go. This may change later, but it reminds me a lot of fable. Like God of War meets Fable. I hope theirs more to this one than the demo shows, because right now all I'm seeing is a decent console port that leaves me feeling "meh".
Like God of War meets Fable. I hope theirs more to this one than the demo shows, because right now all I'm seeing is a decent console port that leaves me feeling "meh".I just saw my buddy die twice...He resurrected with full health, in the same spot he died. Tell me that's not how the whole game is. I can see no death penalty type thing, but rez'ing at the very spot you just died at with full health? Also, I believe that fully open world is a little misleading for this game. Example, you can explore to a certain extent, but you are being funneled in the direction they want you to go. This may change later, but it reminds me a lot of fable.
I haven't died yet so I'll let you know but GoW meets Fable is probably a decent broad paintbrush for describing this game thus far.
There is item degradation as well. I just saw that and got a couple of repair kits.
Dude, if you want jump check out Dragon Knight Saga(Ego Draconis)! It's a little buggy and suffers from Euro trash programming but it's pretty damn fun.
There's no question this isn't an open world game along the lines of an Elder Scrolls game. I think anyone that saw any footage of this and saw that map in the right hand corner hopefully knew that right away. That being said, the game's going to be big.
Ah I actually have that game but I keep forgetting to try it. I'm almost scared of it turning into another Gothic 3, where the Euros raved about it, but it turned out to have melee combat that managed to be even worse than an Elder Scrolls game.
I just saw my buddy die twice...He resurrected with full health, in the same spot he died. Tell me that's not how the whole game is. I can see no death penalty type thing, but rez'ing at the very spot you just died at with full health? Also, I believe that fully open world is a little misleading for this game. Example, you can explore to a certain extent, but you are being funneled in the direction they want you to go. This may change later, but it reminds me a lot of fable.
You're only funneled along until you get to the first city. Right outside the first city is a big forest area to run around to your heart's content. It's not Skyrim, but it still feel very open world-ish.
Who raved about Gothic 3? That game was fucking horrible.
Good to know. I'm not outside of the initial "area" yet.
If things open up more than this, like you're saying, then that's great.
I like that you can equip any weapon you want in both primary and secondary slots.
WabeWalker declared it his personal GOTY.
And yes, it was terrible and this game is much better than that POS.I thought the same thing man and had the same fear but my gamble paid off. Install it dude, it's way better than gothic!!!! Feels like an unpolished WoW with a more fun combat system and some pretty cool mechanics i've not seen in other games(mind reading npc's at the cost of some XP). Graphically it's adequate, but lacks polish. When you install, look up the tweak to unlock the framerate. But give it a shot!
Q-BZ, try dying and see what the scoop is. I'll be a little disappointed if you can just re-spawn instantly with full health and mana(at least without some sort of penalty).
Good to know. I'm not outside of the initial "area" yet.
If things open up more than this, like you're saying, then that's great.
I like that you can equip any weapon you want in both primary and secondary slots.
WabeWalker declared it his personal GOTY.
I like how you can equip anything from the loot screen without having to go to the inventory menu. A nice little feature. Equipping any weapon ties into their "class" system nicely.
TheOneKnownAsMe
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WabeWalker declared it his personal GOTY.
I completely forgot about that guy...
But nice to hear the initial impressions are positive, I'll download the demo tonight while I'm at work.
Like I said, the Europeans kept plugging it, no doubt because it was a "homegrown" German effort. They probably hate getting stuck with localized American games and G3 turned out to be their revenge
.And thus, every time a new 3D action RPG comes out, the ghosts of my G3 experience haunt me. I'll give KoA a try, although I wonder if I'll find it more suited to the 360 controller than kb+m.
Yes that is what you do. I died once due to traps and that is what happened. Not sure how I feel about it, I hope there is a way to disable it. The game seems VERY easy on normal. Fun but easy.
That's a little disappointing. It's hard for me to get immersed in something when there is no sense of danger or loss. I love Dark Souls for this reason. I don't think this game needs to have those kinds of penalties, but just straight up no fear of dying or consequences kinda sucks..
Like I said, the Europeans kept plugging it, no doubt because it was a "homegrown" German effort. They probably hate getting stuck with localized American games and G3 turned out to be their revenge
And thus, every time a new 3D action RPG comes out, the ghosts of my G3 experience haunt me. I'll give KoA a try, although I wonder if I'll find it more suited to the 360 controller than kb+m.
The beauty of it is: Everyone can win here. If you use KBM, the interface will favor it and you can change on the fly to a controller and the UI and interface will adjust to a more controller friendly setup.
Heh, how do you do that? Right mouse button sub menu?
I just beat the Rock troll with the two guards and that was a nice situation where I got to feel some more intense combat and hit a kill move. Felt great. I was rolling all over the place kicking ass. Right now I'm using the twin daggers and the magic they give you at the beginning with the right mouse button. I like the fire staff, too.
That's a shame if that's the case because that means you're all but immortal. I do see that the demo locks out all difficulties except normal.
Yep. Right-click and select compare and then equip.
I'm wondering if there is a lore reason for it. If there is at least it's somewhat understandable, though still annoying.
My impressions...
Combat feels a lot like Darksiders and Hunted: Demon Forge; very satisfying.
Graphics look a lot like Darksiders and Torchlight; great colors and effects.
Once past the "training" course, the environment really opens up. I think this is gonna be a fun game.
Combat feels a lot like Darksiders and Hunted: Demon Forge; very satisfying.
Graphics look a lot like Darksiders and Torchlight; great colors and effects.
Once past the "training" course, the environment really opens up. I think this is gonna be a fun game.
I posted that question on their Facebook for grins. I've noticed that these FB pages tend to be useful for dialog with people from these companies sometimes, believe it or not.
Can't hurt.
Not that this is a show stopper and not really a bad thing really, but like you said not Skyrim open world. The death penalty really bugs me. Hey maybe it's only until you reach a higher level you dont incur a penalty? Have they said officially?
Edit : Nevermind! Good to know Q-BZ! I'ma try it tonight with my razor 360 controller and see what it's like compared to m/kb.
This made me think of REAMDE from Neal Stephenson for some reason. All they need is an autistic dude doing the geography.
(And an MMO, of course.)AAAARGH, I won't be able to play the demo for a few days. Can someone do me a favor? Swap mouse buttons in Windows and see if the game recognizes it in menus.
Did you see what I just wrote?
Folks from the company told me on their Facebook page that in the final game that's not going to happen and even in the demo it's only in the tutorial dungeon area.
I've had surprisingly good luck using Facebook for things like this.
No quasi immortality in the final game.
I'm glad it isn't a Skyrim clone. I like the Elder Scrolls games, but I like one of them. I can't get into other huge open world aimless wandering RPGs like that. Curt Schilling mentioned on the official forums that they designed the game as that you won't walk for more than a couple minutes without finding things to do. I like that. I like wandering aimlessly, but it's not to find distractions along the path.