Let's make an arbitrary list of my favourite games of 2012. Here's number eight.
I apologize in advance for separating my top ten entries into their own individual posts. While it may seem like a scheme to generate more page views (haha!), I assure you that it is for practicality's sake. Each entry spans multiple paragraphs and sorting them this way makes for easier viewing. I thank you for your consideration.
I knew nothing about Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning until three
weeks prior to its release. Even after listening to an entire podcast filled
with developers talking about the game, I still was unsure about the world that
developers 38 Studios and Big Huge Games were trying to create. It wasn’t until I got
my hands on the demo that I started to see what Reckoning had to offer. After
an hour worth of playtime, I was ready to purchase the game day one.
What instantly grabbed my attention was Reckoning's ability to
combine a number of my favourite genres together and still produce a quality
package. It’s an action adventure RPG whose battle system utilizes hack and
slash combat. While it isn’t the deepest third person fighting system on the
market, Amalur offers an impressive variety that allows you to combine magic
spells, ranged attacks and melee strikes for some visually stunning combos.
Rushing into a group of enemies or the occasional boss encounter was simply
fun, and more fast paced than the RPGs I had previously come from. Plus
there’s just something satisfying about upper cutting an enemy into the air
with your sword, delivering a three hit combo that sends them flying away only
to pull them back in with a Scorpion-like spear shot and ultimately finishing
them off.
Speaking about variety, this game just screams of it. There are a
fair number of enemies that populate the world, each with their own weak spots
and strategies in regards to fighting them. If that wasn’t enough, Amalur
features a loot system, with different weapons, accessories and armor scattered
around. You could also craft your own items, a feature I didn’t really
partake in. Although your creations could ultimately break the
game in your favor, crafted items simply didn’t look as cool as some of the
unique items / rewards you would eventually come across. I mean, style over
practicality right?
One of the goals an RPG strives to attain is telling the player a
compelling story. Though the tropes and archetypes are usually the same, how a
game presents them usually separates a good effort from a great one. I honestly
feel that Amalur resides in the latter, with a story that immediately caught my
attention. The world revolves around the concept that everyone has their
destiny planned out, and can know their exact fate at any given moment. A war
breaks out against a foe who are unaffected by death. When things are looking
most grim, your character manages to come back to life and begins to break the
fundamentals that this society bases itself upon.
It’s really fascinating just how big a role your character
plays in this world. Amalur's story is a unique take on the whole “chosen one” main
character motif. It
certainly helps that the game is well written, and seeing how each of the
world’s inhabitants reacts to your character just existing is
definitely entertaining.
Like many titles these past couple of years,
Amalur utilizes moral choices to help keep players on their toes and invest them into the world. I need to mention the fact that Amalur was the first time I
really felt a game was presenting me with a grey dilemma. For many games this
generation, moral choices revolved around a right/good option and a wrong/evil one. Their consequences were obvious and choosing between the two
ultimately boiled down which ingame karma bar you wanted to fill. Amalur didn’t
have a morality meter, and your choices reflected how you felt about the
characters in the context of this fate-based world. Having to let the game sit
there as I pondered a particular choice was refreshing. Well, it would have
been if I weren’t stressing over what to actually pick.
Hall of Fame:
Jaren Wade’s Top Ten Games of 2011 – Number 08: Batman Arkham City
Jaren Wade’s Top Ten Games of 2010 – Number 08: Dance Central
Jaren Wade's Top Ten Games of 2012 - Number 07
Jaren Wade's Top Ten Games of 2012 - Number 09
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