• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Kingdoms of Amalur demo impressions thread [Up On 360/Origin/Steam/U.S. PSN]

Would you say this game is more mechanically driven or narrative driven? I'm getting the impression it leans a bit into the direction that dark souls took. I'm not speaking about presentation here.

One of the "issues" people with the review copies have stated is that the amount of story/lore is hard to keep track of at times. I don't think you'll have a shortage of story or combat.

It's utter bullshit.

What are your impressions of the final game now that you've finished it?
 
I found this comment interesting in the IGN "Review in Progress." It's part of a Q & A:


"Light years ahead" is some pretty powerful language. Hopefully I end up agreeing.

They're....they're not even similar games. Should we compare Uncharted with Halo because they both have guns?

What a stupid question. Score another for "games journalism."
 
Just finished the demo on the PS3. I played on 360, PS3, and PC. PC obviously looks the best, but that's not saying much. I still think the graphics are dated... like 5 years. PS3 lacks good AA, or any AA... but the picture is clearer. I actually prefer it over the 360 version, which looks a bit too blurry. Demo has a lot of bugs and the camera is horrible... hopefully it gets fixed.

I'm keeping my PC preorder though. It was only $42... so I'll consider it a budget game.
 
At most you could look at their presentation/graphics, in which case Amalur looks like it came out about five years before Origins did.

It really doesn't, but again, that's your opinion, and I don't agree with it.

Did you play it on a console or on PC?
 
I found this comment interesting in the IGN "Review in Progress." It's part of a Q & A:


"Light years ahead" is some pretty powerful language. Hopefully I end up agreeing.

It seems he just likes the kind of game that Amalur is more than the kind of game Origins is. For me it's the other way around, I though the demo for Amalur was pretty shitty and didn't care for it at all, while Origins is just amazing.

The games have not a lot in common, other than the letters "RPG" somewhere in their genre description.

Edit: As for Graphics: both games don't win any awards in that category (both on PC). I just can't stand the WoW/cartoony look that Amalur is going for.
 
I tried a dagger build and wasn't having fun, my mage run was much more fun. Was I just playing rogues wrong? It didn't help that I couldn't sneak up on ANYTHING.
 
As silly as comparing Dragon Age to Amalur is, I'd say the rampant comparisons to Skyrim is worse. I keep seeing people bring it up and it baffles me.
 
The jail guards in the first town are INSANE. I landed in jail because the inn healer saw me steal a book :(

I'm annoyed that my level 1 nobody in rags can defeat the entire guard of a town with a pair of rusty kitchen knives.

Invincibility sucks.
 
I tried a dagger build and wasn't having fun, my mage run was much more fun. Was I just playing rogues wrong? It didn't help that I couldn't sneak up on ANYTHING.

You just answered your own question. Put points into detect hidden and then you can see which direction enemies are facing from a distance. You can also setoff fireworks to make a group of enemies all look in the same direction.
 
I'm annoyed that my level 1 nobody in rags can defeat the entire guard of a town with a pair of rusty kitchen knives.

Invincibility sucks.

Have you allowed yourself to get arrested and then tried to kill the guards inside of the jail? I did that once and they could not be killed. The ones outside, however, were nothing to kill.

I think it may have been bugged though because none of my gear was taken from me when I landed in jail.
 
Have you allowed yourself to get arrested and then tried to kill the guards inside of the jail? I did that once and they could not be killed. The ones outside, however, were nothing to kill.

I think it may have been bugged though because none of my gear was taken from me when I landed in jail.

Hopefully the guards are killable, but not at level bullshit, in the final game.
 
You just answered your own question. Put points into detect hidden and then you can see which direction enemies are facing from a distance. You can also setoff fireworks to make a group of enemies all look in the same direction.

Worth another play-through then, Thanks Bacon.
 
Played through the demo a couple more times. I'm still not coming around to the art design at all, but I stand by my assessment that this feels like the natural evolution of ARPGs from 2 generations ago.

Comparing this to DA:O is very odd, but it's not like I've played the completed game. Comparing this against Soul Reaver or similar PS1 era action adventure titles might at least conceivably make more sense.

Comparing it to Skyrim is like comparing a choose your own adventure novel to Street Fighter 2 or Star Wars: TFU or something. It just doesn't compute, at least not at this point.
 
Comparing it to Skyrim is like comparing a choose your own adventure novel to Street Fighter 2 or Star Wars: TFU or something. It just doesn't compute, at least not at this point.

Not really. They have different combat systems, but they're both within the same umbrella genre: open world RPG. The execution is vastly different, but they still lie within the same genre.
 
Comparing it to Skyrim is like comparing a choose your own adventure novel to Street Fighter 2 or Star Wars: TFU or something. It just doesn't compute, at least not at this point.

What's funny is that all you have to do is watch an interview with Curt Schilling. He'll honestly and openly tell you exactly which games you should be comparing it too (Elder Scrolls, WoW, God of War, Fable and a few others that I now forget). Their goal appears to have been to simply steal the best ideas from games they love and make a great game using all those ideas, and in doing so make a unique experience (predicated on being derivative).
 
Their goal appears to have been to simply steal the best ideas from games they love and make a great game using all those ideas, and in doing so make a unique experience (predicated on being derivative).

Hey, it worked great for Darksiders and Gears of War.
 
Not really. They have different combat systems, but they're both within the same umbrella genre: open world RPG. The execution is vastly different, but they still lie within the same genre.
Agreed. I think they're a lot more comparable then some people try to claim. The same goes for comparing DA:O to Amalur.
 
I'm annoyed that my level 1 nobody in rags can defeat the entire guard of a town with a pair of rusty kitchen knives.

Invincibility sucks.

I thought it was odd how the townspeople just sort of go about their business while you're killing the guards and then start killing them off. Game felt like Fable with less farting to me. Didn't care for the art direction.
 
My early impressions based solely on the demo and footage of other people playing later portions of the game, is that it worked for Curt and his team as well.

I agree as well. I think it's a totally valid way to make a video game, and I think it holds true here as well. The game has elements from all kinds of games I love, and the demo showed me that the final product is something I want to play.
 
What's funny is that all you have to do is watch an interview with Curt Schilling. He'll honestly and openly tell you exactly which games you should be comparing it too (Elder Scrolls, WoW, God of War, Fable and a few others that I now forget). Their goal appears to have been to simply steal the best ideas from games they love and make a great game using all those ideas, and in doing so make a unique experience (predicated on being derivative).

Have you ever designed anything? You do not start with a clean slate. That is the worst thing you CAN do. You take what you love/want and you add a new element or two. Games, just like any other product has an incremental design.

I also love how much speculation [game soul, story, etc] is being discussed from a 45 min demo of a small area. Who knows the truth until the actual game/reviews come out.

Hopefully it will be good. From first impressions and the demo that I played, it appears that it will be.
 
There enthusiasm for there doors is uh, interesting.

Oh this live stream is really good, getting my really hyped, very nice areas.
 
Have you ever designed anything? You do not start with a clean slate. That is the worst thing you CAN do. You take what you love/want and you add a new element or two. Games, just like any other product has an incremental design.

I also love how much speculation [game soul, story, etc] is being discussed from a 45 min demo of a small area. Who knows the truth until the actual game/reviews come out.

Hopefully it will be good. From first impressions and the demo that I played, it appears that it will be.

Yes, my job is design-based. I wouldnt say that a clean slate is the worst thing you can do, but it is probably the most difficult. What's different about Curt is that he gleefully admits what they're ripping off. I love that about him. He's a gamer.

I'm enjoying this chat. I love hearing Joe talk about the game. I'm trying to avoid watching the video though since they're questing in later areas.
 
I found this comment interesting in the IGN "Review in Progress." It's part of a Q & A:


"Light years ahead" is some pretty powerful language. Hopefully I end up agreeing.

DA:O was pretty much firmly rooted in old-style gameplay and mechanics. And it kind of showed with how relatively simple the game was when you get down to that mechanics level. That said, comparing it to Amalur is a little disingenuous, though I wager we'll see all sorts of comparisons down the road.
 
What's funny is that all you have to do is watch an interview with Curt Schilling. He'll honestly and openly tell you exactly which games you should be comparing it too (Elder Scrolls, WoW, God of War, Fable and a few others that I now forget). Their goal appears to have been to simply steal the best ideas from games they love and make a great game using all those ideas, and in doing so make a unique experience (predicated on being derivative).

I never really got that impression. Now that you've mentioned it, I'll have to rewatch whatever interviews I've seen.

I'm not saying your wrong, I'm wondering if I just ignored the comparisons as the usual PR fluff.

Not really. They have different combat systems, but they're both within the same umbrella genre: open world RPG. The execution is vastly different, but they still lie within the same genre.

My point with Skyrim is actually that Bethesda's model for their RPGs seems so wholly other relative to say DA:O, that while DA:O seemed like an odd choice to compare this to, Skyrim seemed an actually useless one. I'll admit we're technically talking about the same genre, but this just feels like it's from such an evolutionary digression back in the console RPG past, and seems like it has such a more confined concept of "open world" and such a greater combat orientation, as to make a comparison with Skyrim effectively uninformative.

Maybe I'm the one stretching though. I'm seriously not looking to take us down the road of "what exactly makes an RPG anyway". That dead horse has been beaten into the ground in ME threads enough to last a lifetime.
 
Pretty awesome art trailer going over world environment development, items, etc.

http://conceptartworld.com/?p=11461

iklNw.jpg

This needs a caption.
 
Finally got around to the demo but this is the buggiest game I've played on my PS3. Dialog and sound stopped working, so I decided to attack the town to pass the time and the game froze shortly after.

What I did get to see of the story and characters was very bad, but I did enjoy the combat a lot. I might give it a shot once it's cheap enough, and assuming the final product actually works.
 
Finally got around to the demo but this is the buggiest game I've played on my PS3. Dialog and sound stopped working, so I decided to attack the town to pass the time and the game froze shortly after.

What I did get to see of the story and characters was very bad, but I did enjoy the combat a lot. I might give it a shot once it's cheap enough, and assuming the final product actually works.

Most of the bugs you encountered were only in the demo because it's a 3 month old build.
 
Finally got around to the demo but this is the buggiest game I've played on my PS3. Dialog and sound stopped working, so I decided to attack the town to pass the time and the game froze shortly after.

What I did get to see of the story and characters was very bad, but I did enjoy the combat a lot. I might give it a shot once it's cheap enough, and assuming the final product actually works.

It's a buggy build, and around 3 months old. A lot (all?) of the issues are fixed in the retail.

edit
beaten
 
I never really got that impression. Now that you've mentioned it, I'll have to rewatch whatever interviews I've seen.

I'm not saying your wrong, I'm wondering if I just ignored the comparisons as the usual PR fluff.


Yeah, Curt does not really come off as a PR guy honestly, read any number of the posts he has made on their forums and I think thats pretty clear off that bat. Even before he got into making games and he was just a baseball player Curts always been pretty straight forward. I somewhat doubt most other devs would make a standalone deal (i'm sure against EAs wishes) to get the game on Steam just because fans wanted it.

I wish more developers were this enthusiastic about their games, and involved with their communities.
 
Top Bottom