Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning - XB1 Review

Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning by developer KAIKO and publisher THQ Nordic—Microsoft Xbox One review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

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I was completely surprised by the announcement of Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning – surprised and excited, because I was a big fan of the game when it first released. Most aspects of this game have aged rather well over the last decade, though not everything. Still, I found myself quite excited to dive back into this action-RPG experience and once more explore this unique world.

When the game first came out, Amalur was rather well-received, but the studio behind it famously went under shortly after its troubled release. I originally covered it for the Xbox 360 and sunk over 100 hours into the title and enjoyed almost every aspect of the game. By and large, I’d say the same feelings persist today despite the time that has passed.

The tale gets off to a fairly unique start as your protagonist is dead – only to be revived and realize that he is part of a much larger destiny. Of course there is a bit of amnesia involved with this rebirth, giving you a blank slate character that can hear about the world as thought it was the first time. And what a world it is, famously created by R.A. Salvatore of Forgotten Realms / Drizzt fame (I’ve actually been rereading numerous works of his lately due to a Drizzt Humble Bundle I purchased a couple of months ago).

The visual style of the game is also unique, in that it’s a sort of chunky, but vibrant fantasy setting brought to life by Todd McFarlane (known largely for his work on the Spawn comics). That is a heavy-hitting pair of talents to help flesh out the world, and those fingerprints are still all over the original product, even if the visual update are perhaps not as robust as I had hoped and some of the clunkier UI / menu choices are not updated to improve overall quality of life.

This is a massive and beautifully fleshed out world. There are countless books, scrolls and conversations to be had if you really want to get a sense of the world building that took place here. There is enough text to fill a visual novel, but almost all of it can be skipped if you don’t have the interest. I remember clicking every… last… dialog… choice the first time around. I was surprised at how nearly a decade later, I still remembered a lot of the details and admittedly began to bypass most of those after about a dozen hours with the game this time. Still, for those who like to delve into lore and really immerse themselves in a fantasy world, that can be done here.

While the visual updates were a bit underwhelming given where technology is at now, the basic art style itself still aged rather well. Small bits of visual flare such as Reckoning mode or how certain items in the environment respond to your presence are certainly appreciated and gives the world a sort of mysterious beauty that I can still appreciate today. The sound effect and music are all solid and go nicely to wrap up a pleasant presentation.

One of the primary things I recall from back when I first played the game was how much I enjoyed the combat. I wound up playing this title and Skyrim rather close to one another, and while there were many things about Skyrim that I enjoyed more at the time, I certainly preferred the fast, fliud and often meaty combat that Amalur presented. That aspect still holds up today. There are three basic playstyles here, with magic focusing on powerful arcane attacks, might focusing on slower, heavy-hitting and better armored attacks and the ninja-like finesse build that focuses on quick strikes and avoidance. I was focused on the finesse build, sneaking up on enemies to perform brutal backstabs.

Progression is one of the highlights here, as you are not forced down a particular path – you can spend points across the three different branches as you see fit. This unlocks hybrid classes as well, instead of penalizing you for not specializing in just one area. The combat itself is pretty shallow when you really think about it, but it’s enjoyable because of the various tweaks in the progression system. Very little of what Amalur does now hasn’t been addressed by other games over the last several years: blacksmithing, alchemy, gem crafting, lots of loot and more are all pretty standard in action-RPGs these days, but they’re still well done in this game.

It is worth noting that there were some rough spots with the initial Xbox One release, but a recent patch has cleaned most of those up. I say most – but not all – because the game has crashed on me three times now. Usually when I’m in very busy / populated regions where combat is happening and I haven’t fast-travelled in a while. I’m not sure if it’s a memory thing or what, and thankfully each time the fairly generous auto-save got me back to within about five minutes of the crash, but there’s still a few kinks to be worked out evidently.

There is some future DLC slated for sometime in 2021 that is supposed to provide several hours of additional content, and that will be interesting to view when it releases. That being said, this release does package all of the DLC that came with the original such as Teeth of Naros. However, fans should keep in mind that this is a remaster – not a remake, and that is probably the biggest bone that some people will pick. There were a handful of missed opportunities to streamline and improve quality of life here, but there were really no major changes to speak of under the hood.

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PY's Thoughts on the Re:Reckoning

While I wish I could say that I had spent as much time with the original as Nick, the unfortunate reality is that life got in the way after a good twenty or thirty hours so I never did finish my original adventure through this expansive world. Excited to be able to dive back into it, and to challenge Nick's Monthly Gamer Score, I pre-ordered Kingdoms of Amalur Re:Reckoning with the upcoming DLC on the Xbox so that I could play starting on launch day at 11am while on vacation.

Things for the most part were great, however it soon came to my attention that there were a few items that didn't quite seem to jive. I found out soon after that the Day 1 patch which not only added some quality of life improvements but also stability and achievement unlocking, was not present. So after about a good dozen hours, I restarted once this patch was done and I'm pleased to say that since then, I've had no more crashes, quick slotted abilities have been increased from the original four to eight which is fantastic, and Reagents / Crafting Materials now have "bags" that they sit in no longer taking up your entire inventory space.

Back to where I was and even past it, the return to Amalur while a bit rough at the very beginning has been a great one and my only regret is not having gone further in the original version when I picked it up for my PS3.

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Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning is a fun way to revisit a game that I have fond memories from the last generation. By and large, the game has aged pretty well. Some fans might be disappointed that there weren’t larger changes made, but I’m happy to see the game back in any form and can once again hold out hope that maybe, just maybe, we’ll get more titles that allow us to revisit this fascinating world in the future as well.

 

Score: 7.5 / 10

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Darksiders: Warmaster Edition - Switch Review

Darksiders is a game that initially released some time ago that I had always been meaning to pick up, but never got around to. A while ago I picked up Darksiders 2 when it was on PS Plus, but I never did pick up the first game. Now, after Darksiders 3 has released, finally I get around to playing the first game that started the series, on the Switch.

In the first installment of the Darksiders franchise, you play as the eponymous horseman of the apocalypse, War. Having been “summoned to ride out the apocalypse but not really because plot”, War enters the realm of humanity in order to punish those who do evil. I think. It was phrased rather awkwardly in-game, but the gist of things is that War’s job is to play executioner to demons, angels, and humans. Unfortunately for him, there was a little mix-up with his call to arms, and he gets accused by “the charred council”, the local supernatural balance keepers, of causing the apocalypse when it wasn’t time to do so.

Needless to say, he’s none too pleased by this, but has no choice but to find out who’s fault it really is, and bring them to justice, ideally through the use of his really big sword. The council sends a watcher to make sure War doesn’t try to flee his “responsibilities”, and strips him of most of his power. Then begins an adventure to take down “The Destroyer”, because that’s who War thinks set off his false alarm. Or at least that’s what I gathered from it. It’s rather vague at times, so a lot of the story is rather inferred than told, and what is there can be really obtuse sometimes. There was a point about halfway though the game where I sat the controller down and just asked “why am I even doing this in-game?”.

Once you get past the initial questioning phase of whether or not there is a better solution to War’s preferred method of solving his plight, you get into the meat of the gameplay. I was told that the first Darksiders was like “adult Zelda”, the game not the character, and I’m largely inclined to agree. A third person adventure through various dungeons, collecting the specific tool you need to get through the dungeon/beat the boss, while beating up small hordes of enemies and collecting bonus items and upgrades hidden in chests throughout the post-apocalyptic world. Unlike the “Legend of Zelda” games though, there is a greater focus on combat, to a certain degree. You can get up to three different weapon types to beat up enemies with, each with their own “weapon experience”, that will increase when beating on enemies with that weapon.

Upon “leveling” a weapon, it gets boosted damage, so you can hack and slash your way through enemies a lot easier. In addition to that, you have special moves that can be “purchased” as upgrades from the local vendor. You have a dodge (sort of), a counter, a block, and a bunch of different movesets with which to mete out punishment to anyone who comes to poke you with the pointy end of whatever happens to be nearby, and that’s going to be a lot of people (read demons). When not in combat, you can explore the world around you by climbing on walls, swimming, falling into bottomless pits, swinging from gems, and gliding around like a phantom of death. Well, Death is in the second game, so gliding around like “almost death”.

So, let’s get some of my complaint about the game out of the way here. First of all, you feel really slow. And no, I don’t mean if you can’t solve a puzzle you feel dumb, although there were a few times I was going for a bonus chest and just sat there for 10 minutes trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do. Stupid weighted cages, I’m looking at you guys. I mean War feels like he’s moving way too slow. Especially after coming from the second game where they had a chance to flesh some of these things out, you just feel like you’re lumbering through areas. Even when climbing walls or walking. Even when you finally do get a “ride”, it’s later into the game, and you can’t even use it all that often. The controls feel a little janky on the switch, kind of awkward to get your hands in a comfortable position as well.

The in’game camera angle ranges between “highly competent” to “nice ass”, generally leaning towards the “ass” side of the spectrum. The “flight” mechanic is interesting, but you have a limited time to use it, so it’s more of a three second glide than anything else, and actually managing to jump off ledges can be tough before the gliding even begins. No, seriously, the amount of times I just kind of slid off a ledge into a bottomless pit because the game didn’t recognize my jump input was staggering. Bit of a saving grace is that you don’t really take much damage from it, so while it is a pain in the butt, it isn’t anything super debilitating, although annoying enough to make me consider throwing something.

The various tools are all pretty neat, but having to go into the menu to re-equip them between puzzles can get a bit annoying, although most of the time you can get away with the “hot keys” for weapon swapping. Swapping targets, on the other hand, is pretty much an exercise in futility. I gave up halfway through. Aiming in general can be really annoying. I don’t know how to really describe it other than saying it’s like if you made all the finesse of a tilt screen into a control stick aiming control type. And no, that’s not a good thing.

Speaking of “not a good thing”, whoever made the rail-shooting “intermission” deserves to be bitten by a gryphon, my lord. I can honestly say it’s probably the worst flight sequence I can remember playing in a game, and it’s about three times longer than it has any right to be. It’s rather hard as well, mostly because of how it feels really awkward to control, and you can probably expect to die a few times. In fact, expect to die a few times regardless. Enemies can and will demolish you in short order if you either aren’t paying attention or get hit at an inopportune moment. Oddly enough, the bosses I found to be rather easy in comparison to a large group of common enemies.

Overall, for a game that only took me about ten hours to do everything in, I did have a lot of fun with it. It isn’t what I would call “polished” by any means, but it doesn’t particularly do anything outright awful, either. Although, admittedly it sounds like they tried to make War way too edgy. Same with Death in Darksiders 2, now that I think about it. There is a lot of room for improvement, some of which you see progressing through the series, and some things you wish they would fix. There was a lot of opportunity I found wasted in much the same way other games do so: by introducing a mechanic, only to use it a few times and then promptly never speak of it again.

While most of the mechanics persist, there are a few that make a few appearances and then bugger off for the rest of the game.  The shadow arenas could have been a persistent theme, and while I’m certainly glad they weren’t, that doesn’t mean I will simply condone dropping a mechanic basically after introducing twice. Making them a bonus investment would have been a good idea. While I wouldn’t give the first Darksiders any sort of critical acclaim, it certainly isn’t fishing bottom of the barrel either. I would definitely consider picking up this switch version if you missed out on it earlier.

Game Information

Platform:
Nintendo Switch
Developer(s):
Kaiko
Publisher(s):
THQ Nordic
Genre(s):
Action
Adventure
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Sony PlayStation 4
Microsoft Xbox One
PC

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Richard

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Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered - PS4 Review

Red Faction Guerrilla Re-mars-tered is a revamp of the 2009 release of the third entry in the series. Prior to this point, the most that I knew about Red Faction was that if you wanted something to go boom, it went boom in a natural manner allowing you to change how you approached situations as if a door was locked? You could blow it off its hinges or make a hole in the wall beside it. Moving from that first-person introductory view that I had all those years ago at the end of high-school… damn I’m getting old, this was my first rumble with Guerilla which takes to the open breathable air of mars for some environmentally destructive third person action.

The beginning of our story, and the reason for your actions, begins when you arrive on Mars in order to meet your brother and get to work. Not long after going through what is basically a tutorial, he is both placed under arrest and then shot and killed for being part of the Red Faction. A Rebel group. Saved from that said rebel group, it isn’t long before you take up your own arms in order to stick it to the Earthen Defense Force currently occupying Mars. I hope you’re ready for lots of explosions and plenty of gun fights because it’s going to get messy.

My time on Mars is a little bit of a love / hate situation. I loved that there were plenty of ways to take out my enemies and the structures that they could hide in. I loved that you could essentially take over any vehicle that was lying around and claim it for your own wanton destruction. I loved the snark of your character’s dialog. What I could hate was that often your melee weapon, your very own and always faithfully with you sledgehammer, was more effective than an assault rifle. Targeting enemies, putting yourself into cover and generally moving around felt clunky like it was always almost what you would expect but never quite there. While you could eventually slide into that awkwardness of movement, it was always enough to detract from the otherwise pleasant… or as pleasant as a revolution can be, time on Mars.

Having played the original Red Faction I had expected certain elements from the third in which a few were met and others I could learn to live without. Unlike the original, only the structures are destructible. You can’t make a hole in the ground or in the side of a mountain to hide in. Instead you can only destroy what is on top of it all for scrap that you’ll need. These structures you can either effectively hit with your sledgehammer or take out with remote explosives. Being honest? One is just as satisfying as the other though if you’re going to hit it with the proverbial stick, make sure you know which way that it’s going to fall because it’s going to hurt if you don’t move.

So the above mentioned scrap is what you’ll need to level up your armaments in order to take back Mars. Xth amount of scrap is going to be required to improve your armor, detonate more explosives at a time and generally unlock more weapons for your usage. What I could find a bit hard at times is that taking down large building didn’t always yield the amount of scrap that you would think and often times it was more worth your time to run over the EDF forces in a car to get scrap that way. Yes running over your enemies in a car was often a faster way to accumulate scrap. Mars is weird.

So what does all of this mean when you put it together? You need to collect scrap in order to better equip yourself so that you and the Red Faction can boot the EDF from Mars. How do you do this? You do this by performing both main and side missions in order to reduce the EDF’s control over an area and to improve the moral of your own forces. Each mission type helps reduce the influence by a certain percentage but you can always go take out key installations in order to move it along faster as long as you keep in mind that even if the influence is zero, you still need to do the missions to lead up to whatever comes next.

Red Faction Guerrilla Re-mars-tered isn’t a bad title but certain aspects show their age and the lack of refinement from the original release. That’s not to say that it’s not a hell of a lot of fun to take on the EDF in any way you see fit, it’s just that the controls can often get in the way of a really enjoyable time.

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):
Volition, KAIKO   
Publisher(s):
THQ Nordic
Genre(s):
Shooter
Mode(s):
Single Player
Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
Microsoft Xbox One
PC

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

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