Anyone else pumped about this game? Here is the IGN page for it, with some videos and information. Everyone's calling comparing it to Skyrim, which is unavoidable given they share the same genre and setting. But, in my opinion, this game looks way more fun and original than Skyrim, and it's already my most anticipated game of 2012.

Here is a good collection of videos for anyone interested

Yeah, I am pumped for it. I'll be picking it up next year after I get through the holiday titles.

Oh, I remember this trailer, saw it like a year ago... I laughed my a** off. Has all the classic "how to make an uber-cool trailer" cliches, and overdoes it by 100%. First, even a 1st level adventurer knows that you DON'T stab a skeleton... they kinda don't have any vital organs at all. Second time I went LOL was when the guy holds the giant two-handed war maul in one hand, by the handle, without flinching...

That said, I like RPGs, so I checked what combat will be like...



Thanks game, you lost me there. Salvatore and McFarlane in one game or not, this is an action game, not a proper RPG, so I will skip this.

I'm keeping a skeptical eye on it. It's got a lot of hype but for whatever reason feels like something that could very much be all hype in the end. I'll see what the reviews say when it ships.

- ZacWilliam, kinda expects it to bomb but even if it's good I don't know that I need another Skyrim ish game. Skyrim got it perfect IMO, and still has like years of content I havn't touched yet...

I was surprised to learn that it wasn't an MMO, and then very disappointed to learn that it wasn't going to have co-op.

So right now, I dunno. My enthusiasm, which was sky high initially, has since dimmed considerably.

Rental. Then I'll decide.

Demo comes out on the 17th

Kay, having played it, I've done a 180.

I like it. Purchased!

I'm downloading it now. It's taking forever.

My suspicions were confirmed. This game is bad ass. I wish so much care and polish were put in to every game.

Okay: hug you microsoft. hug you. I tried to download the demo for my xbox, and the "free" demo is gold exclusive. I need to pay to get free hugging demo's. hug it, done.

might be a first day availability thing for gold users, not sure quite how that works.


As for the demo, gave it a shot for the mass effect goodies. Was more fableish than I was expecting seems alright though. I didn't get to utilize my full 45 minutes post intro dungeon because the game froze up on me while fighting random woodland creatures. The only other real odd thing I noticed in the beginning was that it was difficult to actually talk to the gnomes, despite the interact prompt their text only appeared for like a split second. I'm going to give this a second run through because I want my damn chakrum launcher ( I'm sure it'll be useless but it's free damn it!) It's by no means a day one purchase for me but it seems a decent enough game. I'll consider it when it hits 20-30$.

Big name Xbox demos are usually Gold exclusive for the first week or so. I would have prefer trying it there too, but I'm downloading it on PS3 since I 'm impatient.

-ZacWilliam, but GAH does Sony's online service BLOW, it takes like 6 hours to download a game. I've never had an Xbox demo take more than 15 minutes, tops.

Finally got to play the demo tonight.

It did not thrill me. After Skyrim it felt very, very video gamey. In the worst sense. The combat was good and fast (occassionally almost too fast). The story telling and characters felt fake and unrealistic in a very very "move the video game along" way. The art is Fable meets WoW and that was fine, but on the whole the game, setting, npcs and characters just seemed so much less polished, immersive and involving than Skrim or SW:OR or even the Dragon Age games. Not to be harsh, but storywise it felt very old school fakey video game and less like a real fantasy world you were living.

On top of that this is easily the glitchiest, most unfinished demo I've ever played on a console. Music kept cutting out. Dialogue and voices were unfinished or auto-fast forwarded far faster than I could read, and in several spots the graphics glitched and went full screen psychedelic blurr.


-ZacWilliam, also the faces are pretty ugly, but the other stuff is worse. Demo convinced me this is a pass. Thankfully Skyrim has so much more yet to give.

I don't understand how these things can be issues for you and yet youre totally okay with skyrims flaws? Get over yourself. And I've heard a bunch of complaints and about glitches in the demo but I didn't experience any myself. What did everyone play their demo on?

I tried in on the 360, i thought it was ok. the wife showed some interest... so maybe this will be a purchase at somepoint after it hits the discount bin

I played it on the 360. twice it froze in the same area fighting red legion bandits after passing through gorharth or whatever the town was called the third time I just waited the 45 minutes out in town so I could finish the demo and get my ME3 weapon. The bugs I experienced were not being able to speak to several NPCs and the aforementioned console freezes, (didn't encounter any of the weird running through the sky glitches that have appeared on youtube) My understanding is that the demo is a cut down build of the game from several months ago and that most of the issues have been taken care of in the mean time. As I said It's not going to be a day one purchase for me but I'd consider picking the game up down the line when the price drops.

Xbox here, the only issue I had were the occasional texture glitches that would pop up when I would use a charge attack with my daggers.

Xbox finally dropped it to the "free" users and I got to play it tonight. The only real graphical glitch I saw was that people were talking but sometimes the lips didn't move. Anyway...

Alright, so I liked it. The fighting was fluid, the control were intuitive enough that you could mix and match well. There was a good level of customization to the equipment (No stupid jive like class or type restrictions.) and the leveling seemed incredibly complete and detailed. Even the graphics and world was crafted in a way that I appreciated it, and the story (what I was presented.) felt good, reasonably fleshed out. All in all, I liked it, liked it enough that I would buy it.

That said: I am NOT buying it. It seems to require a constant connection to EA servers to play, which means the game has an incredibly limited life span, even moreso if it sells poorly. Unless the full version doesn't require server validation to play, I won't buy it. We're gonna have to sacrifise on decent content to teach corporations that we will not be jerked around by stupid DRM.

If EA is using the same system that they did in Dragon age, then the internet connection is optional and only really there to download and to prompt you on the title screen to get dlc and join their forums

might get the demo eventually... but now that I'm back to ground zero in Skyrim I'mma need to put time back into it

Here's a fun read

And Amalur apparently continues the proud video game tradition of the Hero of the Land being a crazy person who wanders town, smashing open boxes and stealing everything.

It's a long standing cliche... and something I truly enjoy. Nothing quite like random acts of violence and property destruction and getting REWARDED for it.

Being the hero means you're above such petty laws as "personal property rights" or "knocking before entering houses".

So... what other games share this particular style of gameplay? I know diablo kinda does it like this, but there was another game I played on the PC ages ago whose name escapes me.

Fable?

No, I got all three fables and none of them are quite the same dungeon crawler... I might be thinking of dungeon siege.

Ign put out their review, check it out

Does anyone have it yet? I won't be able to pick it up until this evening.

???

*check wikipedia*
Oh, its out today in north america. How about that. I got no coin for a game right now, so IF I get it (and let's face it, weak as hell for a good game.) it'll be in a few weeks. By the way: does anyone else just love that when you search for stuff like movies, games, TV shows... wikipedia is the second link right under the home site for the content in question? I do, freaking love it.

There's a discount for buying it as an Amazon download right now, BTW.

I'm about three hours in so far and it's really fun. Definitely lived up to my expectations.

This game seems to have this weird meta-commentary on video games as a whole. Everyone in the world has a fixed fate except for you, the one person whose life is controlled not by fate but by some guy with a gamepad.

Wow, I did not think about it that way. Good insight.

Except even the guy whose run by the controller has a fixed fate: to finish the game.

Seriously, save the world, rescue the princess, find his family, some clichéd jive or other. It's entirely inevitable. You can spend as long as you want dicking around, hunting collectibles, recipes, crafting, selling stuff, whatever options the game world leaves for you: eventually, you run out of stuff to do and need to progress the story arc to completion... or stop playing. But either way: the game ends.

I'd rather not think about games where that didn't happen...

can you imagine that level of Megaman you never got past... and sweet innocent Rock is trapped there for all eternity fighting regenerating enemies over and over ... in desperate hope that the next one drops a severed him head?

or what's Happening to peach in Mario 3 ever since you started playing with super power O_O

I'll turn on Skyrim and discover the Dragonborn starved to death outside his own house because I saved my game there and 12 days went by in in-game time ...

Dude... that is a line of thought that will haunt me tonight. There are games out there I simply DID NOT have the skill to complete. Mostly early nintendo side scrollers. I've played every megaman, but only every finished about five of them. Four legitimately. Same with most of the mario's... but I got bored trying to kill off three.

So many failures.... so many little digital lives trapped in endless hells...

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a goomba face — forever.

i want to check out this game once my pc returns to form.

If you're a fan of RPGs you'll love it. I haven't gotten to spend as much time with it as I would like, but I think it's excellent.

I think I'm gonna pick up this game for my PS3, since my PC is kinda suck-tastic.

It sounds more like what I'd want from an RPG than Skyrim, kind of like what Gabe said - I want fast-paced fun combat in a colorful world, y'see.

And if it gives me the chance to fight like Kratos without bein' a borderline villain, even better

Borderline villain? Kratos is pure villain. The guy is a psycho murdering machine who kills everything in his path.

He starts coming around by the end of the third game, but it's too late.

My thoughts on the game:

Kinda wish the options for creating characters were more in depth like SKyrim's. I wish I could make a skinnier/younger male character instead of a big bulky guy. Ah, well. At least I can make a pretty damn good facsimile my Drow Avenger/Cleric from D&D, Xaarna.

I also dig that the armor/robes are pretty sensible, even on female PCs.

My thoughts on the game (keeping in mind I've only been playing for two days):

As Spin Out implyed, the character construction isn't nearly as robust as Skyrims. Matter of fact, your two choices are human or elf. Thats about it. I got as close as I could to a drow...which means I have a dark skinned elf, but the hair couldn't be white, so I have a dark haired drow. I find it odd that the ability to more closely build a drow elf wasn't in there considering R.A. Salvatore of all people helped to write this. 

The battle system is pretty good. It's one of the few things that differentiates KoA from Skyrim. In fact, a brief compare/contrast.

You have a main quest that (as least going on two days here), you can ignore while going on tons of sidequests. You can be as law abiding or not as you wish. It even has a fast travel function like Skyrim (imaginitively called "fast travel"). 

As mentioned, the character creation isn't as robust as Skyrim. The leveling up is pretty much forcing you to stick with a class rather tightly. Yes you can level up cross classes, but the "jack of all trades, master of none" seems more inherently penalized here. Where as in Skyrim, you could be strong in anything and everything you choose to level up, here you're either strong in one thing, or weak in everything.

The mood is much lighter. Granted, there's still a good deal of violence and blood...haven't seen much gore per-sey, but definetly blood. But the colors are brighter and more cheerful. The over all mood isn't nearly so deary. 

Over all, I'm going to have to give this an 8/10. It's a great game. Anything with the name R.A. Salvatore is gold (except for the whole Wookie incident). But I have to take away a couple stars just because I can't shake the feeling that I'm playing a game that tries to be Elder Scrolls, but just doesn't quite hit the mark. 

Still, good game. Not great, but really good. I think I'll be playing it for a while.

Actually, I made a Drow (Xaarna) pretty easy - white hair and everything.

I really hope this game gets a sequel. Mainly to add some more weapons (crossbow, dual scimitars and maybe even Kratos-esque chained blades, namely) and some more playable races, like a Shifter-esque beastfolk race, or humans where the males aren't all stocky guys with wide noses and five-o-clock shadows

Also, I thought there was a familiar touch to the musical score. Grant Kirkhope did the score, and he used to be with Rare before Microsoft shunted them into Kinect-only development.

Aaaaaand now I'm depressede about Rare again

Really? I mean, I guess I did make my character rather quickly, but I was sure I tried really hard for white hair and I just...aww!  

I don't suppose there's a way to alter the looks of a character once it's made. Doubt it. I've never known a game to do that. Oh well. I guess I can still take my almost drow and live with it. 

I whole heartedly agree...at least with the general sequel notion. Some of the specifics I could take or leave it. But I would really love to be able to make a dual-scimitar weilding drow, name him Drizzt and (like in Baldur's Gate) meet with the real Drizzt who proceeds to beat the ever loving crap out of me for stealing his name. 

And while I realise they can't do Khajiit or Argonians (because then it really would be Skyrim), I would love to see some kind of anthro species thrown in. And seeing as how Salvatore is no stranger to the DnD world, maybe be able to make some half-orcs, Tieflings or some other D&D type things. And (again, not very far into the game, so maybe this is covered and I don't know it) being the drow fan, I'd love to see some Underdark sections.

But mostly, I just want a sequel. More robust character creation. Maybe make the targeting system a little bit more controllable by the player. I could quite easily see this becoming a decent franchise.

I haven't played any Rare games ever since they moved to X-Box. But every now and then I get a distinct "Never Ending Story" vibe with the music. Maybe I'm just weird? And hey! If X-Box wants to keep treating them like whipping boys...maybe Nintendo would take them back? I want me some more Killer Instinct darnit!

@Caldwin: Actually, there are mirrors in the game that allow you to change tattoos, piercings, and hairstyles. I don't remember if they allow you to change the color of your hair, though.