Anyone played this?

[Teco]

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.   It came out in February, has pretty good reviews and attractive screenshots.  I'm suddenly curious about it because 38 Studios (Kurt Schilling's studio) is expected to file for bankruptcy any day now and I'm speculating the game will go on a massive sale.

So, with that said, anyone got an opinion/experience with it?  The trailer looks pretty awesome.

[Hexxus]

I played it for a few hours.

It's not a hardcore RPG.  It's more of an action-RPG.
It kinda reminded me of a Zelda/God of War mix.

There are 3 skills trees you can mix n match.  Basically a warrior, rogue, and mage tree.
There is crafting (gems, equipment, potions).

It's pretty looking, but kind of a cartoony art style.  I, personally, don't mind the art style.  It's done fairly well and makes things fun.  But I know some might complain it's not realistic looking.
Todd McFarlane did the art, so I'd imagine there would be some pretty awesome looking enemies to encounter later on in the game.
But towards the beginning it's your pretty standard wolves and bipedal humanoids to kill.

The story wasn't half bad, but I didn't get too deep into it since I only played a few hours.
It's written by R.A. Salvatore, if you know who he is.

If I remember correctly, all of the interactions between you and the NPCs are voice acted.
I mean, you have to choose text dialog to respond and your character never actually speaks, but everyone else talks to you.  So, it's kinda like Fallout or Skyrim there.
The quality of the voice acting isn't horrible, but nothing to write home about either.

I hated the menu system.
Too cumbersome to equip stuff and to craft items.  It's another victim of the gotta-make-it-usable-for-console-gamers syndrome.

I'd probably buy it, if it went on sale for about $19.99 and I needed/wanted something new to play.
I don't think it's worth the $59.99 price tag it has now.

I remember seeing someone was putting in a pretty hefty number of hours into this game when our site had that Steam tracker on the sidebar.  I don't know who it was, but hopefully they could provide more detail for you.

[Teco]

Thanks Hexxus!  Pretty much confirmed nearly everything I had assumed from watching gameplay videos.   Hopefully it goes on sale before they fold.


EDIT: 7:45pm
The entire staff of 38 Studios and Big Huge Games has been laid off.
http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/5/24/3041662/38-studios-lays-off-entire-staff

[Teco]

Epic Games has now hired on a large portion of the "Big Huge Games" key developers
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/03/epic-games-saves-kingdoms-of-amalur-developer

EDIT: Realized there was a demo and gave it a whirl.... won't be bothering to buy it.  Very generic and over console-ized.   Movements are clunky, game does all the auto-aiming for you, and all you have to do is hold down W and spam left mouse-click.     The Inventory UI actually manages to make skyrim's look revolutionary.