Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo (Xbox 360)

At Pax East last year, I had the privilege of sitting in at a roundtable discussion that included 38 Studio's founder – Curt Schilling. What he said in that room impressed me so much that I actually wrote him a letter thanking him for his views that bucked the status quo. He was all about the experience, not cutting corners, making content and storyline the priorities of a game. I told him in that letter that I could not wait to play anything his studio developed.

Today, I finally got my chance with the release of the playable demo of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning – the precursor to MMO based upon the same setting Schilling is supposed to be working on in the near future. Weighing in at well over a gig and a good bit of game play, this demo promised to be meaty and a tell tale trial that would determine whether or not you would buy the game.  Having played it, my first thought is... play it for yourself to see if it fits your style of play.

I will preface this preview with the fact that I had just come off of a long torrid December of Skyrim. Many of you had similar experiences around that time so I don't feel that I need to go into detail as to the level of game play I expected or the level of detail I had come to believe should be the new standard. Skyrim despite its bug set a very high bar and for that the timing of Amalur's release could be a bit tragic even if it never set out to be anything like Bethesda's game.

Graphics:

From the start (well, somewhat excluding the cut scenes), you will get a sense of familiarity when you see the graphics. The characters and objects styles all seem to have leaped out of World of Warcraft though with a slight alteration towards realistic. The dark areas are shadowy, the magical areas are sparkly and everything else sorta resembles the kind of background fodder you would find in Stormwind.  Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily so but outside of the level of graphical detail that your character seems to get and the near bombastic effects of using magic (be it with a staff or ability), everything else seems to be unremarkable.

Read more: MMOFringe: Thoughts On The Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo