Tech blog post 29/2/12 Kingdoms of Amalur

Hello readers!

Apologies for not having time to update my blog yesterday, it was quite a stressful day due to me arranging moving house. So things are going to be a bit hectic for me over the next few weeks as well but I will try and update the blog as much as possible.

Anyway the first thing I would like to talk about today is kingdoms of Amalur, the action Rpg released by EA earlier this month. I picked Koa up at launch but only invested a minimal amount of time In it because my new pc arrived shortly afterwards which kept me preoccupied for the following weeks. So last night I thought I would continue playing the game because it was quite enjoyable (360 version btw). I picked up where I had left off, which was in the middle of a forest somewhere because that's where I last saved the game. I was running around the forests in my mass effect shepherd armour (which looks awesome btw) killing annoyances known as boggarts (similar to those Hobbes in fable). The combat in Koa is simple to execute and is a lot more fluid than say skyrim, but if you take the time to learn your advanced moves and combos it can become harder but more rewarding by dealing more damage. With these combos the game kind of feels like a street fighter game mixed with a free roam Rpg. There are three basic combat options and then a few hybrid options As well, but the main 3 are might, finesse and sorcery. Might is for the sword or heavy weapons fighter, finesse is the polar opposite and for those who prefer lighter weapons that deal less damage but attack much more rapidly, and sorcery is the Mage class offering destructive lightning spells etc. The hybrid classes are say for example, my character, who is a sword wielding Mage who uses mana to boost his attacks.

All of the basic Rpg elements are present in this game such as quests, side quests, skills, coloured gear and much more. The skills are very fun and rewarding, the game offers blacksmithing, alchemy, sage craft and lock picking. The map is very big with multiple regions like deserts and forgets and I am 6 hours in and still in the first zone so it's promising to be a lengthy journey. The game has a similar conversation system to mass effect, but its slightly pointless because the conversations and actions don't have any consequence as there isn't a morality system in the game (no good or bad choices). The game has coloured gear with white items being common and purple being ultra rare with blue and green colour items In-between white and purple, and if you pick sage crafting as a spell you can put socket gems in your gear to make it even more powerful!. My main and only real gripe with koa, is that the developers have not made it easy at all to understand this universe, even during the first hour you are bombarded with names and races you won't have a clue about such as Almain varani and liosalfar to name a few. Admittedly an open world fantasy Rpg does need to be populated with exotic races to make it feel alive and diverse, but not in a way that bombards a new player to the point where they get a headache during the first hour.

Overall though I would say the fantasy world of Amalur is defiantly worth a visit, especially for fans who are exhausted of being a dovahkiin (although that's not likely just yet). And there is still about a week to go until mass effect 3 is here so check it out in the meantime!

That's all for this post, but because I didn't update my blog yesterday I may do another entry later today to make up for it, and talk about warehouse 13, the tv series I began watching last night which I highly enjoyed.

See you later

Ryan