What the fuck is this monstruosity called Kingdoms of Amalur?

[Bleed the Man]

Recently I bought a copy of the game (don't know why, exactly), and I've been playing for 8-9 hours, and I think I'll stop there.

When I play this game I get the same feeling I got when I touched Oblivion (never have played it more than 8 hours. Disturbingly awful), with more shiny and colorful graphics, and more linear, but with the same level of stupidity in every aspect of the game.

I can't say if the plot is shit, I haven't got that far, but the writing... It's just painflul to play. I don't like the combat system either, not a fan of this kind of style, but I knew what I would find in this respect. But everything, just everything that it's in the game, I hate it with passion. The lame quests, the quest compass, the absolutely forgettable and extremely boring setting (generic as it can get), the retarded dialogs, the stupid characters and factions...

I prefer DAII, Skyrim, Jade Empire, NWN OC... over this pile of shit, and I hate those.

Does it get any better, or I put it with Oblivion and NWN OC, side by side, in my wall of "Crimes against humanity" ?

 

[Caim]

I played it too, and it was like someone stapled Diablo onto Skyrim and called it a day.

I got to the point where you meet that thief woman with whom you need to reenact a play of some kind to lure in some kind of monster and kill it for profit. And for some reason I just could not figure out what the deal was with those floating black obelisk thingies that cursed you if you interacted with them.

 

[Machocruz]

Game sucks cock by choice. Designed by committee, from the shittiest parts of Fable, WoW, and sub DMC combat. Once I saw that quest givers had question marks over there heads, like a shitty Blizzard game, I knew it was over. While playing, I asked myself "Why aren't I playing Divnity 2 instead?" which KoA feels like a watered down version of.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Worst mainstream RPG ever

 

[sea]

I liked the game at first, mostly for its surprisingly decent character system, and I did enjoy the combat too. Plus, it was one of the only RPGs available at the time that had actual dialogue skill checks and that sort of thing which could influence quest outcomes. The first DLC was pretty decent too.

But, the more I played it, the more its completely bland and soulless theme/setting got to me and I stopped playing before I was halfway finished. It could have been a decent lighthearted action-RPG if they cut the world size down by about 50% and actually did something interesting with the story, since ultimately the game is an MMO-sized single player trash mob grind simulator with only about 15% interesting content.

In retrospect when I reviewed it, I went way too easy on it, but I think I was just starved for good games at the time.

 

[Athelas]

Its biggest sin is that it's so incredibly bland - the NPC interactions, story and lore will literally lull you to sleep. The only thing it has going for it is that it at least looks pretty and colorful (so many games nowadays go for a boring 'dark, gritty' look, even fantasy games). I also thought it was pretty hilarious how the opening section pretty much ripped off Planescape: Torment.

 

[RRRrrr]

There are some games that just fill me with disgust and KoA was one of them. Something about it made me hate it on a deeper, psychological level. It is hard to describe but I rarely feel this way about a game and wanted to share.
Indeed the most bland and banal thing I have ever seen.

 

[communard]

The setting wasn't completely awful to be honest. Shit had potential. I have something of a boner for the aes sidhe. If only more elves in fantasy went that route instead of snoozeville Tolkien ripoffs. Too bad the actual writing along with everything else was complete garbage. Biggest waste of bandwidth since DA2.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Played it for about an hour or so, got to the first town, killed some nearby enemies, reminded me of WoW but instead WoW raped Fable and then used Fable as a baby-maker.

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

Like @sea said, you become buried under bland content half-way through. I wonder if someone managed to finish it. Even Oblivion or Fallout 3 were not as bland as this soulless venture and that's saying something because they are both really abysmal. While the game was not utterly trash (it had good production values, virtually no bugs and was quite playable), I was just lulled into sleep playing it, biggest budgeted snore-fest ever. Two Worlds 2 was much more clunky but also infinitely more interesting and I managed to finish it. You can't compare Amalur to Skyrim, for me they're not playing in the same league, quality-wise (but then I really like Skyrim, vanilla is "good for what it is", and properly modded, it becomes a really great game).

 

[Excidium]

It would only be tolerable if it was an MMO

 

[Bleed the Man]

It would only be tolerable if it was an MMO

Yeah, and if it was that way, I wouldn't have made the foulish mistake of buying it...

 

[Clockwork Knight]

It's a passable Fable clone (it has nothing to do with Oblivion or WoW, wtf?). Shame it's so easy.

I also thought it was pretty hilarious how the opening section pretty much ripped off Planescape: Torment.

Well, you are dragged on a wheelbarrow inside a morgue as a corpse, but that's the only bit. Might as well say PST ripped off Shadowrun.

Worst mainstream RPG ever

Wasn't it Oblivion?...would you look at that, it was released 7 years ago. One playthrough a year, I guess we can already say it wasn't that bad? Five more years and it'll be a Kool Kodex Klassic.

 

[abnaxus]

When I play this game I get the same feeling I got when I touched Oblivion (never have played it more than 8 hours. Disturbingly awful), with more shiny and colorful graphics, and more linear, but with the same level of stupidity in every aspect of the game.

That's because both suffered the withering touch of Ken Rolston.

 

[sea]

Oblivion is a million times worse than Kingdoms of Amalur. At least Amalur doesn't have a character system that literally punishes you for getting stronger and has a leveling system that makes sense instead of requiring you to metagame your skill increases to get ideal attribute distribution, and at least the game doesn't become an unplayable nightmare if you reach level 50 or above due to HP bloat, nor does it have literal copy-pasted dungeons dozens of times over with no story context to keep them varied.

 

[Average Manatee]

Oblivion is a million times worse than Kingdoms of Amalur. At least Amalur doesn't have a character system that literally punishes you for getting stronger and has a leveling system that makes sense instead of requiring you to metagame your skill increases to get ideal attribute distribution, and at least the game doesn't become an unplayable nightmare if you reach level 50 or above due to HP bloat, nor does it have literal copy-pasted dungeons dozens of times over with no story context to keep them varied.

That may be true but the low end of my quality scale stops at shit, so they score they same.

 

[SCO]

You just subsided Rhode Island economy though.

 

[Night Goat]

Tried it, couldn't get into it. It seemed like everything in it was just filler, like a typical MMO; I just killed mobs and got XP, without any reason to really care. The really hilarious thing is that they assumed they'd get to make an MMO, because they assumed this game would be hugely successful. Lawlz.

 

[DalekFlay]

I've done a lot of fedex questing in my time but Reckoning was way the fuck over the line. Combine that with the bland dialog and segregated world design and I was just going out of my mind with boredom in no time.

I still put 10 or so hours into it hoping to get to a city or something and have it get better, but it never did.

 

[DraQ]

KoA in a nutshell:

"No! I must defeat the Todd Howards" Rolston shouted
The players said “No, Ken. You are the Todd Howards”
And then KoA was an Oblivion.

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

Wasn't it Oblivion?...would you look at that, it was released 7 years ago. One playthrough a year, I guess we can already say it wasn't that bad? Five more years and it'll be a Kool Kodex Klassic.

Never. it's too shitty in every way. For Skyrim it's another thing, it can (and will) become a Morrowind kind of classic. But as for Oblivion or Fallout 3: never. They are DERP made pixel and no amount of TB of mods can ever change that: they are rotten to the core.

 

[Bahamut]

But as for Oblivion or Fallout 3: never.

Sorry to say but they are already "classics" for retards

As for derpalur, i remember i quit when i reached the desert/canyon area, the actiony combat element was not that much bad as repetitive MMO quests and blend environments where

And theres my question... did it was mostly Ken Rolstons fault that oblivious was so shit?

EDIT: Or
http://consumer.hardocp.com/article/2006/05/23/oblivions_ken_rolston_speaks

Rolston: On Morrowind, I had a much larger role in every aspect of design -- mostly because there were so few of us designers, and I was the only one with decades of experience. On Oblivion, we had many more experienced, talented designers, and they had much more control and responsibility for their parts of the design. My personal contributions to Oblivion's design are relatively modest compared with my contributions to Morrowind, and because I am a huge egomaniac, I will therefore always love Morrowind more than I love Oblivion.

 

[Kane]

There are some games that just fill me with disgust and KoA was one of them. Something about it made me hate it on a deeper, psychological level. It is hard to describe but I rarely feel this way about a game and wanted to share.
Indeed the most bland and banal thing I have ever seen.

Play a week of WoW and you can put that "deeper hate" into words.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Completed whole thing except the gipsies story line; would be much more enjoyable if the unite loot I collected was not level scaled. Combat on the other hand was much enjoyable same as build your own fortress mini-games, further from Oblivion: Game was stable and lacked the junk Behtseda puts everywhere tp choke my comp. no given that Commissar had it for free.

 

[Ninjerk]

Isn't this the game that Curt Schilling bankrupted himself making?