{"id":12674,"date":"2012-02-14T11:35:38","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T19:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/?p=12674"},"modified":"2012-02-14T11:35:38","modified_gmt":"2012-02-14T19:35:38","slug":"your-daily-mcmaster-what-i-reckon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2012\/02\/14\/your-daily-mcmaster-what-i-reckon\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Daily McMaster: what I reckon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"fancybox\" rel=\"12674\" href=\"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/koareckoning.jpg\"<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12965\" title=\"koareckoning\" src=\"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/koareckoning.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"322\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Every time I get into the groove of Kingdoms of Amalur, something shoves a stick in my spokes. Just wandering through the world and discovering new locations is a thrill. The game is littered with enemies to encounter and places to explore. The combat is exciting. All of these things go into making a successful game, but something isn&#8217;t right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What&#8217;s missing, after the jump<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It took a while but I think I&#8217;ve figured out what Amalur is missing &#8211; a soul. Each quest I&#8217;ve encountered has been forgettable. The dialog is presented from the standpoint of the mute protagonist, allowing you to choose an option and then watch as the NPC you&#8217;re addressing canters and cavorts around like an automaton in the Hall of Presidents. This is only amplified by the dead stares you give everyone as they talk. It&#8217;s a bit awkward, but so is a lot of Amalur.<\/p>\n<p>In a weird, Frankenstein sort of way, Amalur has taken many parts of other games and cobbled them together. It&#8217;s hard to play for more than a few minutes without noticing something new it borrows. While the pedigree may come from Salvatore&#8217;s story, McFarlane&#8217;s art and Rolston&#8217;s design, the gameplay and world come from every other fantasy RPG setting out there.<\/p>\n<p>It seems like the design team sat down and wrote up a giant list of things they like from other games and then just decided to do it all. This sounds like a good idea &#8211; hey, more of all the stuff you like &#8211; but the reality is never as good as the concept. The pieces of a game are only made enjoyable by careful design inclusion, which is missed in the &#8220;everything and the kitchen sink&#8221; method. And then there&#8217;s the difficulty.<\/p>\n<p>In the over forty hours of Amalur that my wife and I have played, she has died twice and I have yet to shuffle off this mortal coil. And, before you ask, no we&#8217;re not playing on easy. We&#8217;re not playing on hard, either, mind you, but certainly not easy.<\/p>\n<p>I really want to like this game. I kind of do like it. I just don&#8217;t imagine I&#8217;ll be playing it much more. Either way, I hope Amalur had a good opening and 38 Studios gets another chance. I think they&#8217;re close to something great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":278,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Your Daily McMaster: what I reckon - Quarter to Three<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2012\/02\/14\/your-daily-mcmaster-what-i-reckon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Your Daily McMaster: what I reckon - 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