38 Studios is Working on a Game, Apparently, Afterall (Kingdoms of Amular)

[Hawkbit]

I'm absolutely buying it, but can't decide on playing it on my PC where it looks great or on the PS3 where it looks just okay, but I can lay on the couch. 

First world problems, I know.

[ffc]

You may have already done this: I compared my PS3 to my PC by playing the demo and switching sources on my TV.  Side by side the PC clearly has sharper everything and much shorter load times but on its own the PS3 reaches "good enough" standards, especially from couch distance where jaggies are less apparent.

Just use your PS3 controller with your PC, and may your couch enjoy victory.

[Ingmar]

Games that can't detect my resolution and make me restart the whole thing to CHANGE resolution make me angry.

Also my first impression is that the game is just really weird looking. There's something very off putting about how the graphics all hang together or the colors or the lighting or SOMEthing, but I can't put my finger on exactly what.

EDIT: OK, pretty much unplayable by me due to the camera jerking and shaking causing motion sickness/headache, even with mouse sensitivity turned down to almost nothing.

Also the animations are terrible - where do I keep the shield when I'm not blocking? Why does my sword teleport back onto my back as soon as I'm done swinging it? Just sloppy as hell.

[Margalis]

Also my first impression is that the game is just really weird looking. There's something very off putting about how the graphics all hang together or the colors or the lighting or SOMEthing, but I can't put my finger on exactly what.

Yeah there is.

The model geometry is low-poly but fine, the textures look fine to me as well. Seems to be the scene composition and lighting. The scenes have a hideous mix of colors and the lighting is very soft, very little contrast, lots of different colored lights bleeding together, etc. Colored lighting is very hard to get right, and there are rooms where a puke green light blends into an orange light.

It looks a lot like Diablo 3 art style gone horribly wrong.

[Hawkbit]

You may have already done this: I compared my PS3 to my PC by playing the demo and switching sources on my TV.  Side by side the PC clearly has sharper everything and much shorter load times but on its own the PS3 reaches "good enough" standards, especially from couch distance where jaggies are less apparent.

Just use your PS3 controller with your PC, and may your couch enjoy victory.

The 360 controller on PC is really nice for this game.  It auto-switches by button press, so one can play controller then kyb/mouse without even going into a menu. 

I'm leaning towards PS3 for this title, simply because my PS3 has been relegated to Netflix box and occasional Dark Souls.  Might be nice to play an actual game on it.  Besides, by xmas Steam will have this for $10 on sale, so I can pick it up for PC then if it ends up being that good.

[kildorn]

Also my first impression is that the game is just really weird looking. There's something very off putting about how the graphics all hang together or the colors or the lighting or SOMEthing, but I can't put my finger on exactly what.

Yeah there is.

The model geometry is low-poly but fine, the textures look fine to me as well. Seems to be the scene composition and lighting. The scenes have a hideous mix of colors and the lighting is very soft, very little contrast, lots of different colored lights bleeding together, etc. Colored lighting is very hard to get right, and there are rooms where a puke green light blends into an orange light.

It looks a lot like Diablo 3 art style gone horribly wrong.

For me it's the animation. In combat you don't notice it, but your character runs.. wrong. And since you spend about half your time running around, it was really jarring.

[schild]

Generally, when Gabe likes something relatively off-beat, it's enough to say "Yea, no, this is pretty much going to be crap isn't it?"

Then, yea, it turns out to be crap.

[Mrbloodworth]

I played it, found it a bit mundane. Fable is easy to compare it to, but its just not as amusing as fable. Everything is all super serious.

[Ingmar]

Also the long exposition dump at the beginning is pretty stupid considering you wake up with amnesia, just tell all that story shit through the game itself and it would make the intro a lot more interesting.

[kildorn]

Also the long exposition dump at the beginning is pretty stupid considering you wake up with amnesia, just tell all that story shit through the game itself and it would make the intro a lot more interesting.

There seems to be a running "thing" with making your character creation part of a cutscene. Skyrim did it better, and even it's long assed intro got really old really quick.

Kingdoms has a check in it that lets you skip the whole thing after you've done the first area once at least.

[Ingmar]

I'm talking about the stuff PRE character creation, there was a giant info dump there which should really not be necessary.

[Venkman]

The 360 controller on PC is really nice for this game.  It auto-switches by button press, so one can play controller then kyb/mouse without even going into a menu. 

That's it. I'm old. Controllers are for consoles. Keyboard and mouse is PC. No problem with games being designed for controllers, but that better mean I'm playing it on about 6-10' from the screen. Joysticks don't count.

My rules.

Get off my lawn.

[Tannhauser]

Hurry up and die you old bastard so I can get your lawn! 

Seriously though, I plan on playing this with a controller on my PC with maybe my PC hooked up to the telly.  I'm looking forward to this game, but I admit the UI is pretty shit.

As an aside; it's 2012, why are games still coming out with crap UI's? 

[kildorn]

As an aside; it's 2012, why are games still coming out with crap UI's? 

Hipster game devs making shitty UIs ironically.

[tgr]

As an aside; it's 2012, why are games still coming out with crap UI's?

Welcome to the hilariously awesome effects of consoles.

[jakonovski]

As an aside; it's 2012, why are games still coming out with crap UI's?

Welcome to the hilariously awesome effects of consoles.

I dunno, SWTOR managed to do it with a pure pc pedigree.

[Merusk]

I think that makes the assumption that they weren't looking at sending TOR to consoles.  The way the zones are broken-up and all the loading screens and well-hidden transition points sometimes makes me wonder.

[jakonovski]

Isn't the SWTOR UI basically the default Hero Engine UI? That would indicate that instead of console thought, no thought went into the UI.

[Mrbloodworth]

It's the Default MMO UI. Game specific implementations not withstanding.

[jakonovski]

I finally got around to playing the demo without post processing. Runs smooth, looks good, ok combat, but a bit generic. The FOV was so tiny I got seriously disoriented. Disappointed that you couldn't run out of the first zone in the demo, even though they gave that speech about having 45 minutes to explore.

The skybox is weird in this game, made me think I was in a gigantic cave.

[schild]

So this came out.

I don't really give a rat's ass but I'm sure someone here does. Bump.

[Ingmar]

Based on my experience with the demo I give it a strong NOT BUY rating. Wait for $5. At most.

[HaemishM]

^ Yeah, this. ^

Supposedly the demo does not give a good, accurate picture of the gameplay, so if you liked the demo, the real thing is maybe better? I just know I'm not spending $60 on it.

[Sky]

That's what the baseball guy is saying in the press junket; that the gameplay opens up to be on par with a fighting game level of complexity with an rpg-stat engine running under the hood.

I'VE NEVER HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE....

He also said the game world was Skyrim's size.

[NiX]

I finally got around to playing the demo without post processing. Runs smooth, looks good, ok combat, but a bit generic. The FOV was so tiny I got seriously disoriented. Disappointed that you couldn't run out of the first zone in the demo, even though they gave that speech about having 45 minutes to explore.

The skybox is weird in this game, made me think I was in a gigantic cave.

The FOV killed this for me. I felt trapped. It was also extremely generic and I kept encountering weird texture bugs.

[Kail]

I dunno, the demo was kinda fun for me, if shallow.  If anyone ends up getting this, I'd be interested in hearing if it ever does get any deeper or more "sandboxy".

[Tannhauser]

I know how Kotaku is received around here, but I thought their review was informative.

Was going to buy it today, but I have decided to wring some more fun out of Skyrim.

[schild]

It sounds like Salvatore (based on his Reddit AMA) was really a big part of crafting the World of Amular...

Which makes me not want to touch it with an AIDS-addled 10 foot pole. There are plenty of games I can play where bad writers were paid nickels to write piss poor fantasy trash. Why would I want to support someone who was overpaid to do the same thing?

[Malakili]

Day9 and Felecia Day  streaming this now: www.day9.tv/live

[ffc]

I just want to know how Salvatore did with the main quest story.  Reviews are focusing on the fun combat and I'm not sure no news is good news regarding the story.

[ezrast]

I thought the demo was pretty fun, but I'm coming at it as an action game fan more than an RPG fan. "Evil elves are invading, go kill 'em!" is enough story for me, and the combat system with daggers was really fluid with lots of different enemies to tumble around and kill. Not a day one purchase, but I'd definitely consider it on sale.

[Rendakor]

Bought it, installing now. I'm bored with Skyrim and wanted a new open world RPG. Will report back, possibly also with LP videos. I got it for PC (physical copy) and it's making me install Origin.

[Hawkbit]

I got it on PS3.  Seems perfect to lounge around and play casually.  I have Skyrim for my hardcore PC fix, this should do for casual.

I've spent money on worse, guaranteed.  We'll see.  There's not really all that much on my list for this year, so I don't mind spending a bit if it turns out crap. 

I mean, this is my exact list for this year:

Kingdoms of Amular
Xenoblade Chronicles, Wii
Dragon's Dogma, PS3 (maybe)
Diablo 3
Guild wars 2
Journey
Torchlight 2

Seven whole games, call this year of the CCG.  :)

[Wasted]

I'm pre-loading it now on steam, ready for tomorrows Aus release.

[rk47]

Do not want. After reading another poster's impression:

I played a pure sorcery build. Sorcerers have 3 weapons - Staffs (close range) Chakras (throwing discs - mid range) and some sort of Wands (long range). I chose to specialize in Chakras and the heavy nuke spell you start out with.

Combat was quite decent once you got a few abilities. The QTE finishing moves (for extra experience gain) are dumb, but at least I always got 100% bonus exp gain with my APM fingers of doom. Most encounters followed one of three types: 4-5 mobs encounter (use AoE and dodge), 1-3 with ranged charge-up/charge skill (use dodge), or dumbfuck mob (just spam Mouse1).

The story, characters and lore are super generic. It's also very PG-13. So it's just boring. The background lore seems to be quite rich though. Lots of names and history and shit. But that doesn't really matter since it's all boring. Who is actually excited by dark/light elves and dwarves anymore? "oh no, the dark elf king is corrupted with evil and you are the chosen one hohuhuho" fuck you.
The game world is too big. Areas are too sparse when it comes to... well, interesting stuff. It's all mobs and loot chests and fedex sidequest-givers ("Hello, bring me 4 deer heads! I know I'm a hunter but I will ask you, stranger, to hunt in my place. Because fuck you I'm lazy"). Towns are all hub-structured (3-4 questgivers, shop, healer, smith, etc.), with very few intractable characters besides the questgivers. Pretty much like a MMORPG.

Speaking of being like a MMORPG. Every quest including the main quests feels like they're taken directly from a MMORPG. Felt like playing SWTOR again. Main quests and sidequests - only difference is main quest got recurring characters and some cinematics.

The interface is horrible. Probably developed for consoles first.


TLDR; The game is a singleplayer MMORPG, much like Two Worlds II. It has a horrible interface and a camera/turn-system that takes like an hour to get used to (earlier I couldn't finish the demo because I became nauseated). Combat plays like Zelda - dodge, attack, dodge. Plot and characters are PG-13 cardboard cutouts and boring - don't expect xtreme bioware tableflipping or romancing or anything like that. Writing is not horrible but it's absolutely not interesting.
I expect only a few percentage of people who play this will actually finish it. It can be very tedious. Your character grows boring fast - and since it's a single character game that kind of sucks balls, no?