Doug Elfman is an award-winning entertainment columnist who lives in Las Vegas. He blogs at http://www.lvrj.com/columnists/Doug_Elfman.html. Twitter at VegasAnonymous.
Here’s what “Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning” looks like: Golden sunlight sneaks through leafy trees and crisscrosses my elfin face.
I am shielded in medieval-esque armor. Idyllic grasslands lead me into forests, whimsical villages and underground castle-caves.
Everywhere, I travel by foot. Nasty buggers appear out of thin air to attack me — spiders bigger than me; winged monsters; humanoid grifters.
I fight them with a torch called Desire (a handheld fireball cannon); a Staff of Daybreak (a stick that shoots ice); and a Mystic Hammer (a sledge hammer larger than my body). Those are just three of dozens of my weapons.
“Amular” is an addicting action-adventure. And it’s thrilling that it’s the first of a planned series, since most best-selling games these days are sequels. (The latest “Final Fantasy” is something like the 45th “Final Fantasy.”)
“Amular’s” original plot: You portray a man or woman (your choice) who is reborn in a ye olde fantasyland named Amular. You are the only person reborn without an assigned fate.
For the next 60 to 1 zillion hours of game play (seriously, this game is long), you travel Amular’s ornate towns, elaborate castles, deserts and countryside.
You take on central missions (killing the main bad guys who are connected to your weird rebirth) and side missions (killing lesser bad guys, or helping injured people).
“Amular” has been described as a mix of “God of War” (hand-to-hand combat) and “Oblivion” (role-playing nerd stuff, featuring a novel’s worth of dialogue and exposition).
The combat does remind me of “God of War.” It’s really, really good. But “God of War” is a linear cinematic in which you play sequential chapters. “Amular” isn’t sequential like that.
In fact, “Amular” could frustrate pure “God of War” fans such as myself, because you may not beat “Amular,” if you venture on the main quest too fast without going on side quests to earn powerful armor.
I still haven’t finished “Amular,” despite playing it every spare hour for a week! I’m near the end, but I gathered only about one-fifth of the armor and weapons I need to beat the last few super villains. So I can’t end the game. That would never happen in “God of War.”
Simply put, “Amular” will likely end up on critics’ best-of-2012 lists. But it’s more for fans of “Oblivion” and adventure-RPGs, in which you constantly pause the action to level-up your boots, pants, gloves, armor, necklaces, etc., infinitely.
A side note: The minor-chord music score may contain the prettiest thematic variations I’ve heard in a game … ever. The music is sweeping yet lilting, childlike yet wise, beautiful, melodic and even Tchaikovskyian/John Williams-esque. The composer is Grant Kirkhope. Thanks, Mr. Kirkhope.
Three bummers: The on-screen map is terrible; the game begins off-puttingly hard due to a lack of health auto-regeneration; and the auto-save/manual-save system is idiotic.
Honestly, talking about this game makes me feel like the biggest nerd on Earth.
“Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning” by EA retails for $60 for Xbox 360 and PS 3; $50 for PC — Plays long, deep and entertaining. Looks great. Very challenging. Rated “M” for blood, gore, intense violence, suggestive themes. Four out of four stars.
Doug Elfman is an award-winning entertainment columnist who lives in Las Vegas. He blogs at http://www.lvrj.com/columnists/Doug_Elfman.html. Twitter at VegasAnonymous.