go to your nvidia control panel->manage 3d settings->under global settings, choose high-performance nvidia processor as your preferred graphics processor.

"Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning looks like it's going to be the game that Dragon Age II tried to be."

When editor Dave Yeager had a chance to visit the Big Huge Games studios in Maryland earlier this year, he got a deep hands-on look at Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, one that I can't provide an equivalent write-up for. For all the great interviews he did, all the quotes he got, I got a half hour demo in a crowded, dark room. However, I'm just as impressed as he was - a team comprised of Todd McFarlane, R.A. Salvatore, and Ken Rolston of Elder Scrolls fame is quite the star-studded development trio. Their baby isn't slated for release until the first quarter of 2012, so the title was not playable, but we were demoed live code. Rather than go into great detail about the game's systems (Please read all of Dave's impressions and information by scrolling down), I'm going to give a brief overview and my thoughts about what 38 Studios and Big Huge Games are doing right with Reckoning.

By the numbers, Kingdoms of Amalur is set to be quite the epic adventure. With 4 playable races, 4 major cities, 6 faction quests, more than 100 sidequests, and hundreds of pieces of armor and weaponry with unique art, there's a lot going on under the hood. There's crafting, an alchemy system, and a skill system based on destinies as well. These destinies are essentially your class - depending on how the game is played, different destinies are unlocked. How does this fit into a world where fate means everything? The main character has died and was resurrected through the well of souls; he's no longer connected to fate and can set things in motion outside of a preset destiny. It's an interesting system that sets the framework for player choice - persuasion, stealth, and pure combat are all viable options for victory, no matter how you want to play.

Now, that's fine and dandy - all the core RPG elements are in place, but how does combat work? It's much more visceral than you'd expect; rather than playing out like Oblivion, the combat in Reckoning looks like what you'd see in God of War or Darksiders, and it's quite a unique experience for it. Reckoning never claimed to be realistic - the graphics reinforce that, as they're bright and vivid where many games are headed toward an amalgam of brown and grey - and the combat follows that. During my demo, the main character tore through enemies with slashing attacks that made him dash through foes, call forth spikes of earth from the cave floor, and do absolutely brutal kills in Reckoning mode. Time slows down and the player can commit fate shift kills, which play out as QTEs and look fantastic.

So far, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning looks like it's going to be the game that Dragon Age II tried to be. A game that's accessible and fun for gamers who typically bypass story sequences and don't have any desire to tinker with statistics, but one that's also deep for the hardcore who go choose every dialogue option and spend hours in menus. It's one thing to hear about the game, but when I saw it in motion, I started to become a believer. I still stand by my review of Dragon Age II being an above-average RPG, but Reckoning feels like the end of that train of thought. Give the player choice, give them engaging combat, give them customization, and give them depth, and you'll have the kind of game that will appeal to everyone - hardcore and casuals alike. I'm incredibly excited to see Reckoning when it releases next year - if it holds up to Curt Schilling's vision for his game company, we'll have quite the title to play.

38 Studios' Ken Rolston, who just shook the Earth during the Gamescom 2011 EA Keynote with bon mots like "enemy-pounding funfest," just revealed the official launch date for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. The promising
action-RPG is due out in the States on February 7, 2012 and in Europe on February 10.

We suppose we can wait that long, though we're not sure our hearts can take it if Rolston keeps dropping glowing descriptors like enemy-pounding funfest.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning launching February 7, 2012


Source: Joystiq

Able to map just 4 abilities to a controller is retarded even on the console.

Game developers in the PS1 era allows players to map a lot more skills on a controller that has a lot less buttons, this is just a big fail to me as the current generations of Xbox 360 controller has a lot more buttons if including the analogue stick as well.

I know Darksiders has a similar mapping scheme but Darksiders has like 4-5 abilities compared to this game which they claim have like over 60 abilities across multiple trees(?), that is just not cool.

And I so far I haven't see any jumping actions in the game, so I really doubt that the player will be able to jump at all.

Able to map just 4 abilities to a controller is retarded even on the console.

Game developers in the PS1 era allows players to map a lot more skills on a controller that has a lot less buttons, this is just a big fail to me as the current generations of Xbox 360 controller has a lot more buttons if including the analogue stick as well.

I know Darksiders has a similar mapping scheme but Darksiders has like 4-5 abilities compared to this game which they claim have like over 60 abilities across multiple trees(?), that is just not cool.

And I so far I haven't see any jumping actions in the game, so I really doubt that the player will be able to jump at all.

What engine will this game be using?

What engine will this game be using?

Random google search showed Unreal 3

but it doenst look like it to me