Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning impressions - I reckon I'm not impressed

Back in January I played through the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo and was none too impressed with it. The demo left a rather poor taste in my mouth, like bad ale washed down at the local inn, but I hoped that my worries would be proved wrong once I got my hands on the full game.

Therefore I was cautiously excited when I finally got a copy of the PS3 version of KoA. Would I be immersed in a fantastic fantasy world of adventure and excitement, or would my fears of a game that was rougher around the edges than an axe crafted by a drunk Dwarf prove to be all too valid?

I think you're going to need a bigger sword, dude

Well, I'm only six hours into the game by now, but the smell of dwarven booze is wafting at me strong and rank.
Let me preface this impression by explaining that I pretty quickly concluded that I am probably not the target player for KoA. There is a lot of exploring to be done in KoA and lots of quests to do that are completely unrelated to the main narrative, which makes the game slightly reminiscent of Skyrim.
I am very much a story driven gamer and while I do enjoy a fully realized gaming world to frolic around in, I generally need a strong narrative motivation to spend hours clearing dungeons and collecting flowers. So if a big world with tons and tons of side quests to dump countless hours into is really your thing, then maybe you will love KoA, despite the numerous dagger stab wounds that I am about to deliver into its head and neck area.

First off my biggest problem with KoA has to be that it simply feels half baked in a lot of places.
The game feels like it was shipped about 6-9 months before the developers had time to smooth everything out and really polish up their digital baby. The UI looks a bit coarse and the inventory management in particular feels clumsy and unwieldy with long lists to scroll through to find what you're looking for.
Then there is the way that you can only ever see one quest on your world map (though on the local map you'll see markers popping up if you get close to your non-active quest). Oh, and speaking of quests, you better be prepared to ignore a lot of quest givers or scroll through a huge ass list of quests, since you can't abandon a quest after it is accepted and the amount of side quests means that you probably won't finish them all, unless you're really OCD about completing every quest in your log (in which case this game could quite possibly drive you insane(r)).

New video from Firaxis spills the alien beans on the upcoming XCOM: Enemy Unknown

A while back it was revealed that we will not only be treated to the FPS take on the old X-COM franchise, but that there is also a "proper" new game in the works, which is going to take us back to the base building and turn based combat goodness of the original games.

Today the developers, Firaxis, has posted this video look of the game, giving us the first chance of actually seeing it in action:

I'm personally really excited after watching this video!
Some people may disagree with the somewhat cartoony art direction that the game seems to be sporting, but I don't mind it at all, and I think that the new "glamour" cam that they were showing off looked awesome and will help add to the immersion of combat.

I'm definitely much more interested in XCOM: Enemy Uknown now and looking forward to playing it later this year (no firm release date is available yet, though).



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City of Steam sneak peek thoughts

On February 28 the City of Steam "Sneak Peek" event kicked off.
The sneak peek lets us get a very early glimpse of the steampunk MMO, allowing players to jump into the steamy world of the game and go slay monsters and explore dungeons, all from the comfort of your internet browser.

City of Steam is indeed a browser based game, but while "browser based" might conjure up horrible images of "Farmville" in your head, don't think that this design choice means that City of Steam is a ghastly looking game.
While it's clear that City of Steam does not stand a chance of living up to the graphical splendor of something like Star Wars: The Old Republic, it manages to make itself look perfectly presentable and functional as it chugs along in your Chrome window.

You won't confuse City of Steam with Guild Wars 2, but the graphics aren't bad for a browser game

The game itself reminds me of something a bit like a mix between the original Diablo, with several elements from the standard MMO tool box bolted on.
You'll be moving around your character from an overhead or behind-the-back view by left clicking on the ground. When nefarious enemies rear their brassy gear endowed heads you'll left click on them to fight them with one of three standard attacks, or you can use your skills from the quick slot bar at the bottom of the screen.