The Post-Game - Assassin's Creed: Unity

Assassin’s Creed Unity is the massively bloated sibling of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. One big city, run around, do stuff, occasionally travel to out-lying areas. Stunning graphics (and facial animations) can’t hide the huge amount filler missions / collectibles and awful implementation of the traditional Assassin’s Creed parkour / free-running system. Unity is easily one of the more frustrating entries in the franchise. Oh, and there are co-op missions. Not that anyone is playing.

Total size on my hard drive: 49.4 GB

+ Great graphics. The level of detail is superb. Facial animations are generally great too.

+ Loved the massive crowds. Blending into a crowd feels completely natural.

+ Co-op works well, though good luck randomly finding anyone to play with.

+ Well-optimized on PC in 2017.

+ Great soundtrack.

+ Ubisoft was clearly trying for Ezio 2.0 with Arno Dorian; he is charming one instant and grittily determined the next. A good character, even if his arc is something we’ve seen before from Ubisoft.

+/- The story is… odd. Someone brings a blindfolded Templar into the Assassin headquarters (seriously?!). Another has a traitor taking extreme action because – he wasn’t good at arguing, wasn’t able to convince someone of his point of view? Things frequently happen because the plot needs them to happen, not because they make any particular sense.

- Many story elements feel half-baked. A sword of Eden? Where did it come from? Who made it? How did wind up in France in the 14^th century? What is its significance to the sage? No clue.

- Arno’s Eagle vision doesn’t function like Ezio’s or even Edward’s. It only serves to highlight enemies and objects of interest – it can’t trace the steps of patrol patterns.

- An attempt to introduce boss battles mostly fails. The final boss starts well, but ends as a joke as the exact same pattern can be repeated multiple times to win – the boss never adjusts to a particular tactic.

- Poorly designed assassination missions. Either too easy or too hard. I breezed through almost every 5-star difficulty mission, but died repeatedly on several 3-star missions. All offer alternate methods of completion, but several of those alternate methods are simply broken (*cough*La Touche*cough*).

- Edge-detection, so important in a parkour / free-running game, is some of the worst in the Assassin’s Creed franchise. There are some classic gifs of Ezio, Altair, and others randomly leaping to their deaths, getting stuck on merchant stalls, and the like. But this kind of thing happens so often in Unity it’s not funny. Worse, it creates issues when trying to stealth. Sometimes Arno will slip through a window when asked, other times he perches on edge of the roof like an idiot, twitching but not going through the window. Sometimes he’ll go in the direction the camera is facing; more often, though, he’ll go across the camera. I understand that optimizing a world of the size of Unity’s would require a titanic amount of work, but it doesn’t feel like Ubisoft even optimized their algorithm, formula, parameter, or what ever it is they used for the edge-detection.

- The delay before standing up from a chest, or taking off running, or getting back on your feet after being knocked down is programmed into the animation. I though it was input lag at first, but it’s not. I wonder who the idiot was who thought that was a good idea. Combine this with the issues with edge-detection, and AC Unity is easily one of the most frustrating games I’ve ever played.

- Combat is heavy-footed and clumsy. No more kill-chains. Or counter kills. You can dodge-roll, though...

- Too many collectibles. Most provide nothing except the satisfaction that comes from seeing a completely clean map.

- Many meaningless side-missions, if they can even be called that. Go to the Assassin icon on the map, get the briefing, walk around a corner, stab someone, voila! Mission completed.

- Meaningless street missions. Catch a thief, prevent a citizen from being killed, kill the criminals. It will all happen dozens of times.

- Accumulate money fast. Makes the collectibles even more meaningless.

- Paris looks flat and boring from the roof-tops. Few landmarks means you’ll be constantly referring to your map just to find your way around.

Assassin’s Creed Unity does feel like a massively expanded Brotherhood. But there is no Volpe, no Machiavelli, no Leonardo, and we’re not fighting the Borgias. The vendetta in Unity is on a personal level, and what made previous assassins (and Ezio in particular) special is that they found a way to rise above the petty grievances to work for a cause greater than themselves. In contrast, Arno joins the assassins in a fit of anger and spends much of the game seeking his personal revenge, only caring about the Creed in the final voice-over. Unity’s beautiful game-world becomes the backdrop to a blah story, a massive amount of collectibles and horrible parkour – all of which scream of a missed opportunity.

The Post Game - Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 takes what the first game offered, and adds more, larger areas to explore, more characters, a fantastic story, new enemies, new ways to play, a great soundtrack and stylized graphics that are just as unique as before, but now look even better. And like the first game, it is playable as a four-player co-operative game with easy drop-in / drop-out. If you're an fps fan you owe it to yourself to get this game. I realize that sounds a bit fanboyish, but really, Borderlands 2 is THAT good.

Installed size on my hard-drive (GOTY edition): 10.4 GB.

The number of areas to explore is huge. I don't have the exact data, but it feels several times larger than the first game. There is a lot of snow at the start, but there are rocky deserts, alpine meadows, and a slag-riddled environmental monstrosity awaiting at the end. Quick-travel points abound (usually at the entrances to areas), so it's easy to go from one place to another. In-game save points are unfortunately like the first game; even if you passed a quick-save point, then quit the game thinking you'll resume where you left off, well, you won't. When you resume, you'll be back at the start of the level. Levels are well designed, too – twisting and turning at times, while others are wide open.

The characters that we played in the first game (Roland, Lilith, Mordecai and Brick) are NPCs here, with the story centered around them. Angel, Claptrap, Moxxi, Scooter, Dr. Zed and Marcus return as well. So right away, stepping out into the wastes of Pandora has a familiar vibe. Except now the enemy is the boss of Hyperion Corp, Handsome Jack. Colorful and distinct, there are enough personalities here to never lose interest – even when doing several of the fetch-quest filler missions (yes, they're back, but given the looting-and-leveling nature of the Borderlands games, probably unavoidable). While the story is great, I can't talk too much about it here without spoiling it. The early stages play out as a defy-the-odds hero tale as the player character defies Handsome Jack and escapes to the town of Sanctuary. Angel is still guiding you on your HUD, but your character catches her in a bit of deception. The second act reveals who (and where) she is – and sets the stage for the third act, which culminates in the showdown with Handsome Jack. I was genuinely curious about how this was going to resolve, and kept playing all the way through. This isn't even touching the side missions and quests for secondary characters. Side quests are a mixed bag. I was more than happy to free some animals for Mordecai; collecting body parts for Dr. Zed while a timer counted down was just annoying, and the rewards were barely worth it in either case (usually XP and a weapon which was far below my current level). The only reason to do a number of the side missions is because of the possibility of rare loot and character backstory. The rest are grindy level-fodder, needed for leveling up, but nothing else.

I solo'd most of Borderlands 2 – yeah, crazy – and the game worked well as a solo experience. The bosses were never too hard; just long. One boss took me 45 minutes of running, hiding, sniping, and running again (I was playing the commando class). Clearly the bosses were not designed for soloing. The loot drops were also disappointing. The guns for sale at the kiosks were always – and I mean always – worse than what I was carrying. It's better to loot new weapons than buy them. Which means that other than ammo, there's nothing to spend money on (except respawning). The best weapons are acquired by using a “golden key” on the special loot-drop chest in Sanctuary, so sometimes it's just easier to spend a golden key than spending hours poring over loot (some side-missions for Moxxi do provide decent weapons).

If there is a drawback to Borderlands 2, it’s the amount of DLC. There is a lot. Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep was one of the best pieces of DLC I’ve ever encountered, having a fun story that was uniquely told. The Captain Scarlett DLC, the Creature Slaughterdome DLC and Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage DLC provide solid additional content. But additional player classes as DLC? (The Psycho and Mechromancer DLCs) Raising the character level cap via DLC? (Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade packs) There are a number of DLC packs that focus on skins and such, but this level of “parting out” the game verges on the ridiculous. If the game were not complete without the DLC, it’d be time for a rant. However, without the DLC, Borderlands 2 still feels like a complete experience. Thus I lament the DLC situation, but deduct no points for it.

In an age when it’s cool to have “the latest” at expense of forgetting the hit games of yesteryear, Borderlands 2 inspires the sort of interest that kept me coming back again and again. A great achievement in fps video games, and a game that belongs in the library of every fan of the genre.

The Post Game - Battleborn

Fun game with a low enjoyment ceiling. Recommended because I had fun with it for a while and it works, but repetitive PvE matches, poor PvP matchmaking / empty lobbies, lack of weapon modding and repetitive character leveling means it's not worth the full asking price.

Total size on my hard drive (base only, without the Season Pass content): 25GB.

Battleborn is a game of two parts: PvE and PvP.

PvE

First off, this is not a game for soloing. It can be done, but takes FOREVER. It's much better to try to find a match with other people. Unfortunately, this means the campaign is experienced in bits and pieces, frequently out of order. The story is episodic anyway, but any kind of sense to the story becomes hard to grasp. There's some guy Rendain who's trying to do – something – and our team of Battleborn, assisted by genius Kleese and the AI, Nova, are trying to stop him. Sounds good. The maps and levels flow well, the banter with Kleese and supporting characters is funny (the first few times), the graphics are colorful, and the combat has a good feel (wish sprint was faster, though Speed power-ups help). Bosses are suitably epic, but most enemies behave the same – and in many cases, ARE the same. PvE is best used to practice playing specific characters; expect it to get old fast – even with alternate dialogue for in-game transitions.

PvP

Several different modes with decent net-code – I didn't have many problems with lag (a few, but nothing catastrophic). There are the usual concerns (and complaints) about OP characters. Team-work and a balanced squad is rather more crucial than in other team-based games. Kill/death ratio has zero importance; work together to take down the enemy. If you try to go off on your own and rambo it, you'll die fast. Gearbox is still releasing new maps and characters at the time of this review, so there is some variety still to be had. The problem is that people just aren't playing Battleborn; the Steam “now playing” list indicates 800 people playing at once is a busy day. Out of the millions that log on to Steam every day, that's an incredibly small amount – and that's down from the 1,000 – 1,200 that showed up for a double XP weekend. This indicates that people do own the game, and play it for special events, but they have other things they'd rather play on a daily basis.

Ten people are required for PvP; if you don't have them, you can't start the match. Two is the minimum for PvE, but there's no drop-in / drop-out. Character skills are leveled up in the middle of the match. Press 1 to open the skill menu, press Q, E, or F to choose a skill, the skill is upgraded and the menu closes. It happens in mere seconds and works well. But the very next match, I have to level my character all over again. Obviously I'm supposed to experiment with new ways to play a character, but once you've figured out the best way to play a character, the in-game leveling just becomes annoying. Equipping the load-out doesn't activate the gear in it; the gear has to be activated by accumulating enough shards to do so. Shards are acquired by searching the area for deposits; sometimes enemies drop shards as well. This isn't a problem in PvE with three players or in PvP. In PvE with the maximum of five players, though, there just aren't enough shards to go around. Add to this that the better gear costs more shards to activate, and that it helps to spend shards on building turrets and such, and PvE becomes a mad rush for shards.

Gear can help with things like damage and shields, but it won't provide new weapons; all weapons are bespoke based upon which character you've chosen. I'm not sure if Gearbox was deliberately trying to make Battleborn different from Borderlands (“the weapon varieties were one of the most notable things about Borderlands, so let's not have ANY weapon variety in Battleborn”), but some simple weapon choices and alternatives would have helped add new ways to play beyond choosing a character. (Look at Mass Effect 3's multiplayer; simple as the multiplayer mode is, the number of weapons and the fact that they could be modified added simple but effective depth to the loadout). Instead, playing a specific way requires a specific character; it helps focus attention on the gallery of rogues Gearbox has assembled, but it felt limiting.

I didn’t have much of an issue with PvP balancing (Benedict was OP, but his reload speed was recently nerfed, largely solving the problem). I had no issue with Battleborn’s graphical optimization, either - I also didn't try to max out the graphics and blame Battleborn when the game started stuttering (reduce Draw Distance, Particle Effects and Ambient Occlusion for starters). The cartoony art style of Battleborn might lead you to think you can max it out (like I could do with Borderlands 2), but don't be fooled. Battleborn is very demanding when maxed.

Battleborn provides a good amount of entertainment, but needs more maps (both PvE and PvP), weapon customization, and a larger player base. Get it at 75% off or more so you don't feel too bad if / when you tire of it. Sounds harsh, but there really isn't that much to Battleborn.

The Post Game - Dragon Age: Inquisition

Dragon Age: Inquisition is possessed of a large, beautiful world, some great characters, action-oriented combat and some required grinding for loot. Tactics are there, but are rarely needed. Experiencing the real ending to the game requires the purchase of the Trespasser DLC. A good game whose world is almost too large for its purpose.
Total installed size on my hard-drive (GOTY edition with all DLC): 39.2 GB.

The story, in the best BioWare tradition, is strong and enticing. Fade-rifts are opening all over Thedas.  Some creature known as Corypheus (if you played Dragon Age II, you might remember who he is) seeks to corrupt / gain the power of the land's ruling factions, gathering earthly power unto

himself as he attempts to elevate himself to god-hood. Is he a demon? A magister? Or some new kind of darkspawn? One of his Fade-rites goes badly wrong, and the player-character gets spit out of a rift with some kind magical mark on their left hand. The Chantry's Divine was killed by the rite (or is she merely trapped in the Fade?), leaving confusion and angry factions pointing fingers at each other. In the midst of this, Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast (also from Dragon Age 2) initiates the Inquisition to close the breach in the sky left by Corypheus's rite and seek those who assisted him.

This all happens in the first hour or so of gameplay. BioWare created a fantastic setting of investigation, exploration, and expansion as the Inquisition becomes yours, to be built and used as you see fit. Large-scale faction missions are plotted from the War Room. Completing missions and closing rifts grants Power Points, which can then be spent in the War Room to unlock new areas or undertake main story missions. It's a cool strategy element that kept me thinking about the bigger implications of the search for Corypheus, and the efforts to gain new allies. While this is happening, the Inquisitor builds his / her squad (up to 9 companions are possible), and can spend a large amount

of time talking to them, helping them, and, yes, romancing them (some restrictions apply!). Some characters return from previous games. Varric and Cassandra are selectable squad-mates (both from Dragon Age II). Hawke is not a member of the party, but does join the Inquisitor for a mission. Leliana (from Origins) is an advisor, and has a large supporting role to play; Morrigan appears about half-way through, and like Hawke joins for a mission. There are also call-backs to the previous games in other ways (with the right choices, the ruler of Ferelden will cameo!). It's all the good stuff we've come to expect from BioWare, and they deliver in spades.

“But what about the combat?” you question. “And the grindy looting you referred to?” Read on.

Much of Inquisition is spent exploring areas that are unlocked via the War Room in search of Power Points. While not a sandbox like Skyrim, there are some really large places to go. All are fully explorable; no linear paths in any of them. There are deserts, lush forests, ice plains, and snowy mountains. The missions that fill these areas vary from helping a widow recover her wedding ring to seizing fortresses from Corypheus' Venatori. Inquisition's area design really inspires that “I wonder what's over here” mentality; a lot of time is spent messing about in the game-world, collecting shards, fighting creatures and helping NPCs. And while out exploring, be sure to stop and loot any items you see to acquire “resources” - ore, gems, plants. You'll need them to craft upgrades. Be sure to loot any chests you see as well, because you can't craft something if you don't have the schematic for it. There's so much stuff to loot that it runs the risk of taking over the game. I appreciated the additional gameplay element, but after a while I just wanted to move on with the story. But that's impossible if not enough Power Points have been accumulated to unlock the next major mission. Finding ALL the loot and completing ALL the missions in an area is not necessary to progress through the game, but a decent amount of grind is required. If exploring is your thing, you probably will have plenty of Power Points when you decide to move on to the next mission. If moving quickly through the story is your method, you'll come to resent the required trips into the countryside to do side missions and accumulate Power Points.

Dragon Age Inquisition's combat is a refined version of Dragon Age II's: slick, swift, and action-focused, with little need to pause the game. I liked the combat of Dragon Age II much better than Origins, so to see it developed further was something I appreciated, but if you were a fan of the older system expect to be disappointed. Party AI is quite decent this time around (for mages, anyway; for rogues, not so much). The Tactics menu itself has taken a severe hit, being smaller and with fewer options. If micro-managing the combat was never your thing, prepare to love the combat of Dragon Age: Inquisition. If you were longing for a return to the depth and detail of Origins, prepare to dislike Inquisition's combat – a lot.

On top of this, the final boss of the main campaign (sans DLC) just isn't that impressive. I was expecting the Inquisition's castle to be assaulted, and to fight hordes of demons (and perhaps also darkspawn) in the corridors, fighting up to the highest tower or lowest dungeon, to be greeted with the final boss. This does not happen. There's some teleportation involved, some cool magically shifting landscape, a three-stage battle, and – that's it. It's strangely anti-climatic. It's only after seeing the post-credits scene that we realize who the REAL threat is – but you'll need the Trespasser DLC to deal with them. After all that time spent gathering resources and steeling myself for the implications of the final boss, it is a deliberate fake-out by BioWare. The final boss is over so quickly, and the post-credits reveal occurs so suddenly that if you didn't purchase at least Trespasser, be ready to yell in rage at the obvious DLC-bait.

So Dragon Age: Inquisition is a mixed bag. I love long, grindy games if they're set in a gorgeous world with plenty of things to do. Inquisition delivers by the truck-load. The story is enjoyable, the characters a pleasure. The combat is an evolution of Dragon Age 2's, the final boss is disappointing, and you have to DLC the real ending. Get the Game of the Year Edition, it's the best bargain. Good, but burdened by grinding; 7 out of 10.

The Post Game - Dead Island

The best way I can sum up Dead Island is that it tries to catch the co-op flavor of games like Borderlands and bring it to a tropical paradise with weapon crafting. But fighting the same hordes over and over again in the hopes of getting that one special component for my ultra-rare weapon build wore out its welcome quickly. It's much better in co-op, though, and it's still quite easy to join a match; just hope you don't land in a game populated with obnoxious teens more interested in showing off and hacking the game than playing the game.

+ The world is huge. Be glad there are vehicles and fast travel, because there are a lot of places to discover. It's not a true sandbox – it 's a number of large connected areas – but it will take a lot of dedication to complete the list of missions.

+ The graphics are decent and not too stressful. Expect high framerates even if you have a basic gaming rig like I do at the time of writing (A10-6800k + R7 260X). (No screenshots because, while the graphics are decent, I never had any "wow" moments I wanted to capture.)

+ Four different characters to play as, each with their own bonuses and skills. (I played as Purna most of the time because of her firearms bonuses).

+ Crafting is good, adds some unique effects to the weapons and increases damage.

+ The co-op element works well. Very easy to drop in / drop out of games. Leveling happens much faster, and I had no trouble finding other people to play with.

+ Decent characters, if you can ignore side missions and stay focused on them. Thematically Dead Island has a lot of mature elements. It's just cloaked in this B-movie zombies-on-a-tropical-island setting. Jin's story is touching.

- / + Not really a positive or a negative, since your experience may be different, but the player-base I encountered while pugging coop matches was – immature would be a kind description. I encountered one youngster who asked me if I wanted to go join him in Minecraft. Another person was hacking the game, making everyone die repeatedly (it costs in-game money to respawn, so I didn't find it funny at all). And another player was constantly begging for attention: “Look! Hey, look! I can punch zombies! Look at the size of my fists! Did you see that? Hey, look!” If you have a group of friends you want to play with, you'll have a much better co-op experience than I did.

- Despite the decent story and some good characters, there is very little time is spent with these characters; take time to do plenty of side-quests, and any sympathy built for any of them will have gone by the time we return to the main quests. Don't do the side quests, then; but the risk is going into an area under-leveled – and you are in for a frustrating time if that happens.

- The combat gets boring after the first few hours. Guns only work well against human targets, not zombies. Melee weapons and throwables are for zombies. Run up to an enemy, hack their arms or legs off, dodge a few incoming blows, kick to stagger, kill, rinse, repeat. And enemies respawn REALLY fast, so get what you want from an area quickly, or you'll have to do it all over again. What a chore. 

- Weapons decay FAST (especially blade weapons). Always be on the lookout for workbenches to repair your weapons. Again, a chore.

- Finding materials to craft is a pain. Even if you loot every single corpse or house that crosses your path, you'll frequently be short of materials. Much better to join a co-op game in the hope of finding someone to trade with.

- The quests are repetitive. “Get 5 cans of food” “Find parts for the generator” “My friend / wife / husband / father / mother was infected, they had a memento / letter that I'd like to have back, can you help?” “Get 5 cans of food”

- Maybe because the missions all feel the same after a while, I stopped caring. I rescue this one guy who is trapped in a bungalow with zombies beating on the door. Down the street is a gas station. I rescue him, he opens the door and says, “Thanks mate. You saved my life. But I really need gas for the generator. Think you can help me out?” And I'm thinking, “The gas station is literally right there. Get your own damn gas.” Main story missions are a bit better, but even those suffer from an over-use of escort missions.

Dead Island makes a great first impression with its beautiful island paradise and aggressive zombies, but the copy-paste missions, same-y combat and rapid weapon decay left me annoyed and ready to move on to something else.

The Post-Game - Hitman: Absolution

Ever play a game that just drips with high production values and class, but you still don't like it? That's how I feel about Hitman: Absolution. I realize that it's something plenty of people will enjoy. I just didn't. Do I think it's worth picking up? Sure, if it's on sale. And you're bored.

If that sounds like I'm getting ready to drop some grade-A hate, I'm not. At least, I don't want to. There is so much about Hitman: Absolution that just reeks of care and attention. The graphics are amazing. Not necessarily a reason to buy a game, but they are. The voice acting is superb (Keith Carradine and Powers Boothe? Hell yes!). The soundtrack works incredibly well, giving an almost Bond-esque ambiance without ever getting too loud. While some levels are occasionally re-used, there are a lot of different locations and settings. And as far as the story goes, I felt incredibly close to Agent 47 (he's quite sympathetic, despite his stoicism). Sneaking from cover to cover feels fluid and natural. Weapons are deadly (headshots are a breeze with the Silverballers).

So what's my problem?

Most of the levels are claustrophobic (the opening Chinatown level and the cornfield level are exceptions). The paths through the levels are restrictive. And some levels don't even bother to hide their linearity (final rooftop level, among many others). There's no way to level-up Agent 47. Upgrades are unlocked based upon how high of a score you received upon completing a mission. But the points system clearly favors a specific path – even penalizing for non-target knockouts. I was never a fan of the Assassin's Creed games' “full synchonization” mechanic either, but this just ticked me off. There is no loadout customization; you start every mission with choke-wire and (after you unlock them) the Silverballers. Other weapons are acquired by finding them or picking them up from dead enemies – but it doesn't matter, because you'll be back to the piano wire and Silverballers once the next mission starts.

Disguises are actually not a problem; there are plenty of them around. Using them is sometimes strange, though. If planning to ghost through a police station, DON'T try to use a police uniform as a disguise. Why? Because if a cop gets too close to you, he'll detect that you're not a real policeman. Makes sense, I suppose. But in a level crawling with police, disguising as a police officer becomes a questionable strategy – which seems counter-intuitive to me. Much better to knock out a homeless person and take his disguise, since the officers won't detect you. But then, dressed as a homeless person, you won't be able to enter restricted areas without attracting attention anyway. Several times I just lost patience and started taking innocent people out to facilitate progress – and several times got embroiled in a full-on gun battle. Which actually wasn't that bad. If you're careful, 47 has a ton of health, and headshots are 1-hit kills. Add in the deadly Instinct combat mode, which has elements of the VATS system from Fallout, and 47 becomes an absolute wrecking ball of death.

There were some great moments, though. Ghosting through the flaming warehouse while troopers searched the premises was a thrill. Heading deeper underground through a mining facility with guards everywhere was a delicate game of cat-and-mouse. And trying to take out three henchmen in Chinatown with throngs of people everywhere was easily the most enjoyment I had from Hitman Absolution. Somehow I thought every level would feature that amount of variety and detail, and I'm disappointed that (to me) it didn't. Hitman: Absolution is polished and does what it sets out to do, but ultimately it's only a mediocre game that is sprinkled with some great levels.

The Post-Game - Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

A lot of users compare this game to Skyrim, when really it is more like a single-player mix of Torchlight II and Guild Wars 2. Tons of missions, deep crafting, combo-friendly combat, a huge game-world and genuinely interesting lore means a lot of time can be spent in Amalur.
Installed size on hard drive (with all DLC): 11.6 GB

Reckoning is rather like a single-player MMO, if that makes any sense. Looting, crafting and leveling are the primary attractions. There is a ton of loot; putting points into the “detect hidden” skill reveals secret rooms and passageways that have even more loot. You'll want to loot as much as you can, even armor sets that you won't use – put points into blacksmithing, disassemble the armor and weapons you don't want to get the parts, and craft something truly epic. Leveling up provides new abilities, new special moves for weapons. At the end of each leveling session, you get to choose a “Fate Card” with special bonuses. Fate Cards are not class-specific, meaning you can use them to create a warrior mage who equips heavy armor, or an archer can wield heavy weapons, or a thief / rogue who also has some magic. There are dozens of hybrid “Fate Cards.” And if you're not happy with how your build has turned out, visit a Fateweaver to “Remix your Fate” and reset your build so you can level up again with your existing points.

The world is huge. There are a lot of places to explore with side-missions hidden everywhere. The graphics are 2012 era DirectX 9: Colorful, bright, and occasionally low-res. The general comic-book style of the artwork hides some graphical shortcomings. And on the plus side, if you have a less-than-stellar gaming PC, the game will probably run just fine. (Back in the day, I ran it on a 1GB Radeon 6670 without issues). The soundtrack by Grant Kirkhope catches the ambiance nicely. The voice acting is generally good (though your hero is silent, like in Dragon Age Origins).

Not everything is excellent, unfortunately. Combat flows well, encouraging the use of different moves. Despite the many different skills and abilities at my disposal, once I found a way to dispose of mobs, I just stuck to that, and never really tried to change up my attacks. I won't say combat is easy – if you go into an area under-leveled, you'll die fast (even with potions). But once you're comfortable in the system, combat becomes just another chore. Fetch quests are repetitive. All exploration is done on foot – no horses. The dungeons are NOT copy / pasted; there's a lot of variety here. But the missions that use the dungeon and cave levels tend to follow similar patterns. If you try to do a completionist run of Reckoning, you'll need a titanic level of patience and dedication. Inventory management, frankly, s*cks. Oh, and jumping. You can't jump, except at prescribed places (“press F to jump”).

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a great game if you love messing about in an open world while worrying about plot later. If you're looking for a go-anywhere, do-anything adventure (with the freedom to jump wherever you want), you'll probably be happier with Skyrim. Or online with friends in Guild Wars 2. Sometimes, though, a solitary, easy grind for loot is exactly what you want - and exactly what Reckoning provides.

On DLC:
The Weapons and Armor DLC provides three complete weapons sets that are accessible at the start of the game. While great to have, the things you craft will quickly surpass them in quality and effectiveness.

The Teeth of Naros and The Legend of Dead Kel are both large additions to an already massive game. Each provides a new campaign and entirely new areas to explore. Naros in particular is a great piece of DLC. Both have a lot of content in an industry where content-laden DLC are rare. Definitely worth it to get both.

Notes:
An EA account is NOT required. Though the game asks for an EA login on startup, you can simply click the X in the corner to skip the login. The game will play and save normally.

The company that developed Reckoning, 38 Studios, went bankrupt in 2013. The only support for the game is what you will find when trawling the forums.