KoA: Reckoning - The Most Disappointing Game Ever

[Dr. A]

Well, the negativity around the game is quite striking.

On Metacritic, KoA has a very respectable metascore of 86. But the user score is 6.0! For comparison, Fable on 360 has a metascore of 85 and a user score of 8.6.

Some classy comments from these user reviews (titles are my own ):

The Disappointed Father

To me, this game is what would be the result if Skyrim and WoW had a baby. And that baby was premature and retarded

3/10


The Pedant

It's not a bad game but when you leave out the tooltips from the shop windows making it tedious to view items when buying and selling then you fail at the most simple of designs.

1/10


The Equalizer

…and as usual, the games studio monkeys are giving it automatic 10/10 reviews which is just laughable not to mention the critic reviews should just hang their heads in shame at the unrealistically high review scores they have given it

0/10


The PC Elitist

It is hard to understand why this was made at all unless it was made by a group of people shameless and cynical in thier attempts to use some clever marketing to defraud the paying public. Even for a console game this is extremely bland

2/10


The PC Elitist's Nemesis

Maybe it's because I'm more of a fan of the classics from the PSX era like Xenogears or Final Fantasy IX, but this game is supposed to be a AAA title, and all it feels like is an RPG that tries to emulate its better cousins from the PS2 era

3/10


The Graphics Whore

Very disappointed playing this game. After playing Skyrim, I have raised bar on a game should be. Skyrim graphics were pretty amazing. This is just bland. Even Dragon age which out about a year ago, by the same publisher, was so much better in graphics. I feel the 60 dollars wasn't worth it. It has the look and feel of Drakensang.

3/10


The Graphics Whore's Inbred Cousin

Do not like it completely, like a Korean MMO, this is a silly cartoon graphics and low-poly model of the environment. This is another shame that it was not worth releasing on the PC.

3/10


The Caffeinated Ninja

I have beaten Ninja Gaiden three times since its relaease, and action combat is best when fast, fluid and responsive. Amalur does not achieve this high watermark. You cannot cancel attack animation with a simple counter/block. For the first few hours, I thought it was user error, but the more I played, the more a I realized that the game is essentially turn based realtime combat

4/10


My, my…such vitriol spewn forth from such gentle gaming creatures. I disagree with almost every negative point in these user reviews. Does that make me a fanboy? A fan sure but I'm not blind to the game's shortcomings.

I cannot help but feel that these user reviews & comments are just petty reactions from hardcore Skyrim fans and EA haters. People should just judge a game on its own merits but hey, try using reasoning and logic on this lot!

 

[Dr. A]

all these positive comments have me thinking that i should give this one another chance.

I downloaded and played the demo for about a half hour this morning(xbox360), and was initially put off by a few things and felt like i wasnt going to pursue it much further. Firstly, I dont like the auto-aim when it comes to ranged weapons. I couldnt believe there was no reticle, even when going into the look-around viewpoint. Then, the camera angles seemed to be shit at the worst time - I was fighting some troll thing and just about got my ass handed to me as the camera kept switching wildly to views that were unhelpful to my survival.

I did get out of the tutorial caves, and wound up swimming around to a nearby cave and checking out some pretty nice scenery overall before I had to shut it down and go to lunch. Maybe I'll give it another shot, tho the bow thing really does suck…

Yeah, the autoaim isn't very friendly for bows. Hopefully they improve it for the sequel.

There will be a patch to improve the camera with additional options that users can tweak easily through the menu. Still TBA. Curt has announced that at the moment, they are rounding up bugs for an upcoming patch. Maybe the new camera options will be included. We can only hope!

 

[booboo]

I only played the demo, but that was enough to decide it wasn't for me. That said, I'm sure many will enjoy it - but the sense I get is that they tried to satisfy everyone and ended up satisfying no one (well, ok, a small group of people ;-)

As for metacritic: we all know that reviewer scores are inflated. So, personally the 85+ from mainstream should be viewed with suspicion. Remember DA2? I don't think you can simply disregard the low user scores - if the average is that bad, then it means that (very) many people did not like it. And if you're going to be objective, you need to include the Fanboy (10/10) scores too, which artifically pull up the score.

 

[Dr. A]

Very true. Both ends of the spectrums are highly subjective. I just focused on the very low ones because they seem suspect to me. It's fine if people dislike KoA (or any other game for that matter), but giving it a ridiculously low score only comes across as being spiteful.

I'm sorry you didn't like the demo, booboo, maybe the sequel will interest you

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

It has the look and feel of Drakensang.

That made my day ! I have never seen someone saying that (basically) wow and Drakensang look the same !

 

[Dr. A]

Hell, it might have been some sort of subtle compliment because Drakensang looked amazing.

 

[redman5427]

Whats been much more disappointing to me is what they have done to the Dungeons and Dragons franchise

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Hell, it might have been some sort of subtle compliment because Drakensang looked amazing.

I understand, but I rather meant the overly colourfulness of KOAR plus the relative low-polygon look (which is in principle there in Drakensang as well, but has been imho "masked" quite good ... says a biased fan.

 

[Tragos]

User rating of 6 in metacritic means crap , no ?
i have not even played the demo but the combat looks shit , everything glows like you are in shrooms and the atmosphere stinks of Japan.
I think the best way of keeping prof. reviewers ratings in order is to remember what advertisements their site had before the review is written.

 

[Sir Markus]

Well, the negativity around the game is quite striking.

On Metacritic, KoA has a very respectable metascore of 86. But the user score is 6.0! For comparison, Fable on 360 has a metascore of 85 and a user score of 8.6.

Some classy comments from these user reviews (titles are my own ):

The Disappointed Father
3/10

One feature I'd love to see implemented at RPGwatch is an ongoing game rating system where you have to be a member to rate a game. Something implemented whereby I can click on a link to Gothic 2 and benefit from everybody telling me how awesome the game is, even 10 years down the road.


The Pedant
1/10


The Equalizer
0/10


The PC Elitist
2/10


The PC Elitist's Nemesis
3/10


The Graphics Whore
3/10


The Graphics Whore's Inbred Cousin
3/10


The Caffeinated Ninja
4/10


My, my…such vitriol spewn forth from such gentle gaming creatures. I disagree with almost every negative point in these user reviews. Does that make me a fanboy? A fan sure but I'm not blind to the game's shortcomings.

I cannot help but feel that these user reviews & comments are just petty reactions from hardcore Skyrim fans and EA haters. People should just judge a game on its own merits but hey, try using reasoning and logic on this lot!

I've never heard of a SINGLE ONE of those review services, LOL.

 

[CrazyIrish]

I've never heard of a SINGLE ONE of those review services, LOL.

I'm pissed. I totally wanted to be the caffeinated ninja.

 

[redman5427]

The Graphics Whore's Inbred Cousin
3/10

yeah , I can't believe this domain is already taken either

 

[HiddenX]

What does the HARDCORE-gamer-faction have to say about KoA ?

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

and the atmosphere stinks of Japan.

Didn't have that impression. In fact, the Gnomes had very funny accents ... :lol:
They almost sounded like Germans played by Monty Python ! :lol:

 

[rune_74]

Didn't have that impression. In fact, the Gnomes had very funny accents … :lol:
They almost sounded like Germans played by Monty Python ! :lol:

Man, you didn't even know what a gnome was.

 

[Dr. A]

Gnomes are Scottish and Fae are Irish..DUH!

 

[blackcanopus]

It seems KoA:R brought two mortal enemies together:

The PC Elitist
2/10


The PC Elitist's Nemesis
3/10

They are in total agreement this time around.