Ok I'm gonna start off this little review with, who the hell hired Dr. Frankenstien to make an RPG. Honestly as I run around this game it feels like I'm playing not just one game, but about every western RPG that I can remember turning on. At first glance, the game looks like someone recycled a bunch of WoW resources that Blizzard deemed too high-quality for a family computer hijacked by a 13-year old to run. Playing it feels... well again I can't narrow it down but the combat is a massive deja vu of Fable 1. And I love it. Amalur's combat so far feels like what fable 2 and 3 SHOULD have evolved to. Rather than Fable's MELEE, RANGED and SPELL keys, Amalur works on two weapons you can select and swap between, then a separate key for spells. On the pc, spells are hotkey'd to the number keys and you can easily swap between ten. There are still the typical paths for a fantasy: fighter, sorcery and rogue, but the way you can meld and balance the skills and stats ( in a very MMO-style tree) can really produce interesting fighting methods, I am currently running around in a suit of metal armor smacking baddies with sword and magical staff alike. I have yet to touch rogue skills but they look pretty crazy, don't even get me started on chakrams (sorcerer weapons that are thrown and auto-target in general direction) which make some downright badass looking moves and kills.

The loot and item system is directly from an MMO, going on color-coded tiers and even weapon sets that give a bonus when all pieces are worn. The crafting is honestly my favorite thing they tweeked, breaking down weapons for the parts that give their assorted effects/buffs and re-combining them into a sword or staff with all the desired bonuses you are looking for. On my first try I created a sword that was better than the one I had been using. A lot of weapons/armor get thrown away, sold for cash, or plain broken down for parts. Game progression so far is interesting as well, you have no locked in class, or stats for that matter, any skills can be returned and re-assigned at a specific location. "Classes" are fat card which can be equipped after you've put x amount of stats into the three trees, right now I'm running might/sorcery and the class path I take gains all kinds of cool bonuses such as dodging replaced by short-range teleporting and a % of damage I do is returned to me as mana. They really want you to become a demi-god in this game. There is a "fate mode" mechanic but it's basically your standard built-up power mode in games. You might have heard but the lockpicking is straight out of Fallout/Skyrim with a few of it's own tweeks. They also brought in a new type of lock for mages, cursed loot bins which you must dispel with a reflexed-based mini-game.

Finally for my first-day review, the atmosphere is something I rather enjoy, despite the WoW-ish graphics, it feels fun to explore. I honestly found it difficult to motivate myself to run around Skyrim, the world felt so recycled as did the enemies. Running around Amalur, the areas actually feel different, and I constantly find myself yelling "The fuck is that?!" Before takinga few swings and promtply running away when it throws unfamiliar attacks at me. Some of the npc convorsations are a little corny, but the found audio logs ( recorded on magical stones that look sorta like satellite dishes) and written logs are all very well-writtten, depending on the character behind the recording/document. I really look forward to continuing the game and seeing just how much of an overpowered maniac I become.