'Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning' Demo

For a good few many years, I've had a concept of what my best game would be.

It would be a combat-orientated (read: hack & slash) role-play game, with lots and lots of customisation. The end result that you could pour your attention into your own character, rather than the game maker's world, and then enjoy tearing your way through in satisfying and epic battles.

Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning might just be along those lines, and with more besides. The presentation is glossy, with something sparkling or glowing or exploding every couple of minutes. The combat, a player-pandering array of flashy moves and screen-filling spectacle, also has just what you need for challenging game play. Blocking, dodging, combination moves and weakness exploits are all in there to task the player with utilising them to their benefit. There's a reasonable amount of customisation when you first make your character, but a truly expansive potential when you start making choices over equipment and skills.

Some dog trainers are harsher than others. Lovely day for it though?

For your weapons you have a primary and secondary weapon slot. However the only real difference between the two slots is which button they use (X and Y on the Xbox360, respectively) as you inevitable use them together in combat to create combos. A simple example being, you knock an opponent backwards or skywards with a sword and then plug them with arrows from your bow. The types of weapons available are massive hammers, swords both one and two handed, pairs of daggers, pairs of 'faeblades' (think double bladed curved swords), bows, spell casting sceptres and staves, chakrams (bladed rings that are thrown like boomerangs) and finally shields both physical and sorcerous . It's a healthy list, and importantly each weapon is used differently. That means individual animations, move lists, and tactics.

Yes, even this concussive-force artiste has his place in the world of tactics.

Further more there is a massive selection of unlockable abilities, based on three classes of might, finesse and sorcery, which asides from new spells and combos include other weapons like harpoons and magic-based landmines. The end result is that by perusing a play style you like, you further unlock more ways to experiment with it. There's only so far you can get in the demo but one imagines it allows for new elements to enter gameplay throughout.

The demo itself is very pleasing, with an introductory level giving back-story and basics of game play, then 45 minutes of game time in a very large slice of the game map.  It's well worth a look, and will probably be sat on my Xbox 360's hard drive for a long time to come! More information can be found on the game's very informative website.