Let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t a post criticising Kingdoms of Amalur (it’s hard for me to open fire when I haven’t played the demo or with the impressive lineup of staff behind the game’ s development). It’s just me being peeved off about a few of EA’s ‘tactics’ around it.
What sparked this post off was a simple marketing email from EA in my inbox: ‘See why the critics are raving about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning’.
WTH?
Let’s get this straight EA; the critics aren’t raving about Kingdoms of Amalur:Reckoning. How the hell can they rave about when what you’ve done so far is as Curt Schilling has described “way way WAYYYYY more buggy than anything ANYONE should ever release, much less a demo.”?
Critic reactions have been broadly good but let’s be honest; all they’ve had to work with is a demo with a time limit of 45 minutes. That’s not much to go on and certainly doesn’t justify the use of ‘raving’. You’d be raving mad to be raving about a game only after 45 minutes of play. Heck even with Dragon Age, I wasn’t raving about it – though I was screaming mad for it after Ostagar (more so after Wade made the heavy armour).
Sure sure you can always say that ‘Well companies are always going to engage in over the top marketing’. That’s true. They’re all guilty of it.
But anytime so much as EA twitches the wrong way, I’m not about to forgive them (I mean for crying out loud, if you’re the type of gamer who is, for lack of a better term, OCD about having every single in-game item that’s been released for the game then EA’s approach will likely be driving you mad! Just look at Dragon Age 2! In hindsight I’m glad I didn’t preorder it…but then everytime I remember the items that came with the Signature Edition I felt fresh, though small pangs of pain. I’m lazy and prefer everything to be nicely packaged instead of having stuff released every month pushing me into a state of unending hype over nothing).
The bottom line? I’m really making an issue over this hyperbole marketing common to all companies, mainly because its EA – because I just don’t like them.
Yet having touched on Amalur I have to say part of me is pretty hacked off at EA’s dastardly clever marketing move – to unlock some dlc stuff for Mass Effect 3 you have to play through Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning – hey don’t get me wrong I don’t have an axe to grind against Amalur, but it’s this interlocking tactic that irritates me. Just as much as in order to get the AT-12 shotgun, you have to pre order ME3 through Origin – RAGE! Or to unlock Sir Isaac’s armour in Dragon Age 2, one must purchase Dead Space 2. Just no.
But, having said that Amalur does look good, albeit appearing as being composed of ideas ripped from proven franchises and IP - but I don’t think it’s going to be so fantastic that critics will be raving about it [they raved about Dragon Age Origins and rightly so because well, Bioware did such a damn good job of it, not so say that there weren't any flaws, but it was just so good!]. If anything knowing that it’s an action rpg I’m more inclined to play Skyrim ahead of Amalur (mods make a heck of a difference here).
But heck I could be surprised.
Still that firestorm of irritation ignited by that EA email still hasn’t abated. That’s pretty irrational of me I know.
[Thanks Jason for the feedback, it was greatly appreciated 
, though I didn't really edit much of it - still full of irrational irritation about the email]
