14 DAY TRIAL // Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was released last week by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games with the help of Electronic Arts for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
We’ve already reviewed the game and talked in depth about some of its features during this gamer diary series. From the tutorial to the gameplay variety or the stylized visuals, we really liked a lot of things about the game.
Now, it’s time to talk about some of its negative aspects, chief among which being, at least for me, the Lockpicking and Dispelling activities.
Lockpicking, for someone familiar with role playing games like Skyrim or Fallout, is nothing new. While Reckoning’s own version is very close to the ones in the aforementioned titles, its sensitivity is the true problem.
When you pick a lock you set the position of your actual pick and begin moving the lock forward. While you can’t get it right the first time, you aren’t helped at all by the actual feedback given by the lock.
Normally, when you haven’t picked the right position, the lock starts to shake as you get closer to the end. Sadly, in Reckoning, that shake lasts a fraction of a second and it immediately fails the activity, causing you to lose a precious pick, which is hard to come by at least in the beginning.
While the lockpicking isn’t that bad, the dispelling mechanic is much worse.
While most chests in Reckoning are locked, some of them are protected by magic wards. This means you need to enter a special dispelling mini-game that basically challenges you with clicking your mouse when the cursor is on top of certain runes during a certain time.
Besides the fact that the mini-game becomes quite challenging, the penalty for failure is a curse inflicted upon your character. This doesn’t fade over time so you need to go to a healer that will charge several thousand gold to lift the curse.
Sure, you can spend some talent points in upgrading your Lockpicking or Dispelling capabilities, but I preferred to invest them in other areas, like Persuasion or Detect Hidden, while abandoning these activities altogether.
What did you think about these two mini-games from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning?