Before I dig into the beginning of our trip let me preface with a story. A few years back, Digitalchumps.com had made a booth appointment with a popular publishing company to come see what they were doing at CES (Consumer Electronic Show). This publishing company made a lot of massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) and wanted to show us some new things for one of their popular series. Half-way through the presentation we were interrupted by Curt Schilling who was dying to know if the developer speaking to us had seen what he was doing. When Schilling was done interrupting our meeting (he apologized for interrupting, as he truly is a super nice guy) the developer told us that Schilling had formed his own game development studio and was putting together an MMORPG. That was a very interesting development because most sports stars waste their money on impractical, crappy things that don’t mean a damn to them (not counting charities of course). Schilling was actually trying to create something he believed in, which was quite intriguing.
Fast-forward a few years and I was sitting in the offices of Big Huge Games and listening intently on how Schilling’s group (38 Studios) was working with the wonderful developer talents of Big Huge Games putting together one of the more epic titles that each studio had worked on.
That game? Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
Arriving in Baltimore, MD
Arriving at the studios in Baltimore we were greeted by a very intimate studio setting. No bigger than a typical office you would find at any regular business building, Big Huge Games displayed some really relaxed environments. Keurig coffee machines mixed in with soft drink machines crammed what seemed like every corner of the office. You couldn’t go anywhere in this place without finding some way to get the caffeine high that you would need to keep the wheels churning. Across from these caffeine pit stops were endless offices sporting plenty of open viewed windows that were filled with individuals completely obsessed with their computer screens. Some of them wore headphones, some were just talking openly with other developers about some aspect of what they were working on at the time. Having a brief walk through the hallway you could identify each department without having to ask. The art department had dozens of character development sketches hanging on the wall, the combat department had Todd McFarlane toys propped up on their desks on top of stacks of books (like the graphic novel Preacher), and the cinematics department had storyboards and scripts laying around editing suites with timelines showing works in progress.
It certainly was a mixture of relaxation and intensity, but nothing seemed stressful to the common man’s view of the environment. It seemed like if you were there working that means you belonged there working due to passion, creativity and research work ethics.
Soon after we arrived to the studio, and after a nice tour of the offices (where we were told multiple times to forget anything that we saw hanging on the walls – they were half joking, but the views were very telling and interesting; best not mention anything), we were divided into two groups. The first group would have a chance to sit down and see the game in action, or what they called ‘Rewind Theater’. The second group would be led through each pivotal department to talk with developers first-hand about the game’s development process. After those things had been completed we would then all be led to lunch where shortly after a session with the game’s visionaries, as they were called – and deservedly so. Luckily I was part of the first group, so we got to see the game immediately, and folks it looked good. Let me give you just a few more details on it.
It’s good to be king, I reckon
Time was a wonderful factor, so our PR folk led us to a giant room featuring one of the biggest LCD screens I had seen in some time. I’ve always been that guy who liked sitting in the front of the class, so immediately I found a nice couch to park my ass on right in front of the screen.
On the screen was Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning’s logo featuring a menacing knight-like figure standing on top of a pile of bodies. It was certainly a great way to open the presentation up.
Well of Souls
After a few minutes of talking about how the studios put together their efforts to create Reckoning, Big Huge Games’ Creative Director Mark Nelson began going through the demo and explaining what was going on. The demo, which was pre-alpha software, opened up with our unnamed hero waking up in a grimy dungeon called the ‘Well of Souls’. The best way to describe this area would be a dark, giant cave with water dripping everywhere. There were bodies everywhere in the area, so you knew immediately this was probably a bad place to be. The sheer depth of the cave and the ‘alive’ environment inside of it was breathtaking. You had specs of dust floating in the air, with random drops of ceiling water falling. The lighting from the torches in the area was spectacularly estimated out, ending when they needed to end. Even down to the cave floor, you could see little details where patterns weren’t repeated; rather they were hand crafted to display uniqueness from one another. In other words, I was immediately immersed inside the story, as my senses truly believed this was a pretty horrible place and I instantly wanted to know why our main character started out in this area.
(Faer Gorta)
Environments aside, for now at least, the game is of the third-person action genre. The main character starts out in rags, which isn’t untypical of an RPG these days, and must learn to fight before being released into the environment. The character makes his way out of the pile of bodies and to a wooden gate where we meet another elven/dwarf like creature (can’t readily identify the race), who is more than a little stunned that someone has come back from the dead. Lifting the gate, the creature gives your character basic instruction on how fight and what to do; this sort of stuff is typical of games these days, as you get instruction at the beginning so to get use to the controls. The main character is led into his first fighting situation, which takes place in knee-deep water against a skeleton warrior called a Faer Gorta. If you can picture an ox-like skeleton on top of an upright body then you’ll get the picture. What is particularly neat about the first fight is broken down into two things:
1. The environment reacts really well to the fight. The water ripple coming from your body is pretty detailed for a pre-alpha game. The water pushes along with your character’s momentum, which creates a realistic water effect. Is it important? Not to the overall structure of the fighting system, but it’s impressive to see such detail in the environments.
2. After defeating the Faer Gorta, the body of the creature floated correctly. The head was the heaviest part of the body, so it would seem correct that it would try to sink. The chest was the lightest, so it floated and the legs/feet dangled downward correctly. It was good physics. It seemed like the developers were not only focused on trying to get the fighting details right, which we’ll get into in just a second, but also they wanted to get the physical details of this world correct. Attention to detail is so much prettier than swinging a sword and killing. When you can have both it’s paradise, and so far in the demo they were showing it seemed like this game was very much on the right track.
So, going back a bit, how did the fighting work and look? Well the first thing the character was taught was how to kill something with a sword previously found off a dead individual. You have a nice combo system intact with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, but it isn’t quite developed at the beginning of the game. The main character was doing basic sword slashing that we’ve seen before in action games, so there wasn’t really anything special at this point in the demo. Once they took out the first Faer Gorta and obtain a shield then things got complicated. Once the shield was obtained, Nelson explained how you can perform a wonderful move called the parry/attack. Basically, the Gorta would charge at the character and the hero would have to parry with the shield, which pushed back the Gorta and then opened up the creature for an attack. The parry had to be well timed, as there was little room for error. If performed correctly the Gorta really didn’t stand a chance. Is it complicated? Not really, but it’s useful. It adds a small element to the game where you can use that to reset the battle and take control.
Now, before we move on to other portions of the demo, let me just state how positively gorgeous the framerate was in this demo. While I believe it was running off of a PC (though, I did see a 360 lying around), the framerate was running way high, though know number was given. The animation for the creatures and main character were fluid. If kept intact for the console version of this game it should be a benchmark with framerates for other future titles. It was that good, folks.
Another quick note before I continue my description, the music and sound effects were far and wide one of the most noticeable parts of the demo. Set in ‘True 5.1’ there were plenty of moments in the demo where my jaw dropped hearing things like perfectly echoing voices or dripping sound effects from the cave ceiling. There were little things and big things that made the experience completely immersive. Added to these perfectly placed sound effects was a musical score that gave me visions of the second half of Conan: The Barbarian, which is the portion of the movie where the action really gets going. Again, this was a ‘pre-alpha’ demo, so it was more than a little impressive to see how much had already been done to suck in the gamer’s attention.
