Comparison of Two Role Playing Games

Extracted 02MAR2012 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/02/29/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-...

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim [The attributes with respect to which they are compared in this review are more interesting than the comparison itself so, for brevity, only the former are provided below.]

1. Graphics... Both games have fantastic visuals, but the colorful, cartoony world of Amalur is just not quite as impressive as the snowy peaks of Skyrim...

2. Combat. Reckoning has such a fun, frenetic combat system it puts Skyrim to shame. Skryim has clunky controls... The more abilities you have, the higher you level up, the more intense the combat gets.

3. Story. Frankly, this is a tie. Neither Skyrim or Reckoning has a particularly compelling story. Maybe this is just me – but story hasn’t ever been that big of an issue for me, even in RPGs.

4. Acting. The voice acting isn’t bad in either game, but I think there’s more variety and more life to the voice acting in Reckoning...

5. Cut-scenes... Skyrim takes a seriously open-world approach, and never switches from the gameplay to pre-rendered scenes... On the other hand, the cut-scenes in Reckoning have better pacing.

6. Immersion. Skyrim hands-down wins on immersion... You certainly feel like you’re traveling through an actual world rather than a fantasy landscape.

7. Magic. There are just more abilities and they’re more fun to play with in Reckoning. 

8. Fun factor... Not if you like the really immersive stuff that only Skyrim offers, but if you just want to wander around a really cool fantasy world and have fun battling monsters and finishing quests, Reckoning is it. Fun, fun, fun.

9. Treat you right... the menu design, the ability to remake your character (for a fee) at certain points during your travels, and the pacing of Reckoning make it more gamer-friendly.

10. Last, ambition. Both projects are obviously super ambitious, with really creative, experienced teams. But while Reckoning is a wonderful tribute to the fantasy genre and to campy RPG goodness, Skyrim is a testament to what role-playing video games can truly be. It’s very new and very unique.

[From Part II of this review] This is the problem with comparing games. Too often they are different enough, if not entirely different genres, to make that comparison almost impossible.