Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning

In the game, I went with destructive magic - fire, ice and lightning - for my long-range attacks and saved my last slot of a healing spell. But I needed a weapon that can be wielded fast for close combat. So I went with the trusty and fast longsword, and twin chakrams as my second choice - because they remind me of my favourite female heroine Xena from the 1995 TV series.

Even with both hands full, you can still somehow equip yourself with a shield. This variety of weapons means there are many ways to fight. You can choose to be defensive. Time your blocks to execute a successful parry, which stuns your opponent momentarily for your to counter-attack with impunity. Or you can charge at your opponent with your heavy two-handed hammer and hope your armour can help you survive the ensuing melee; or take out an entire field of enemies with a single meteor blast.

More subtle tactics are available for those who prefer to creep behind the enemy and stab him for mega damage. You have to pick your playing style early because as you level up, you gain ability points. These points can be invested to make yourself stronger in specific areas such as amping up your fire damage or unlocking new combo attacks when you use a longsword.

The graphics, with cartoonish characters are obviously inspired by World Of Warcraft; but it is best to turn off the graphics of the gory visceral kills if you want your kids to watch you play. I tried the game on XBox 360 and PC and found the graphics quality to be lacklustre in the console version. On my desktop PC, however, this game looked as beautiful as World Of Warcraft. Unfortunately, the PC is not the better platform because the game controls are better suited for the console.

The PC could have been king because you can map an unlimited number of spells and attacks to the keyboard, unlike the console version, where you can have only four mapped to the A, B, X and Y buttons on the gamepad. But instead of pressing 1 for fireball, 2 for ice blast and 3 for healing, you have to press the numbers to change spells and use the right mouse button to activate the spell. This is just too unwieldy. The universe of Amalur is huge and after 15 hours of gameplay, I think I covered only about 15 per cent of the game.

There are so many side quests to complete that I often found myself going off the beaten track. You also have to decide whether to place your points. You get four at the beginning of the game and one each time you level up, into skills such as alchemy, blacksmithing and lock-picking, which affects the way you interact with the world. For example, being more proficient in alchemy increases your chances of harvesting reagents from plants scattered across the world. This allows you to create more powerful potions.

A skilled blacksmith can salvage components from his gear, which become his raw materials to build better weapons and armour. One weakness of the game is its thin plot. You play some dude who managed to survive the good guys' resurrection experiments and it turns out you have the latent power to change fate. This is a big deal because a group of baddies just keep coming back to life even after swords have gone through their hearts.

Instead of using familiar names like human and elf, the developer of the game tries to create a whole new world of unfamiliar ones, nut Ljosalfar is obvioulsy High Elf while Almain clearly refers to human. This is a case of trying too hard to be different and it confuses even seasoned RPG players.

Despite the gripes, I would still recommend Amalur to RPG fans. The sheer size and majesty of the universe, combined with the varied button-mashing combat mechanics and skill-based system, make this a great game to kick off the new year.