USA TODAY International Edition
‘ Amalur’: It’s a new ballgame for Schilling
Former pitcher calls the game ‘ first of its kind’
Already a lord of the rings with three World Series bands, former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling now has a kingdom to his credit.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, the first game from 38 Studios, the development company he founded six years ago, arrives in stores Tuesday ($ 60, for Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PCS, ages 17- up).
Schilling’s pitch for Reckoning: It has more action than the standard fantasy role- playing game.
In typical RPGS — you take the role of a warrior, magician or other class — the combat between your hero and adversaries has a detached feel, Schilling says. He charged the designers of Reckoning with making its fighting scenes as personal and smooth as those in adventure games such as God of War and even fighting games such as Mortal Kombat.
“I really believe we’ve created a first of its kind,” says Schilling, a longtime game player whose past pursuits include Everquest and World of Warcraft. “We made ( the combat) a lot closer to God of War than anything the genre has done before.”
Beyond those in- your- face fight scenes, the game has the depth of a traditional RPG. Reckoning is based on a 10,000- year Tolkienesque history written by bestselling author R. A. Salvatore ( the Forgotten Realms series). Also part of the Reckoning fellowship: Spawn creator Todd Mcfarlane, who provided art direction, and game creator Ken Rolston, who oversaw the design of acclaimed games such as The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and Oblivion.
Despite the high profile of the collaborators, “there was no Clash of the Titans’ egos,” Mcfarlane says.
Rolston agrees. “I can’t think of another single project with four people who have really strong attitudes, particularly a new ( intellectual property with) so many reputations on the line that worked so well. This is a really, really sweet gaming experience.”
Nonetheless, Reckoning arrives with a relatively low profile and few major releases as competition, says Scott Steinberg of consulting firm Techsavvy Global. “It’s quietly emerging as one of 2012’ s first games of merit.”
Reckoning may not supplant current RPG titleholder The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, which has won several 2011 Game of the Year awards since it was released three months ago by Bethesda Softworks. But, he says, it is “a good, solid, high- quality and, most importantly, fun RPG experience.”
Players find themselves engaged in the Crystal War, an archetypical battle between good and evil, as the immortal Tuatha — a variant Elven race — prepare to engage an attack to obliterate Amalur’s other races. In addition to humans, elves, gnomes and trolls inhabit the lands.
Salvatore’s mantra to the designers was “you have to make a world that you care about.” Looking at the finished game, he says, “This smells, looks, feels and plays like what I envisioned, and I don’t know how we ever got there.”
It helped that Salvatore also reminded the development team that “we are in the fantasy world. There’s castles and armor and trolls.”
Thus, “we don’t have to reinvent it. We just have to make it sexier,” says Mcfarlane, who wanted the animations to have heft as well as his trademark flourish.
Another guiding principle from Schilling: Make the game more fun than past RPGS. Throughout the game, players can remake the appearance and change the “destiny” of their character. “We want you to have as much fun as you can, and the ‘ destiny system’ is the game’s way of shaping the experience to the way you want
“We want you to have as much fun as you can, and the ‘ destiny system’ is the game’s way of shaping the experience.” — Curt Schilling
to play,” Schilling says.
38 Studios and Big Huge Games ( Rise of Nations), which his company acquired three years ago, already are working on a Reckoning sequel, as well as a Kingdoms of Amalur massively multiplayer online role- playing game.
That rollout by stages may attract gamers, says Adam Sessler, host of X- Play on G4 TV.
“The decision to have Amalur be a multifaceted game and franchise is ambitious, but very understanding of the economic realities of the game industry,” he says. “If you want ( online multiplayers) to invest time and money . . . you need them to be already interested and comfortable with the product, like Star Wars” in Bioware’s new Star Wars: The Old Republic.
For now, Schilling and his team of all- stars hope players embrace their initial effort. “This is our first game in the big leagues,” he says, “and we think we did it right.”