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How immersed do you get into your game? Some people are all about the fighting, the action. Some people are all about the story, the lore. Some people treat their games as real as they can make them, ensuring, for instance, that their player character sleeps for at least six hours out of every 24, and consumes proper sustenance. They'll never use fast-travel, but will walk everywhere they need to get to, dealing with encounters as they arise, even if they're just scripted respawns. Player character death becomes a major catastrophe to be avoided at all costs.

For myself, I play video games, and RPG's like KoA:R particularly, with the following mindset. To me, an RPG is essentially a story unfolding, much like a television show, except I get to choose how it unfolds. As I mentioned on my profile page, my style of play allows me to get on with unveiling the story of the game, and get past those finnicky battle encounters as quickly as possible. It does mean that once I know how the story ends, for me the allure of the game is mostly lost, and I move onto something new.

Comparison with a similar RPG[]

Prior to starting KoA:R, I was playing through Fallout:New Vegas (FO:NV) again, as I eagerly await the release of Fallout 4 this November. I've played right through FO:NV several times in the past. The story always ends the same, with that big fight on Hoover Dam, and storming Caesar's camp at Fortification Hill. However, the actions I take, the decisions I make during the game affect the outcome, giving various endings determined by my choices. This lends much to the "replayability" of the game.

Compare that to KoA:R. Like FO:NV, the story has a predetermined end, the big boss fight against Tirnoch at Amethyn in Alabastra. However, despite being known as the Fateless One, and the storyline of the game stating repeatedly that my player character is not bound by fate, it seems that my fate is sealed. There are no alternate endings in KoA:R. I commented very briefly about this same issue in a forum discussion a while ago.

Replayability of KoA:R[]

Once I've completed the storyline and know how it ends, what is there to bring me back to replay the game? Once I've unlocked all the achievements in the main game, the only thing left for me of Amalur is the DLCs. My first experience of an Amalur DLC proved to be such a problem that I uninstalled it immediately. Fortunately, it was the House of Valor DLC, which is free to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace. But it does leave me hesitant to download the other DLCs for this game, such as The Legend of Dead Kel and the Teeth of Naros. Will they be just as buggy and unplayable? Will I be wasting my money?

Second-hand games[]

One thing that was, to me, unique about the release of KoA:R was the publisher's initial decision to limit the House of Valor quests to only those who had purchased a new copy of the game, rather than a second-hand copy[1]. This was achieved through a one-time unlock code. This decision proved to be so unpopular with gamers that the publisher has backed down, and released the House of Valor quests for free[2].

I purchased this game second-hand myself. My local gaming store, EB Games, allows gamers to "trade and save", by bringing in their old games and consoles to exchange for store credit. Other gamers can then purchase these "pre-owned" games or consoles from the store at discounted prices. Unlock codes like the House of Valor one for Amalur, in its original form, just try to force everyone to buy brand new. I guess the idea is that the developers and publishers get more money from original purchasers, and don't receive profit from second-hand sales.

However, if you take paid-for DLCs like Dead Kel and Naros into consideration, the publisher and developers can still make money off those online purchases, even from gamers who bought the main game second-hand. That is, if the gamers in question deem that the game was so good that they simply must get the DLCs for it. I'm still not convinced about this one yet. Of course, as a "completionist" gamer, I like to be able to earn all the achievements of a game. To gain the prestige of having totally completed a game on my Xbox 360, I have to earn all of the available achievements, and this, unfortunately, includes the achievements for the DLCs, even if I haven't downloaded them.

References[]

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