Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning vs The Survivalists
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is an amazing action-based RPG which we frankly think was one of those RPG gems that were somehow overlooked. Even with its age in mind, the game still does well to cater to fans of RPGs today, giving them a memorable storyline based on a universe created by none other than the legend in fantasy novels, R.A. Salvatore; a host of interesting characters to interact with, and a massive open world to explore. Character customization is pretty extensive here, allowing you to change your character's class, skills and abilities to fit your play style. You can change your character's equipment as well.The amazing part about this game, aside from its immersive storyline and world, is how seemlessly it has managed to integrate magic-wielding with swordplay (it doesn't exactly have to be swords though) in its exhilarting action combat. It does make you feel like you are in the shoes of your character.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning may not be a "Skyrim"-sort of game, but it's incredibly in-depth, able to offer you hundreds of hours of play time at the very least, especially if you are determined to complete every side quest and explore every corner of the beautiful world. It's definitely worth every cent you spent on it!
The Survivalists
The Survivalists is a survival-themed adventure game focusing on exploring a vast archipelago filled with hidden secrets and treasures as well as mysterious temples and dangerous terrains. The goal here is not only to make a life for yourself by recruiting and training the local monkeys to help with your many mundane chores, but to find a way to crack the mystery shrouding the archipelago and possibly find a way to finally escape!The Survivalists has a sandbox-style, survival-themed gameplay, which means that you’re expected to gather plenty of resources from the environment, use them to build a base of operations… or even multiple outposts and bases… and make sure you’ve got plenty of protection ready for when the local hostile tribesmen attack you, which they do from time to time.
The map here is simply amazing and if you just love exploring, you’ll find the island-hopping experience here pretty satisfying… that is once you’ve got your raft built. Of course, being set in the tropics, there isn’t a whole lot of different biomes to discover, though there are volcanic and swampy areas that are more dangerous than the normal terrain. Even the sea contains dangers and you’ll do well to avoid the ravenous sharks that are looking for an easy meal.
The best and most interesting part about The Survivalists that really help it stands out from all the other generic sandbox survival games is the fact that you can “recruit” monkeys on the island to help you with any mundane tasks. This encompasses all tasks that can be easily replicated by the monkeys. After all, monkey see, monkey do!
That being said, training your monkeys is, unfortunately, also the most frustrating part of the game. Unlike games with macros, you can’t really save the tasks you’ve taught your monkey as general macros that you can then use whenever you need the same tasks done sometime in the future. Instead, every time you need your monkeys to do something, you’ll have to teach it all over again… which frankly speaking is very annoying.
All in all, The Survivalists is as addictively fun as it looks. Being a survival-themed sandbox adventure, there is plenty of stuff you can craft, items to gather, loyal monkeys to train, and bases to set up as you slowly and steadily explore every inch of the massive archipelago. However, the game isn’t without its flaws and I personally think that the game could have made the monkey-training part a bit more convenient and less annoying for the player.