Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning vs Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn
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!
Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn
Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn is a fun and hilarious beat 'em up game that takes quite vicious, satirical jabs at various pop culture, celebrities, people stereotypes, and even the developers' own indiegogo campaign. The game starts you off in China where Shaquille (Shaq for short), a black baby was raised in a small village in China after he was found drifting down the river in an expensive-looking handbag. He was naturally bullied by the local kids when he was little because he was so much taller than they all were but his taller and bigger stature helped him gained the mentorship of the local village elder and he was eventually trained in the ancient martial arts of Wu Xing. Sounds like a the generic start of a kung-fu story, right? Well, the game does it so much better by peppering it with plenty of humor.Anyway, one day, his fighting skills were called into action when the god of death, Yen Lo-Wang, once again escape from the underworld and unleashed his plan to take over the world... that is by possessing various celebrities with his demons and brainwashing the world's people into subservience. Of course, this is not something Shaq will simply ignore, especially not when his elderly mentor was murdered by one of Yen Lo-Wang's minions.
Now, the gameplay in this game isn't what you'd call "hardcore", but the boss fights are quite challenging and the enemies you go fist-to-fist against have their respective sets of abilities in which you'll need to find ways to counter, besides being downright amusing. Just look at the animations! Controls are very simple to get into, especially if you had played such beat 'em ups before, and it's really nice that the developers put in the extra effort to vary their range of enemies and background art.
The best parts about the game though, aside from the funny dialogues and the cool moves, include crazy fun power-ups that can turn Shaq into a spikes-spewing cactus-man or equip him with an Iron Man-like suit, albeit a suit that is powered by diesel, which allow him to dish out a flurry of fists to any enemy unlucky enough to be standing in his way!
Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn's brand of humor may not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you enjoy beat 'em up games, and you like to see the amusing side of things and you don't take the world too seriously, then this game is definitely right up your alley. It'll be able to make you cough up a chuckle or two, at least - I daresay I laughed a bit too much at some of the jokes in this game. Oh and a quick tip if you will - make sure you listen closely to the lyrics in the game's very own theme song. I got my first chuckle from it!