Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a single-player game, but that hasn't stopped Electronic Arts from cramming an online pass into the game. We knew the pass was going to hide the game's Mass Effect tie-in armor, but now we know that it's holding seven full quests to ransom, too.
This is what greeted me when I opened my review copy, anyway. No manual or anything, just an online pass. Also, the code on my pass is currently invalid, so I cannot get to the content and see what it's like. The sheet tells me I'll get an entire quest line though, made up of seven individual quests.
It's pretty sad that single-player games are starting to chuck online passes around. You know what that says to me? That a publisher is not confident that its game is worth keeping. That's really not the kind of message you want to send your consumers before they even put the disc in.
It's a shame, because Amalur might actually be worth keeping ... but EA clearly doesn't think so.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
8:40 AM on 01.27.2012
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Is that really what it says to you? It says to me, 'don't be tradin' this mahfucker in, yo, bitches be pissed when they buy them shitz, son'
In the demo, nothing really made me WANT to play the game. Did I enjoy it? Sure, but not ( and this is probably part of what's driving the online pass at EA ) to the point where I'd drop 60 bucks on it because I HAVE to get it day 1.
I'll wait until I see a good sale to get it, and enjoy it a lot I think, but there's nothing here to grab me and make me want to play it day 1. It's a shame really it does a good job at what it does, yet somehow there's no hook to it.
Guess I'm not buying this one!
Besides the obvious used issue, online passes also punish those with multiple accounts as well as multiple people sharing the same game. They are, in mine and many peoples opinion, like Jim, a cancer that needs chemo quick.
Thanks, Warner Bros. for starting this "online pass for single-player, offline games" trend with Arkham City. Really appreciate it.
And I didn't speak up because I didn't play multiplayer.
I guess the only saving grace is that it doesn't have an expiration date (see: certain ME2 codes) and isn't on a dedicated server that EA deems it as "under-performing", before pulling the plug (see: any game released before 2009).
Yeah, it's still a shit business, either way.
- Stephanie
Fuck EA.
Ah, I see what you did there. Bravo!
No it's not. I hate online passes as much as the next guy, but docking two points from a game simply because a publisher demanded an online pass is simply a dick move. All you're doing there is punishing the developer for some fuck up on the publishers part. Bad review scores = bad prospects for developer.
Its like they WANT me to pirate it.
I see it from that score, and I do occasionally give my lil brother a handful of games when I get to see him, but having to front up for MP is one thing, but missing out on 7 quests in a large RPG is not a deal-breaker, really. But I can see this going places that may eventually piss me off.
The game will get what I think it deserves to get based off the text. The game truly is a lot of fun. Business-related shit like this is simply an unfortunate barrier to that fun.
THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. Every Steam game effectively has an online pass already, you just don't have to punch in a code.
I have the option to literally play 1000's of games spanning generations of consoles, starting at coleco and up.
If these companies stopped making games today (which it seems they are doing) I would be totally fine with that, because I still have a shit ton of NES games I have yet to finish.
So EA, Activision, Capcom, etc. can go fuck themselves with this first day Disc Locked Content and online pass bullshit, gamers will be fine with what they have.