Schilling’s investment was an immense risk; the bargain bins at Walmart are full of flop video games. This won’t be one of them.
Unlike run-and-gun shooters like the Call of Duty hit series, Reckoning is a role-playing game, a slower-paced genre where you wander about a vast fictional landscape searching for treasures and battling monsters. Years ago, I fell in love with such a game: the classic Diablo II. Reckoning is good enough to rekindle the romance.
Reckoning sells for $59.95 and runs on Sony Corp’s. PlayStation 3 game console, Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360, and personal computers running the Windows operating system.
The game is set in a mock-medieval fantasy land created by best-selling novelist and Leominster native R.A. Salvatore and renowned comic book artist Todd McFarlane. It will look familiar to “Lord of the Rings’’ fans.
You play a corpse, or rather a former corpse. Somehow you have been magically restored to life. Everyone is glad to see you, except for the inevitable bands of ruthless villains who thought you looked better dead.
Since you’re newly resurrected, you get to choose your species, (basically, elf or human), and your “destiny,’’ which defines your character and its personality. You can be a sword-swinging mercenary, a cunning thief, or a powerful magician.
It’s the usual arrangement for this sort of game, but Reckoning has one feature that makes it very different from most: You’re not locked in to your character. Players can seek out the neighborhood “fateweaver,’’ and get an attitude adjustment. Bored with playing as a warrior? Try casting spells instead.
