The Legend of Dead Kel preview!

IGN has the scoop on the upcoming DLC for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning:

The real Achilles heel of The Legend of Dead Kel is Dead Kel himself. Imagine a melodramatic LeChuck who’s missing his funny bone. He’s a forgettable villain whose cartoonish, senseless goals are established poorly, even within the small scale of the story.

This leaves his three main cronies pick up the personality slack. Not that we learn much about them besides the color of their blood, but their outlandish looks, weaponry, and skills make for fun, familiar battles.

Their lootable super-powered weapons nail both the “power” and “personality” notes. The hammer made from a giant spine is just delightful.

The main quest runs around four hours, excluding the wide range of side-quests to take care of along the way. The most notable of The Legend of Dead Kel’s contributions is Gravehal Keep, a housing fixer-upper. Like your stashes elsewhere in Amalur, this is your go-to personal HQ in Gallows End. Unlike the others, though, you can build new facilities within Gravehal Keep for various bonuses. Creating a stable gives you access to pets, for example. Taming a bear and spider gives you a health boost and improved poison resistance, respectively, and feeding them earns you even better buffs.

It’s a pity that the main villain of the piece sounds lackluster, though I’m a bit intrigued by the idea that the house — keep, rather — can be upgraded and used in ways that will more directly affect gameplay and character stats.

But: these pets…can they fight?

Also: GameBanshee has links to official wallpapers and forum avatars for Dead Kel. Give them a look!

Reckoning reviews!

Yes, more. The results may be a bit mixed, but it certainly cannot be said that the game has failed to generate buzz and conversation.

Joystiq interviews Sean Dunn.

Mr. Dunn is the general manager at Big Huge Games, and Joystiq managed to catch up with him and pose a few questions about Reckoning, the possibility of a sequel, the much-hinted Project Copernicus…and the technology they’ve built for making games:

So what of the future of the franchise? Todd McFarlane, one of the major names attached to Reckoning, has said that a sequel is dependent on word of mouth. While Dunn won’t go into hard numbers needed to spur a sequel, he notes that publishers look for certain elements. “I can’t speak for EA at this point, but just from my experience, looking at where the studio is, we’re kind of in the perfect position.”

The studio owns all of its own technology — geared toward making open world RPGs — and the team has its first big project under its belt. “We came in on time and on budget, and so all of those things are really favorable for the studio, so we really have no real concerns at this point,” says Dunn, “we feel that we’re in a really, really strong position.”

I for one would welcome a Reckoning sequel. But I’m sure my saying as much comes as a surprise to exactly nobody who reads this site on a regular basis.