Review: Dragon Age 2

Dragon Age 2

Today’s review is sponsored by the number 0.5, ½, 2/4, 3/6 or half. As in half-assed. To be used in a sentence “Dragon Age 2 is half-assed”. It was not the sequel that fans of the franchise wanted and should not have settled for. I played Dragon Age 2 when it first came out and really enjoyed it, putting it up in my “favourite games of all times” category with such classics as Red Dead Redemption and Big Bob’s Booty Bitches Bouncy Castle.

Shockingly enough, one of those games is made up!

Dragon Age 2 is a 2011 action RPG developed by Bioware and published by EA. “Hold on!” I hear you cry to your computer screen, “Isn’t that the same partnership that brought the epic Mass Effect series?” Firstly, stop talking to your computer it’s not going to provide the companionship you’re too afraid to go out and find in the real world. Secondly, yes it is. Which might actually answer why Dragon Age 2 (and even Dragon Age: Origins) feels, say it with me folks, “half-assed!”

When it came to Dragon Age: Origins, I understood EA’s reluctance to put money into a new IP since it was being developed by their lapdogs at Bioware and didn’t want them to take their attention off the money magnet known as Mass Effect. It showed in the final game too but even through second-rate graphics, technical issues and rather standard combat mechanics, Dragon Age: Origins did well for itself. It was the under-dog that fought and won against bigger opponents because it implemented unique ideas and provided a gripping story set in an immersive dark fantasy world. After the success of the first game, you would the money diving rods securely stored in the front of EA’s CEO’s boxers would have perked up and he would have seen there was a lot of money to be made with Dragon Age if they would have put more faith in it. But they didn’t and it’s horrendously obvious throughout Dragon Age 2.

Dragon Age 2 is so poor that it eats cereal with a fork so save money on cereal. Dragon Age 2 is so poor that it created a gmail account just so it could eat the spam. Dragon Age 2 is so poor it can’t even afford to pay attention. I hope I’ve made my point clear. This game needed more money.

You may think I’m exaggerating but for most of the side missions you revisit the same areas up to three or four times. I’m all for recycling but…actually I’m not. I hate it! And this game is the reason I hate it! “Hey, like this cave’s narrow corridors? You better! Cause you’re going to see it ten more times!” Not only that but I faced the exact same big boss baddy in the exact same spot twice. I thought the whole point of big boss baddies was to be a unique and challenging encounter that’s memorable? I don’t recall Luke Skywalker having to kill Darth Vader twice or John McClaine throwing Hans Gruber out of two skyscrapers.

Don't put a sex-doll in your game/movie.
Unless it's Megan Fox. Then it's cool.

The game is significantly better looking than is predecessor, partially due to its more stylised approached to the art work and graphics, however, a big part of the Dragon Age games, and in fact all Bioware game, is the dialogue between characters. It is during these conversations the camera gets uncomfortably close to the two involved, some needs to tell the camera about personal space. Now, a word to all future game developers out there: if you are going to go out of your way to write THAT much dialogue and have the camera go in THAT close, atleast put more effort into animating your characters faces. Dragon Age 2 characters only really have two expressions: regular or sex doll surprised. Which is a real shame because there are some heart breaking moments in the game: a young elf girl exiled by her clan, the slow loss of Hawke’s (main character) family and how his comrades become his adopted-family. What’s even more bizarre is the fact that the voice acting is really good in the game, so there are bizarre situations where a character is giving a passionate monologue but it’s coming out the mouth of a stone-faced prepubescent elf.

The writing throughout the game is actually very good but it’s formatted weirdly. The narrative is set into three acts with constant themes running throughout. This isn’t unseen in video games, just look at The Witcher 2 but the three acts are too disjointed and up feeling like three different stories with the same characters. It’d be like if Peter Jackson took a well-loved book, like The Hobbit, and turned it into three films instead one. Oh…

The main issue with the story is that it’s a completely separate story from Origins which had a lot of questions unanswered, even after all the DLC and extra bits clumsily glued on. What happened to Morrigan? If your Grey Warden survived, what did he end up doing? Did King Alistair ever get funnier? These are the things we need to know, apparently, and because they are left completely untouched it leaves a big nasty smear on this games narrative.

The interesting characters are still there: Slutty, Saddy, Angry, Bitchy, Sissy (or Bro-y depending on your starting class), Ditzy and Varric. What? You thought I would give the dwarf a name similar to those seen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves? You racist motherfucker!

The characters do well to carry the more boring bits of the game by adding the occasional witty one-liner or bantering amongst themselves during your travels. Infact, the frequency has been upped which is probably the only thing EA and Bioware actually listened to the fans about.  Also, in traditional Bioware fashion you can pick one of your companions and boink their brains out, making their decision to go with blow-up doll expressions much more obvious. Taking a page from real life I decided to go with the Pirate slut who treated me like crap and had commitment issues. We flirted. We had sex. We slaughtered Darkspawn in the shadow of Sundermount. Then she left. Toward the end of Act Two she left me.

I’m sorry but don’t we play videogames for escapism? Why would I want to deal with the fact my virtual girlfriend left me when I could do that with my real-life girlfriend? Ya know…IF I HAD ONE!

Now let’s talk about the sequel’s biggest accomplishment that really did stand the test of time and that is the combat. Never has a game with the title “action RPG” actually gone and blended the hack-and-slash elements of an action game (like God of War) with the RPG elements of…well, an RPG (like World of Warcraft) so well. They nailed it. Final Fantasy take note! The combat is fun and engaging, none of the “auto-attack” shit! The abilities you pull off are flashy and visually impressive making each battle a spectacle, maybe too much so as there was a number of times my Xbox360 had to pause to regain its breath leading to the game freezing momentarily. Also, the fighting felt different between classes: warriors felt powerful as they could obliterate enemies into a fine red mist, rogues felt stealthy as they were better for getting behind single enemies then sliding a dagger up an enemies unprepared anus and the mages felt more tactical having to stay out of the fray and launch different spells where they were needed.

It was during combat I was the saddest though because it shows what Dragon Age 2 could have been if it had received proper support. It could have moulded what Action RPGs of the future would be like and not ended up the unloved middle child, as it probably will because Dragon Age: Inquisition (basically Dragon Age 3) is shaping up nicely.

Mr. EA take my advice and leave your wife, Mrs. Mass Effect for your sexy little bit-on-the-side Ms. Dragon Age because it will do dirty stuff that your wife can’t even begin to imagine. I’m sorry to tell you this but a lot of your friends don’t even like your wife anymore because the last dinner party she held left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Maybe now that Mrs. Mass Effect is as good as dead Ms. Dragon Age will get a bit more attention.

Review: Bioshock Infinite

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Forget Hitler. Screw Freddy Kruger. Hype is the biggest killer in the world. Hype can ruin just about anything. It’s why I dislike Chris Nolan’s Inception, also because Nolan is a very average director, but also because everyone told me how great a film it was and how it will blow my freaking mind.

And much like my penis during my final year of university…my mind remained unblown.

It’s a similar case with Bioshock Infinite; it received 5/5 reviews, over forty awards at E3 and was said to be “the greatest game ever” by one of my favourite videogame journalists. So, I was sold. I wanted to play this game! No, I needed to play this game! And now I have. But before I express my opinion and ended up getting disowned by every gamer friend I have, let’s go over THE FACTS!

Bioshock Infinite is a first-person shooter developed by Irrational Games released in 2013 and was written and directed by Ken Levine. Normally I wouldn’t say who wrote of directed the game but Levine has become somewhat of a celebrity with the success of the Shock series; consisting of System Shock and Bioshock games.  Now THE VERDICT!

Yeah, it’s good. It’s not “so good that I came all over the keyboard and now I don’t have to use the auto-run key because my buttons are so sticky” but it’s good. Like I said, hype really fucked this game over for me. I sat there waiting for this big epiphany moment that would make this game everything that people were telling me but I got to the end of the game and it never happened. Okay, at the end of the game when you momentarily visit Rapture from the original Bioshock was very cool and nonstalgic, but “the greatest game ever” should build upon the past and innovate, not leave us reminiscing.

Bioshock Infinite does exactly this with its combat, because Bioshock’s gunplay was tighter than the Virgin Mary. There is a good feel and look to the guns in the game; in fact the guns looked so good I often found myself reluctant to drop one for another which lead to me carrying my starting pistol for the first couple of hours of gameplay. Although greatly out gunned, I did feel really badass taking down a man covered in armour hurling fire with my trusty peashooter. Most of the guns feel unique and it’s only in the later parts of the game that you start to encounter weapons that are remarkably similar to each other; this design choice is made all the more baffling by the fact you can only carrying two guns at a time and about half way through you will have decided what combination works best for you. My set up consisted of a Carbine rifle that could blow off enemy’s bollocks at a distance or up close, and an RPG for the bigger, tougher bastards. Also making their return from Bioshock are Plasmids, except they’ve been renamed Vigors in Infinite because fuck you. These powers allow you to throw fire, produce a shield or convince Justin Bieber just to give it up and work in McDonalds with the rest of the uneducated teenagers. However, these fall into a similar problem as the weapons, where you find the two powers that work for you and stick with them for the rest of the game. Some of the Vigors are introduced oddly late in the game and seemed to be there for the sole purpose of trying to keep the game fresh but they were so uninteresting that I just stuck with my fire throwing and bucking bronco; throwing enemies into the air and them hitting them with the flaming grenade really does relief the stress of a hard day’s work.

The parts of the game where you are trapped in a certain area and can’t go on until you’ve killed all the enemies in the most brutal way possible are made all the more interesting by the introduction of a Skyline, a rail that runs through the city which you can ride on with your melee weapon. The Skyline does add uniqueness to the combat; otherwise these sections would just equate down to nothing more than a static turret sequence. However, these “killing playgrounds” aren’t new and are taken from games like Batman Arkham Asylum, except in this case it’s done via first-person. There sole purpose is to make the gamer want to come back and play the section again just to discover new ways of these killing the enemies.

Sigh...look at her. She's just perfection.

Now, I will give credit where credit is due and say this, “Elizabeth is hands down the best companion in video game history”. There is so much I love about this character and how she’s programmed to behave at all times. When you’re just walking about she will wonder off and look at things in awe and when she’s done waits for you at exit, which might not seem like much but it’s the fact the designers animated her to lean against the wall with her arms folded just makes it seem so natural. Elizabeth’s mannerisms changed too, depending on the environment; while walking through a burning building she would develop a terrible cough or when sneaking through a creepy mansion she would fearfully hug herself. It’s this attention to detail that makes Elizabeth truly come to life and her positive attributes don’t stop there as during combat she will actively seek out and toss things like ammo and health to you mid-fight and save your ass. However, the greatest thing about Elizabeth is that she can’t die! An escort that can’t die! It’s the childhood dream fulfilled! Honestly, this kind of makes me hate the game more because I know I will never find a girl that is as perfect as Elizabeth in real life.

The game has an amazing ability to tell a story without taking away from the gameplay and any cutscenes in the game are seamlessly integrated with the gameplay and always from the P.O.V. of the protagonist, Booker DeWitt. What helps the story be told is the world in which we inhabit, the floating haven called Columbia, and how is uses every detail to add new layers of narrative to the world; from the conversation between two citizens to the propaganda posters plastered of the city. However, the dialogue between DeWitt and Elizabeth seems very forced at times because of the lack of cutscenes, for example, I was reading a poster on a wall when all of a sudden Elizabeth says to me, “It’s okay. You can ask.” This leads to a conversation about Elizabeth’s pinky finger, which is missing, during which she insinuates that I was looking at it, whenever I wasn’t. I swear I wasn’t. I was just looking at the wall. Honest! The beginning of these conversations just come out of the blue and can be very abrupt but once they get going they are funny, emotional and very realistic.

Okay, now here is the real reason why I included Ken Levine earlier and it’s so I have someone to direct my utter contempt at for this plot point. Oh…and SPOILERS by the way. You gone? Good! Ken Levine you can go and fuck yourself with a twelve inch rubber dildo with rusty nails sticking out of it for using a plot element so fucking convoluted and “get-out-of-jail-free”ish as the multiverse theory. That shit is right up there with time travel! What? Couldn’t get the copyright done in time to make a time travelling Zeppelin with a balloon the shape of a DeLorean, you twat? The story was good! It was a touching piece about a father’s self-sacrifice that could have had be crying on the ground whilst hugging my knees but instead you take the most pretentious route possible. Seriously, do yourself a favour and stick to directing your next game and hire the writer of Spec Ops: The Line to teach you about real action and consequences in a narrative.

Bioshock Infinite is good. Really good. It isn’t “the greatest game ever” and, sorry to sound pessimistic, but we never will have a greatest game ever because games are too versatile to have a title like that and it’s that versatility that makes me love videogames. The ability to play a game and then play something completely different in mere secondsis one of the best things about games. Is Bioshock Infinite the greatest first-person shooter of all time? Possibly. Is Bioshock Infinite the greatest Shock game of all time? Yes. However, that’s just my opinion. So do me a favour and stop throwing your “greatest game ever” opinions in my face.

Instead, start a video game blog and shove it in the internet’s face. Like me.

“Bioshock? More like Biocock! Imma right?"

Hans Davis

Review: Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords

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On 6^th May 2013, EA and Disney announced a multi-year deal that EA would be producing core Star Wars games and being a raging queen for a juicy bit of gossip it inspired me to do my second review, this time on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords (hereby known as KOTOR 2 because life is too short) and what most people consider to be one of the last good Star Wars games.

I was hesitant about reviewing this game because it was developed by Obsidian Entertainment, who I haven’t seen eye-to-eye in a couple of years. It all started with the unplayable Fallout: New Vegas, and I don’t just mean it was bad. It was literally unplayable due the game’s number of bugs and instability, which was a massive disappointment to me as Fallout 3 still remains one of my all-time favourite games. I’m also a huge South Park fan, so knowing that Obsidian is working on South Park: The Stick of Truth has me worried; seriously if they fuck up that game, I’m going to kill all the developers’ parents and turn them into chilli.

Anyway, let’s get on with it…

KOTOR 2 is a roleplaying game released in 2004 by American developers Obsidian Entertainment and was the company’s first major release. It was also the sequel to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which garnered praise from both critics and the public.

It’s a sequel, so a lot of comparisons can (and probably will) be drawn between the two games, such as the opening of the games. The very first thing you do is create a character, choose a class…yadda yadda yadda RPG stuff. You’re then thrown into the tutorial. Now, in the original KOTOR the tutorial takes place on a spaceship that is being attacked by the Sith, so you’re given a blaster or a sword and are told to massacre everyone wearing a suit of armour. A simple, fun and effective tutorial.

KOTOR 2 does not do this.

The tutorial starts on your ship, The Ebon Hawk, that is broken down and idling floating through space; you have to fix it. Now, here is my first issue with the game, even though you just spent hours (okay, more like minutes. This is 2004 character customisation options, not Skyrim) you don’t play as you’re character during the tutorial. You play as T3-M4, some R2-D2 wannabe droid. Admittedly, this isn’t a problem at this point because you’re allowed to skip the tutorial but there are points later on in the game where you are forced into the role of your crewmates. I’m playing an RPG! Let me use my own character so I can pretend it’s me! More importantly, I’m playing a Star Wars game, let me play as a fucking Jedi! Who wants to play as a goddamn droid? The film is called Return of the Jedi, not Return of the R2 Unit.

This hatred for my crewmates when playing as them, is not helped by the combat system. It is the typical RPG/MMORPG system where you click on an enemy and watch the numbers go down as they auto-attack each other, occasionally pressing a button to do a special attack and make the numbers go down faster. Honestly, I’ve had more excitement during a wank than in this combat system. There was a segment of the game that especially got on my generously portioned man-tits when I was playing as a droid named HK-47, who can best be described as “what if C3-PO had post-traumatic stress disorder and just fucking lost it one day?”, and I was fighting other HK units. Both myself and my adversaries were using blaster rifles, standing at either end of the room firing at each other. Yet none of us were able to hit each other. I even moved up, to mere inches from opponents, and their shots were still able to miss my metallic frame by miles. I don’t think I can ever look at a Sci-Fi film that mentions machines taking over the world without snorting at it dismissively, like that one hot girl I asked to dance at my formal….bitch. Well, whose winning now? Huh? You’re off having the time of your life and Im writing a blog on Star Wars.

Aw, I just made myself sad.

No matter how frustrating my crewmates were to play as, talking to them on the ship was always something I looked forward to after every mission because you learnt more about them and their backstory, all of which were fascinating. Well, most of them were. One or two of them were so dull and boring that I gave up on them after a view conversations, which came back to bite me in surprisingly taught ass. In the penultimate mission there was a huge twist with one of these “boring” characters that made him instantly interesting but it was too late to go back and converse with him because I had enter endgame. Oh, if only I’d listened to my mother and not judged a book by its cover.

There is more than just your crewmates’ backstories to get out of talking to them as Obsidian do a good job of giving purpose to these conversation as you can learn abilities off them or, and this is the real selling point, turn a majority of them into Jedi. If you max out your friendship with a character you can convert them into a Jedi. Unfortunately, it’s not all of your team that can be converted, just the humans, which came as a huge disappointment to me as I would have loved to have my waist high T3-M4 droid out on the battlefield dishing out lightsaber assisted vasectomies to my enemies. Not only this but your crewmates also start to reflect your force alignment, whether you’re lightside or darkside but all this adds up to is them looking normal (lightside) or them reliving their gothic phase from their youth (darkside).  

Handmaiden (light)

Handmaiden (dark)

So, narrative is definitely one of Obsidian’s stronger qualities and it’s not just your band of merry men that are the better for it but the overarching game narrative will leave the front of your pants sticky too. Obsidian don’t allow the story to fall into the usual problem that comes with Star Wars, which is everything is so distinct. Jedi are good. Sith are bad. Everyone else can piss off. Instead, KOTOR 2’s story deals with the middle/neutral ground which is normally the boring and least prosperous route, especially in games with a morality system. But KOTOR 2 doesn’t do that; instead it looks at the positive aspects of being morally ambiguous, the big one being is complete freedom. Instead of forgiving this man who has made very chauvinistic remarks to my female companion, as a Jedi is taught to do, I can cut off his dick with my lightsaber and make him perform fellatio on himself. Problem solved!  What helps reinforce this neutral story is the representation of everyone else in the galaxy; they’re dicks. The Jedi are dicks. The Sith are dicks. Bounty hunters are dicks. Even the everyday pedestrians are dicks. While travellingon Nar Shadda, I gave a beggar a couple of credits because he was down on his luck, I took two steps away and some asshole came up, killed him and took his money. Dicks!

It’s this amazing way that Obsidian has handled neutrality and what is usually a very difficult element of a game’s narrative and really nailed it, which makes me think this is one of the aspects that KOTOR 2 surpasses KOTOR.

Which is a good thing because I’m not sure I can sit through another game where Bioware, developers of the original KOTOR, rehash the same story but in a different game. Honestly, look at KOTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. They are the same story. “User created character has to join an elite group (Jedi/Spectres/Grey Wardens) and defeat an ancient evil (Sith/Reapers/Dark Spawn). I once criticised Capcom for having a poor writers but at least they actually tried!

Try and unsee this!

KOTOR 2 had some big shoes to fill being the sequel to KOTOR but honestly, Obsidian did a great job (that was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to type.) It makes me wonder what changed that they went from making games like KOTOR 2 to a buggy mess like Fallout: New Vegas. If I haven’t convinced you yet, know that unlike my review for Dragon’s Dogma I actually completed KOTOR 2 which clocks in at over thirty hours of gameplay, so that should tell you something.

It’s unfortunate that we may never see a KOTOR 3, especially with EA taking over all Star Wars games for the foreseeable future. I guess my Luke Skywalker/Han Solo fan fictions will have to tide me over until EA make a move.

“Oh! I never thought a lightsaber could be used in that way.”

Hans Davis 

Review: Dragon's Dogma

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I had difficulty deciding what game to do for my first ever review because I have a several games on my plate at the minute, most of which are Star Wars related (and before any of you make a joke, I have touched a girl’s breast before, thank you very much!) I decided to go with Dragon’s Dogma because of its much anticipated expansion pack, Dark Arisen, coming out later this month. This month being April, incase you’re reading this in the future. Which raises the question, “Why are you only reading this now? Where was your support from the beginning? Asshole!” However, if you are reading this relatively close to when I published it, “Hello you sexy sexy reader! Welcome to my first review. Would you like some tea? A biscuit? Are you sitting comfortably? Yes? Excellent. I’ll begin then.”

Dragon’s Dogma is an open world action RPG with a hack ‘n’ slash combat system that was released in 2012 by well-established Japanese developers and publishers, Capcom. Right, that’s the boring stuff out of the way!

The game is set in the fantasy world of “They never fucking told me” or “If they did I didn’t take it in”. If you’re going out of your way to make a fantasy story then you should at least name the world that our character inhabits; or maybe we’ve just been spoiled by the J.R.R Tolkiens and George R.R. Martins of the world. Anyway, the story is: Dragon attacks your village – Dragon steals your heart – You become something called an Arisen – You have to go get your heart back from the dragon. That’s it. That’s all I got from the story. It wasn’t very clear.

Oh! And the dragon is called Grigori or Gregory or something…

In a nutshell, that’s the problem with Dragon’s Dogma’s narrative in general, it’s not very clear on anything. For example, when Gregory attacks your village you have some interaction with a woman just before he swoops down and burns everyone to a crisp but during the cutscene your relationship is never defined. It could have been my wife or it could have been my sister. No way to tell. After the attack you have a conversation with her in which she calls you, “cus”. “Ah!” I thought, “So I’m her cousin. Thank goodness that’s cleared up. That could’ve led to an awkward wank later” But then I continued my journey through the town and everyone was calling me, “cus”. So I came to the conclusion that this is one of those fucked up inbred towns where everyone is related but still continues to fuck each other. Or maybe “cus” is just what the villagers call each other and that last sentence is an insight into my fucked up mind.

Like most RPGs, Dragon’s Dogma’s narrative tends to suffer not only because of it vagueness but also because of the many…many…MANY sub-plots that takes place throughout the main plot, “a dragon stole my heart”. The “dragon stole my heart” plot arches over every subplot, but because of the immense number of them the main plot is spread too thin and by the time you’ve reached the next big development in the “dragon stole my heart” soap opera, you’ve forgotten what happened up to this point.

I’ve said “dragon stole my heart” so many times now I’m starting to think maybe Gregory is just misunderstood. Maybe he stole my heart because he’s just looking for companionship. Or he’s just looking to store his scaly cock in my virgin anus.

Before any of this even happens you get to create your character (it is an RPG after all) and from this Han the fighter was created. What? Were you expecting some silly and humorous? Maybe next time. There are three different classes to pick from at the beginning; fighter (which is different from a warrior), a strider (which is different from a ranger) and a mage (which is different from sorcerer). Now the difference between a fighter and a warrior is-

Actually, fuck this. It’s too complicated. It’s an RPG. You know this shit by now. There are three choices: sword, bow or magic. Pick one.

Before too long, you are introduced to the Pawn system and get to create a Pawn of your very own to accompany you through your quests and thus, the lovely blonde strider Tera was born to come on my adventures with me. The Pawns are described as “emotionless” and “empty vessels to be filled with knowledge”…understatement of the fucking year! (I might actually make that an End of Year Awards category). While out exploring Dragon’s Dogma’s big wide world my Pawn would shut the fuck up! Every tree, path, bird or dog turd Tera found she told me about it, and not just once. If I was travelling the same path but in the other direction she would point out the same piece of dog shit that was there before. However, I will give credit where it’s due and say that in combat the Pawn’s do learn and will give advice such as, “It’s weak against fire,” which can be a big help but just running about hearing, “I’m not much use here” or “This rock looks important” are not something I need  or want to hear. If you’re no use then why open your fucking mouth? And the only reason this rock looks important is because I’m using it to bludgeon you to death! Of course, if you prefer your trip to insanity to be a little quicker, you can have two more Pawns follow you.

Yes, it’s possible to have two other Pawns follow you about on your journey. To do this, all you need to do is go into a dark and suspicious room as a group of Pawn’s come out and stand there in such a way to ask, “You like what you see?” and if you don’t, you can send them away and have the next batch of Pawns sent out to inspect. All these Pawn are created by players around the world, all of which you can pick from, but the entire experience felt very much like an underground “massage” parlour where a happy ending isn’t an extra but mandatory. In case you can’t tell, I found the whole thing a little seedy and matters only got worse when, and I shit you not, a twelve year old looking female Pawn enter the dark dingy room. I mean what the actual fuck? I know Japan is into some weird shit but Jesus Christ, Capcom! Why is it possible to create a character to look like a preteen? Then again what can I expect from a country where you can find vending machines that give out used girls’ underwear which are probably sniffed more than this tube of super glue in front me.

Why is this even an option?

Needless to say, I grabbed Tera and my two newly acquired preteen sex slaves and got the fuck out of there and set out toward adventure.

And to my surprise there was quite a lot of it. Although Capcom’s story department may be too busy putting used underwear on their head and taking a big whiff to write a half decent story, their designers sure weren’t.

Dragon’s Dogma’s biggest asset is its combat because, unlike most RPGs which are all about numbers, there is skill involved in the combat this game. I can’t speak for all classes but as a fighter I had to dodge, block, attack etc. and when the sword connects with your opponent it looks like there is good weight behind your blow; not only that but your skills/spells are easy to pull off and entertaining to watch happen which sucked, because playing with a controller means your choices are limited to four skills at any one time. During combat is where the Pawns really starts to show their worth as their AI is surprisingly helpful in a fight and they react quickly when I order a double team attack. There was just something about launching Tera into the air to  grab a Harpy’s leg, have her drag it down to the ground just long enough for me to run my sword through its feathery throat that made the front of my trousers unusually tight.

Then there is the ability to grab onto larger enemies and climb on them during combat so you can go up to their face and stick your cock in their eye to do maximum damage. Although I joke, it does work really well and you really do feel as though doing this has an effect on the enemy; which is a big contrast to Shadow of Colossus where it felt like you were doing as much damage as an ant with a toothpick. However, climbing on smaller enemies can just looks bizarre. I found this out whilst climbing a Griffin and he starting flailing furiously to get me off (teehee) and it looked reminiscent of the family dog playing with your little sister’s Ken doll.

My biggest issue with the game is the lack of guidance it offers when it comes to the missions you can do. I understand it’s an open world game and that it allows the player to proceed whatever path he/her wants but still a little hint along the lines of, “Hey, maybe you want to level up before you do this mission” would have been lovely and saved me dying more times than a comic book character. I was sent on a quest to rescue my cousin/sister/lover from a place called Witchwood but on the way there I ran into a group of bandits. “Aha! Villains! I am an Arisen. You don’t stand a chance,” I thought as I lunged at their leader; sword swinging wildly. Little did I know that he was several levels above me and I might as well be hitting him on the head with a baguette. An uncooked baguette. In seconds he had sliced me into little Arisen cubes and used my baguette sword to turn me into a tastey sandwich. Come on, Dragon’s Dogma! I’m a hero but yet I get made into lunch by some cutthroats. Not to mention just fifteen minutes ago I skull fucked an ogre!

So basically, if you’re turned off by the trial-and-error of how Dragon’s Dogma handles its missions then this probably isn’t the game for you. Also, the story definitely isn’t anything to rave about, I guess there is enough there to give everything purpose and keep you going from fight to fight but it’s in those battles that you’ll have so much fun you’ll find yourself stabbing you big phallic sword into an goblin’s face so many times that’d it’d even give Freud food for thought.

 And before anyone asks, no I didn’t finish the game before reviewing it. “Oh but that’s not professional…” Fuck professional! You want professional? Fuck off to Gamespot. A good game should be like a good book or film and grab the player/viewer/reader’s attention at the beginning and that is where Dragon’s Dogma fails. I’m sure you’ll get used to its flaws over time but a lot of people will have stopped playing before that time comes.

Now excuse me, I have to go and explore some dark caves with my twelve year old sex slaves…I mean Pawns.

“I thought she was eighteen, man! I thought she was eighteen!”

Hans Davis