Diablo 3 Review

Diablo 3 Review:

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 12 years since Diablo 2 came out and continued the loot-frenzy, mouse-clicking adventure RPG Diablo series from Blizzard Entertainment. Since the game announcement in 2008, the title has had multiple revisions – no more Mystic artisan, delayed PvP, the addition of a controversial auction house that has the option to use real money – and plenty of criticism, including the much-maligned color palette that fans said didn’t truly represent the franchise.

But it’s now been a week since the game launched, which unfortunately meant a crippling period of time where Blizzard’s servers didn’t cooperate with the vast majority of players, keeping thousands of players from accessing the game. Because Diablo 3’s DRM requires an internet connection to be signed into Battle.net, this left the majority of players unable to play the game they had purchased. Complaints littered the internet, but quickly vanished once the servers were able to handle the load.

Are You Playing This For The Story?

Blizzard has a rich history of providing complex stories for their games: see StarCraft, WarCraft and of course the previous Diablo titles as examples of this. But it’s easy to lose to the entire scope behind all of those mouse clicks. Diablo 3 has a rich story with some of the most gorgeous cutscenes ever to grace a video game. (Seriously, if there was a feature-length Diablo movie told in this animation, it would sell tons of tickets). But much of the lore and history is told in dialogue with NPCs that you don’t’ have to access, and we wonder how many people will skip it altogether in the search for yellow epic items.

For those of you who might be curious, Diablo 3 is set 20 years after Diablo 2, with demon lords Belial and Azmodan trying to gain control of the Black Soulstone and destiny itself, either by freeing Diablo, or taking the power for themselves. The events are touched off by a meteor that opens an enormous hole in a Cathedral near New Tristram, swallowing wise man Deckard Cain along with it. As a Nephalem, the direct offspring of angels and demons, you have access to great powers, and must use them to try and stop hell from spilling into Sanctuary.

In order to do that, you’ll team up with Cain’s niece Leah and trace the path of the Dark Wanderer from Diablo 2. Along the way you’ll also meet several followers you can hire to join your party: the Templar, the Scoundrel, and the Enchantress.

Who Do You Want To Be?

Diablo 3 features five characters classes: four brand-new ones, and the returning Barbarian from Diablo 2. What is impressive here is that Blizzard has managed to pack different types of gameplay options into each class, meaning you can have a Witch Doctor who fights up close and personal, or one who hangs back and deals DPS and uses minions do deal damage. Plus, each class has it’s own “fuel” that powers the special abilities. Choose carefully your first time around, because you’ll be stuck with that character through your entire campaign unless you want to start over.

Wizard: If you liked the Sorcerer or Sorceress from past games, the Wizard fills that slot and offers a slew of different spells from slowing down time, to blasting out beams of ice and energy. This class is fueled by Arcane Power, which regenerates quickly.

Monk: A strange (but very fun) new addition to Diablo despite the Monk class in the Hellfire expansion to the original Diablo game, the monk uses extreme speed and powerful combination moves to vanquish enemies. Powered by Spirit, the monk isn’t one you’ll want to use for ranged combat, but they offer a unique melee combat option.

Demon Hunter: This class uses two types of resources – hate and discipline – to deploy traps and rain ranged fire from dual crossbows down on their enemies. With a powerful hatred of all things demonic, there are a lot of fun options like bombs and gadgets in their arsenal.

Barbarian: The powerhouse of the group is the Barbarian, who you will definitely want to have in your lineup if you form a party with friends. Powered by Fury, the Barb leaps, whirlwinds, and pounds into foes. If you’re into tanking, look no further. Barbarians also tower over the other classes, and as a result their gear stands out more as you outfit them.

Witch Doctor: Arguably the most visually impressive of the new classes, the Witch Doctor is powered by Mana and can raise zombie dogs, corpse spiders, acid clouds, gargantuan voodoo-fueled companions, and more. Favorites include the Enormous Toad option that swallows enemies whole, and the Fetish that turns enemies into chickens. This was the class that I took all the way to the end of the game the first time around, and I’m in love with them.

Click Click Click Click

Diablo 3 doesn’t vary from its mouse-clicking heritage, but it does offer up some tweaks. You’ll use your mouse and the left and right mouse buttons to move and trigger attacks, while the number keys 1 through 4 trigger additional abilities. Q will instantly quaff whatever potion you’ve slotted in there, and … that’s it. You can hit various other keys for menus – I for inventory, S for Skills, and so on, but as far as gameplay goes, you’re going to rely on the first three fingers of your left hand, and your index finger on your right hand to play through this game.

As with other Diablo titles, things can get frenzied and hard to follow when you’re swarmed with multiple enemies. Combine that with followers and abilities, and there are plenty of times where you’re going, “Well, I know I need to click a ton right in the middle of this mess, but I’m not entirely sure what’s going on.” In those situations, you’ll play the “Watch The Health Meter” game and pray for globe drops and fast potion recharge times.

To streamline the process, Blizzard has introduced Health Globes that occasionally drop from enemies, and you can augment that through abilities and gear as well. For instance, higher-end gear will give you more health from globes, if imbued with that ability. You can also pick up gold now just by walking over it, but you’ll quickly find that the name of the game is loot juggling. You’ll have to click on each piece that you want to pick up, and once you get to hire levels and start finding the really good stuff, it’s hard to let it go.

Thankfully, you have a Stash in town once again that you can store stuff in to be used by any of your characters, but it’s both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing to have, but a curse that it’s so small. Still, if you find a great piece of epic gear meant for another class, it’s nice to have the option to hand it off to that class or even sell it. Right now, the real money auction house hasn’t been activated in Diablo 3 yet, although we’re already seeing some exorbitant prices in the ten million gold range for high-end items. Like the futures market, this bears keeping an eye on. We’ll be interested to see who actually turns a decent profit from loot whore-iteering.

One Time, At Diablo Camp…

While Merchants are a long-standing staple in Diablo, allowing you to buy and sell new items, Diablo 3 introduces a very robust artisan system that has a blacksmith and a jeweler following you from town to town and setting up camp. You can use them to craft new gear and gems using supplies: elements from breaking down rare and epic items for the blacksmith, and lower-quality gems for the jeweler (who is hilariously voiced by James Hong).

You can also level these artisans up by training them (at a cost in gold), and when you’re ready to boost them into higher levels after completing the game and moving into Nightmare mode, you’ll find additional supplies that can improve them even more. The smith can create rare and epic items with random magical properties and break down the same into their base elements, eliminating the faithful Horadric Cube. The jeweler will create new gems from lesser gems at a ratio of 3 to 1, and he can also remove jewels from sockets, which means no more permanently fused sockets.

Blizzard had announced a Mystic as an artisan who would accompany you as well, creating magical items for your character, but they aren’t currently in the game. With the blacksmith able to create magic items, it isn’t missed that much, but it would be nice to tinker more with the magic properties that are bestowed on things. But there are enough merchants in town that have enough variety on display to tide you over for now. Hopefully the Mystic will appear in an update or an expansion.

Besides buying/selling and artisaning, you’ll also come back into town via Waypoints or the Town Portal spell (which is now automatic and unlocked early on and not reliant on finding Town Portal scrolls) to hire or swap out Followers. These range from the melee/tankish Templar, to the ranged Scoundrel, to the DPS/effect Enchantress. You can only have one in your party at a time, and if someone joins your game via co-op, your Follower will head back to town.

These Followers will level up alongside you, allowing you to choose abilities for them along the way in a “Choose A or B” option, and you can outfit them as well, but only with rings, an amulet, a weapon, a shield, and a focus. A focus grant additional stats to your Follower, and take the form of things like a pair of dice for the Scoundrel, spear shards for the Templar, and a mirror for the Enchantress. You’ll find these randomly, although not as often as you’d like.

Unfortunately, you can’t change your Followers armor, which would have been helpful because you find so. much. of. the. stuff. Besides selling it, saving it, or breaking it down, it would be nice if you could dress up your buddies and improve their stats as well.

It’s A Dead Man’s Party

With PvP nonexistent (for now), the best way to blast through the game and pick up the good stuff is to party up. Battle.net makes it very easy to jump in and out of games with people on your friends list. Need help passing a boss? Belial was kicking my ass repeatedly, so I asked a cohort to help me out. He popped over, joined, and we were able to power through after a couple of tries. Then he hopped back into his own game.

It’s very easy to see who is what and where, and the banner system lets you instantly teleport to a party member’s location simply by clicking on their banner in town. You’ll get zapped to their proximity, without any need for a Town Portal. You can also join public games, where your mileage may vary. Meaning, you might end up with a team of duds, or something rivaling the Avengers. You never can tell until you join. Without any sort of a real match ranking system, it’s the best way to meet new players, for now.

Hopefully the PvP will expand horizons and make it easier to meet fellow players of equal skill levels and party up. Thankfully, when joining a public game, you can narrow it down to the portion of the act and the difficulty that you want to jump into. So if you’ve beaten the game, set your phasers on Nightmare and join a public party for maximum lootation. Within five minutes of beating the game, I was picking up new gear with a party of people I didn’t know. This should become the gold standard for adventure game co-opping.

So What’s Wrong?

Besides the occasionally confusing combat, which is also a staple of this series, the only real problem with the game seems to be the abrupt ending. We won’t spoil what your final battle is (but it doesn’t take Rain Man to figure it out), and when you’re done with that, there’s a “Hey, congrats!” message, and you’re done. You can continue the game and start in Nightmare mode, or switch off and go outside and read a book.

With such a strong emphasis on story, it’s strange and almost upsetting that there isn’t some sort of endgame cutscene or event. It almost feels like they got to that point and just had no idea what to do, or despite their “We ship when it’s ready” tenet… it just wasn’t ready.

Besides that, it’s more what isn’t in the game that’s a problem. Where is the promised PvP that was so hyped? With so many players loving that from Diablo 2, it’s a glaring omission. What about the character-specific side quests? I found out a lot about the Barbarian though some of Deckard Cain’s journals that I found, but what about background on my creepy/cool Witch Doctor? Perhaps there is more to be revealed on additional playthroughs, but I would hope I would learn about my own class while playing.

And What’s Right?

What’s more impressive, however, is what Blizzard got right. The game is truly impressive on nearly every level. From the graphics, to the fantastic soundtrack, to the towering scads of loot and extremely varied gameplay, there’s a lot to like here. It was very disheartening to hear that Blizzard was jettisoning the Rune system where you would find and socket your own Runes, but the unlockable system they use now that improves skills is a terrific solution to rune-juggling.

Additionally, the Followers have so much recorded dialogue that you will hear as they tag along with you, and they’ll even chatter back and forth with each other when you’re in town. You’ll learn all about their lives, loves, fears, and more as they ask you questions or banter back and forth. They even manage to crack a joke or two here and there.

Then, there’s the crack factor. The game is as addictive as ever, and you’ll find yourself saying “Okay, just five more minutes” for hours on end, often just hoping for a decent loot drop before you can finally turn in. The game keeps track of your playtime and progress with each class, providing a visual record of your addiction, and additionally the visual banner system lets you know how awesome both you and your friends.

The End Is Not Nigh

The bottom line is that Diablo 3 is a triumph for Blizzard, despite the painful server problems that plagued the launch. It’s only because Blizzard themselves pull back the curtain so often to show us the development process that we are lamenting the absence of things like PvP and the Mystic. What you get in this package is an addictive, satisfying game that feels very polished, offers a wide range of gameplay options, introduces an insatiable lust for loot, and does co-op right. This is what PC (and Mac!) gaming is all about.

Source : http://www.g4tv.com

Sorcery Review

It may be hard to believe, but Sorcery has finally arrived. Initially shown-off at E3 in 2010, Sorcery fell off the radar for nearly two years as fledgling studio The Workshop tinkered with it, refining the project over an unusually long development cycle. The result is one of the best PlayStation Move games available. However, it’s also a game that doesn’t quite live up to the hype borne out of the fact that we’ve been talking about it and anticipating it for so long.

Sorcery revolves around a teenage boy named Finn, a sorcerer’s apprentice with incredible untapped potential. When his teacher and mentor Dash leaves the mischievous Finn up to his own devices, he steals a magic wand and finds himself thrust into an unusual adventure with his feline friend Erline at his side. Clearly, Sorcery is designed to be accessible for children, but adults will still find the protagonist and his friends endearing. Finn and Erline are likeable, their banter is enjoyable and it’s hard not to care about their fate.

With a decidedly Celtic inspiration, Sorcery’s character and environmental designs can certainly be pretty, but admittedly run the gamut from high quality to utterly boring. Indeed, one of Sorcery’s greatest weaknesses is how bland many of the enemies and locations look. While I found myself impressed with Finn and Erline and while some of the game’s earlier locales look great, many of Sorcery’s enemies are outright uninspired, including the game’s antagonist herself. Vividly-colored environments can pop, but they’re also mostly devoid of personality.

But the real question revolves around how Sorcery plays. Because it requires PlayStation Move, it will no doubt turn many gamers off, even those who absolutely adore PlayStation 3. But ignoring Sorcery because of its motion controls is a mistake, because Sorcery is a lot of fun. Equipped with a Move controller in one hand and either a navigation controller or a standard DualShock controller in the other, players can move Finn around and cast all of the spells at his disposal.

Finn’s spellcasting rests at the heart of Sorcery, and the game does a great job of making you feel progressively stronger. With a simple flick of the wrist, players force Finn to cast his standard Arcane Bolt attack. Doing this in real space is surprisingly enjoyable, and for the most part, directing spells where you want them to go just plain works. Point towards the side of your screen, and the bolt will fly in that direction. Arc your wrist to the side as you hurl a spell and watch the attack curve on the screen, hitting enemies behind cover that appeared impervious to attack.

Combine all of those Arcane Bolt techniques with the elemental spells Finn will learn throughout his adventure, and you’ll find yourself fully equipped with powers that can be used both independently and in tandem with one another. Launching a tornado and then shooting fire into it will create a roving, flame-infested windstorm. Meanwhile, freezing agile enemies with simple ice attacks will stop them from moving, allowing you to briskly switch over to the Arcane Bolt, doing those frozen enemies in with a basic attack.

The permutations that can be created between spells makes combat dynamic, though some spells are admittedly far stronger and more useful than others. I didn’t use my earth-based attacks at all through the entire game, but by the time I learned Finn’s powerful lightning spell, I rarely used anything else. As fun as combat is and as fun as casting these spells can be, there’s an undeniable balance issue as well.

Something that children will likely find far more appealing than adults is the creation of potions. Throughout your adventure, you’ll encounter treasure chests filled with gold and special items. Some of these items can be sold for more gold, but eight item types in particular are used to concoct precious potions that, in turn, upgrade Finn’s many abilities. Whether you want more health, more mana or more powerful spells (and just about anything in between), there’s likely a potion to help you out as long as you have the pertinent supplies. Making these potions over and over again with motion controls becomes cumbersome, but the powerful results of drinking those potions is well worth the monotony.

The major problems with Sorcery, however, are how short it is and how there’s little reason to go back for more. I kicked the difficulty level up in Sorcery from the outset and the game only took me about six hours or so to beat. The game is mostly linear, though there are forks in the road worth exploring that often have treasure at the end of them. But even so, there aren’t alternate outcomes from doing different things, and unless you’re hunting Trophies, one playthrough of Sorcery will be enough for almost anyone.

Source : http://www.ign.com

Frankie Boyle Slates Iron Man at Kapow!

IGN's Kapow! Comic Con adventures continued with a light-hearted Q&A with Frankie Boyle, hosted by Jimmy Carr, in which they chatted all things Hulk, Iron Man and The Walking Dead.

Frankie Boyle is adding to the long line of Scottish comic book writers with his supervillain ('Earth's antibody') for CLiNT magazine, and he's a self-confessed comic book geek. With the help of his mate Jimmy Carr, Boyle talked us through his influences, what he loves about comic books and why he Iron Man.

"When I was about nine years old I got into this comic book called about this blonde kid who, like everyone in comics, had two roles - he was a footballer and he was a champion sheepdog trialist as a sideline," says Boyle. "The stories were all f*cking horrible - 'Hitler Lives' or 'Limp-Along Leslie'. There was also a comic I read called about a formula one driver who was also a stunt driver, and who wanted to die in each issue 'cause he was disfigured so he would sabotage the races."

Boyle went on to say that ‘80s British comics appealed to him because they were "still slightly outside the mainstream eye - stuff that you would never get now in the TV or movie versions."

Although Frankie didn't get into American comics until his 20s, he developed a passion for Vertigo titles such as , and (a particular favourite of his) from fellow Scotsman Grant Morrison, whom he clearly admires. "I always wanted to do comics, I f*cking love comics. You'd have to write a bad comic for me not to read it. In fact, even if it was sh*t I'd probably still read it."

When asked who his favourite comic book characters are Boyle launched into a story of his childhood in Glasgow: "I once dressed up as The Hulk as a kid, but I used water based paints to make myself green so kept applying layer on layer on layer - I ended up looking like a green scab." On the flipside, he was very passionate about the character he most dislikes in the comic book world: "Iron Man is basically a f*cking arms dealer, he blows people up...I'd fly Iron Man right into the f*cking sun!"

As for what he's currently into he tells us "I'm reading and .I read but it's so f*cking bleak I almost gave up." Clearly passionate about this subject Boyle said that he really believes that "there are so many great comics out there - this could be coming into the best time for comics...we're now at the point where everyone knows all the characters and archetypes, and can put their own twist on it." Let the golden age begin!

Source : http://www.ign.com

Storage 24 Inspired by Gremlins and Spider-Man

Saturday afternoon at Kapow! saw Noel Clarke and Johannes Roberts (director of the impressive and underrated ) on a panel to talk about their latest sci-fi horror flick, .

The film - in which Clarke takes lead actor, writer and producer credits - sees a military cargo plane crash and spew its highly classified contents all over London. With all electricity down, a group of friends are trapped in a storage unit and it soon becomes clear they are not alone, as a terrifying predator is hunting them down.

The panel treated us to exclusive stills of huge explosions and wounded characters scrambling through air vents, as well as an exclusive clip, which gave the first look at the mysterious other-wordly creature tormenting the group. In the clip, Clarke’s character comes face-to-face with the alien – a 7-foot tall, bony monstrosity with bulging yellow eyes and a claw-like drooling mouth. As the alien closes in on a trapped Clarke, a yapping toy dog distracts him and Clarke is able to narrowly escape. The dog, sadly, isn’t so lucky.

For the look of the alien, Clarke was inspired by the Spider-Man villains Venom and Carnage. Unlike other creature features that keep the big nasty mostly off screen, Clarke and Roberts made a point of giving the creature a big personality and wanted him to be fully present as a terrifying being on screen. Roberts revealed that, to the cast, the alien was actually female and called Gertrude – something the Design Department really ran with, as Noel explained: “They made the suit with a huge vagina, and I saw it and was like, ‘That bit has got to go. This film is a 15.”

Talking about the film’s overriding genre, Roberts noted: “It’s very sci-fi. The whole movie is really retro – it almost borrows from and other '80s movies.” Despite these allusions, the panel went on to discuss Clarke’s desire to create something new, something that no one else is currently doing in the British film industry. There are obvious comparisons to 2011’s big-budget British alien horror but although it’s a similar genre, Clarke feels he has done something different with because of the disparity in budget. Clarke is keen to prove he can make entertaining big-spectacle movies to rival even Hollywood’s output of sci fi/horror, and for a fraction of the cost. Or, as Roberts neatly summed it up, “ is a f**k-sight better than .”

Talking about his upcoming projects, Clarke revealed that there are plans for a sequel to , currently being called . Both he and Roberts feel that his character and the creature are too good not to be used again. He’s also about to start writing the 4. 3. 2. 1 sequel - entitled 5. 4. 3. 2. 1 - but is refusing to give away any plot details just yet. On top of this he currently has six scripts on the go. His pace of work is impressive - last year he wrote three scripts in 55 days, and was one of them.

So it looks like you’d be mad to miss out on seeing when it hits U.K. cinemas on June 29. We’ll leave you with the same advice that Clarke gave to us when talking about the scariness of the film’s final scene – take a spare pair of pants.

Source : http://www.ign.com

Jonathan Ross: "I Pitched Quesada And Heard Nothing!"

Jonathan Ross, the writer of Turf and British TV celebrity, appeared on the Image All-Stars panel alongside fellow contributors Eric Stephenson, Nick Spencer and Bryan Hitch.

When asked what he thought of the industry right now, he shared, “I love the Marvel and DC stuff at the moment, but my first choice is to read the indie books. The Avengers helped everyone, as long as you can bear the noobs coming in. It’s a great time to be reading comic books.”

Elaborating further about his relationship with Marvel and DC, he revealed he once pitched an idea to Joe Quesada…but didn’t hear anything back. Despite this, when asked whether he’d still like to work for them he said, “Not if it meant I couldn’t do my stuff for Image. I would love to do something for them because I love those characters. Marvel operates on a very different scale though; Image works on a very human level.”

Ross has no plans to abandon his other projects just yet though, saying he’s working on a Channel 4 show as well as a new film show pilot. He apologised for not having more comic book stars on his chat shows, but said he felt it wasn’t really the right place. He did, however, reveal that his future projects may be more appropriate for them, saying, “I might be doing something new on the radio soon and I might be doing a comic podcast as I do have a good number of contacts and I have a very pointless knowledge of comic history.”

The rest of the panel shared their extensive expertise with budding artists and authors, advising them how to make it in the industry. Artist Bryan Hitch reassured many attendees that the hardest thing to draw was often quiet scenes, as the action scenes practically leap off the page. He said it was important to make sure that the eye moved about the page smoothly, while Ross asserted that any budding writers should be kind to themselves. He shared his wife’s advice that the hardest thing to do is bash out a first draft, but said it makes everything so much easier to edit.

Ross then provided an alternative way in for anyone struggling with their writing, saying “My advice for anyone trying to get into comics is to marry someone who can write better than you can.”

All the panel members revealed they were fans of the Game of Thrones TV series, with Bryan Hitch in particular saying it boded well for the future of comic adaptations. He said, “budgets are finally catching up; they definitely couldn’t have made Game of Thrones 10 years ago.”

So, what’s next for Image? While there were no big reveals, Ross did say that he kept writing down ideas that he later looked back at slightly bemusedly. He shared his desire to force Hitch to help him make a comic focusing on Russian soldiers vs yetis before, undeterred by Hitch’s lack of enthusiasm, pulling out his phone and reading, “evil saw-like idea; pranks get out of hand, and escalate.”

Keep your fingers crossed.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/21/jonathan-ross-i-pitched-joe-quesada-and-heard-nothing

Watch the Teaser Trailer for Skyfall

Watch the brand new teaser trailer for the next James Bond movie, Skyfall, starring Daniel Craig and directed by Sam Mendes.

Thanks to 007.com!

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/21/watch-the-teaser-trailer-for-skyfall

AU: Win a Men in Black 3 Sony Prize Pack!

To celebrate the release of Men in Black 3 on May 24, IGN Australia and Sony Pictures Australia are offering you the chance to win a sweet Sony prize pack including a Personal 3D Viewer, a Sony Tablet, a Men in Black 3 cap, a pair of Men in Black 3 wayfarer-style sunglasses, and a double-in season pass to see the movie.

For your chance to win, simply like us on our Facebook page, find the Men in Black 3 Prizes picture on our wall (or click this link) and post a hilarious caption in the comments section in 50 words or less.

The wittiest entries – judged, as always, by IGN AU's editorial staff - will win a prize. Our favourite entry will win the following major prize pack, while there are fifteen runner-up prizes to be won:

MAJOR PRIZE

• 1X Sony Personal 3D Viewer
• 1X Sony Tablet
• 1X double in-season pass to Men in Black 3

RUNNER UP PRIZES

• 1X double in-season pass to Men in Black 3
• 1X Men in Black 3 cap
• 1X Men in Black 3 wayfarer-style sunglasses

Entrants must be over 15 and residents of Australia. Check out more Men in Black 3 goodness at www.MenInBlack3.com.au

©2012 Columbia TriStar Marketing Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/21/au-win-a-men-in-black-3-sony-prize-pack

Dragon's Dogma Review

Capcom’s fantasy RPG Dragon’s Dogma has been a long time coming, and it’s looked more and more interesting every time we’ve seen it, boasting robust action-focussed gameplay and an innovative Pawn system that lets you enlist avatars created by other players to fight alongside you. It often feels like an offline MMO, with a vast, scenic and perilous world to explore and a selection of thousands of characters to choose as your companions. It’s an interesting example of genre and style-mixing within the RPG, pulling in elements of traditional Japanese role-playing and churning them together with action-RPG physicality, open-world adventuring and MMO party tactics.

Dragon’s Dogma regularly reminds you of other games. There are flashes of Dark Souls in the real-time combat, of Skyrim in its open wildernesses, and of Shadow of the Colossus in its large-scale battles. Sometimes, these associations work in Dragon’s Dogma’s favour; other times, they just remind you how short the game falls of these outstanding inspirations. It offers a lot of innovative ideas and a real sense of adventure, but it’s also rough-edged and sometimes oddly hollow.

The plot centres on the rebirth of an ancient dragon, which runs around ravaging the land. You can customise your avatar down to the tinest, most insignificant detail – no matter how carefully you adjust the sliders, though, you’ll probably end up looking a bit weird thanks to the game’s eerie character models. After you unwisely try to take the dragon down with a rusty sword after it attacks your fishing village, it plucks out your heart and eats it. (A word of warning: it turns out that watching a reasonably accurate facsimile of yourself get eviscerated by a giant dragon is rather uncomfortable.) Afterwards, you are reborn as the Arisen, and set out to get your heart back.

After that exciting start, Dragon’s Dogma’s plot pretty much disappears for the next 35 or so hours, reappearing at the end to deliver a conclusion so bonkers that it’s destined to turn up in Weirdest Endings lists for years to come. There’s also a romantic plot thread that revolves around a certain fair maiden – which, if you’re playing as a female character, makes Dragon’s Dogma an unexpectedly progressive medieval fantasy.

“The story, characters and quests are about as interesting as porridge.

But for the meat of the game, the story, characters and quests are about as interesting as porridge. Everyone talks in this faux olde-worlde way that gets really irritating (“Prithee, Arisen, there be aught to find in yonder cavern, most like.”) There’s nothing gripping about the game world, which borrows heavily from Tolkien without adding much of its own personality. The capital city is strangely deserted, and there’s not much life anywhere in the towns. All the interesting stuff is to be found out in the great outdoors, where trolls and ogres hunker in winding mountain passes and griffins nest on clifftops. Outside, Dragon’s Dogma can look gorgeous, with mist-draped scenery that stretches far into the distance.

To make up for unimaginative fiction and repetitive quest design, Dragon’s Dogma has excellent combat. You start off by picking a class from fighter, ranger or mage, but after a few hours you can start switching between them and developing hybrid classes, becoming a magic archer or an assassin. As your character levels up, you gain points to be spent on skills that liven up the combat, from nasty-looking skewering strikes for warriors to conjured orbs of magic energy that shoot lightning bolts at enemies nearby. Though your avatar levels up passively, you always have complete control over what they can do. Each class comes with benefits outside of combat, too; mages can levitate, whilst warriors can duck and roll off higher ledges.

Whenever the enemies start to get boring – and they do, especially towards the latter third of the game – you can switch up your skill set and weapons to keep things fresh. Vitally, each class is fun to play with for different reasons. As a mage you can cast walls of fire from a staff, which is pretty awesome, but as a melee character you can climb up the bodies of a really big foe and drive your sword right into its fleshy bits, hanging on for dear life as it tries to throw you off. This flexibility carries the entire game, keeping you interested in Dragon’s Dogma even when the story and quest design give you no reason to care.

Just as important as your own skills are those of your companions – your Pawns. Dragon’s Dogma gives you one permanent partner that you can customise and develop to your liking, and two others that you can hire from the Rift, a kind of netherworld whether other player’s Pawns gather. You can hire anyone you want, whenever you want, and take advantage of their battle skills and knowledge. If you’re stuck on a quest, hiring a pawn who’s already done it can really help out. If you’re not online, the game provides some standard Pawns to choose from, but playing with other people’s creations feels more personal, like picking a party for an MMO raid – except with NPCs.

The makeup of your party is vital to success in Dragon’s Dogma, because this is a difficult game. Pawns are neither enormously smart and adaptive nor face-palmingly stupid – they’ll support you in battle, but if you’re up against an ogre or a chimaera, expect to have to take the lead. Being an open-world RPG, you’re likely to find danger almost everywhere you go, especially if you venture off the path and into the forests and caves, where the gloom encroaches upon your visibility and powerful monsters wait to slice you in twain and send you right back to your last save.

It’s unforgiving, certainly – investing in the right equipment is often the difference between dying ignominiously in some cavern or coming back with spoils. But sometimes it feels as if your numerical level is more important than your skill level, which can undermine the challenge. It’s unlikely that a brave attempt to fell a monster that’s just slightly beyond what the game wants you to take on at that moment will end in success, robbing you of those joyous moments of unexpected, hard-won victory that make stories out of your experiences in games like Skyrim and Dark Souls.

“All the effort that’s gone into the combat and character development has left other elements of Dragon’s Dogma feeling unfinished.

It’s clear, unfortunately, that all the effort that’s gone into the combat and character development has left other elements of Dragon’s Dogma feeling unfinished. Graphical glitches and technical problems plague the game from the start, and never go away. There are times when you’ll run up to a quest marker on your map to find that the person you’re supposed to talk to simply isn’t there, and you have to wait five or ten seconds for them to stream in. Fights out in the open wilds lose a touch of their drama when a griffin’s head or a Cyclops’ club disappears through the scenery. Some equipment doesn’t place nice with the character models, so your character’s elbow might poke through their shield when they run.

Walking along a road, your Pawns might start going crazy over some invisible enemy that will then suddenly appear out of nowhere. Big fights cause slowdown that can freeze the screen for seconds at a time on the Xbox 360 version. Dragon’s Dogma runs much better on the PlayStation 3 than on the 360, with a smoother frame rate and fewer streaming problems; if the 360 version is your only choice, a hard disk install is mandatory to make the game playable.

These technical problems are enough to sour the experience for anyone, but if you persist with Dragon’s Dogma, it gets more rewarding the more time you put into it. Where the game really succeeds is in providing a sense of adventure. As you press further and further out from the capital city, Gran Soren, you really do begin to feel like you’re on the frontier, exploring lands that human feet have rarely trodden. When night falls, you immediately start looking around for shelter – not because you’re told to, but because night is dangerous in Dragon’s Dogma’s world, and if you don’t hole up somewhere safe you’ll almost certainly die.

This palpable sense of danger makes quests feel exciting, even when their goals are uninspiring. Health doesn’t fully regenerate after a fight, so the longer you’re outdoors for, the harder things get. Hiding out in the wilderness in an abandoned fort, waiting for the sun to rise with only your Pawns for company, is an exhilarating feeling, as is bringing down a griffin or golem through a combination of tenacity and luck. You’ll breathe a sigh of relief every single time you return safely to an inn to rest, even 30 hours into the game.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/21/dragons-dogma-review

Speedy Skaters and Smart Goalies Redefine NHL 13

Looking back at my real-life hockey career, it's not the moments of specific games I remember -- it's all the stuff I learned from the coaches screaming like banshees from the bench. Not just "keep your stick on the ice," which was common. I remember being told when and how to pick up the pace, and when to dial it back. I learned I didn't need to skate straight at something to make goals happen, I could drift around it instead.

NHL 13 is the living representation of everything my coaches ever taught me to do, and the next representation of hockey's complexity makes even EA Sports' recent on-ice success seem primitive.

NHL 13 is all about the chase. Character speed finally matters, which lends a new sense of realism to the franchise I didn't realize was missing. In hindsight, I'm frustrated by the way defensemen could close in on an attacker without working for it, and that the offensive player in question could shake off an ineffective check so easily.

Skaters in NHL 13 are quicker than ever. They take stronger strides down the ice and consequently take wider turns. They can ease off the gas and glide, which works wonders for luring defenseman for a bait-and-switch. EA uses the word "explosiveness" to emphasize how powerful these guys are, and it fits fairly well. Skaters can blow by each other, but not so much so that they always escape. A winger might be able to pick up his pace as an opponent gets close, but that opponent can turn around if he's smart.

This doesn't create the stalemate you might assume. The left stick gives you a greater control of the way your player skates, and it does it to such a strong degree you can dance around defensemen in their own zone if you're daring enough. EA's marketing mantra with NHL 13 is that it'll change the way we play hockey. It probably will.

When you finally take the backhand shot skating backward through the slot, goalies will react more intelligently than ever. Save animations aren't canned anymore, instead relying on the natural AI of a goaltender to move his limbs and joints on his own.

This allows for some phenomenal saves. Goalies react using everything they have -- they'll dive, lift their sticks, and go to acrobatic lengths to keep the puck out, just like Luongo would. It looks spectacular, and it'll make each goal all the sweeter knowing you got past these intelligent 'tenders.

The perpetual problem with annual sports games is that the sports themselves never change. NHL 13 attacks this with some of the smartest, most readily apparent authenticity in the series' history.

NHL 13 releases September 11, 2012.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/21/speedy-skaters-and-smart-goalies-redefine-nhl-13