Finally, Kinect got its first hardcore game and with high intensity too. Steel Battalion is the most precise kinect game at this day, which is a huge part of how cool this game is. The only problem is that the Kinect sensor isn’t efficient enough, meaning that the Kinect isn’t ready for games with precision like in Steel Battalion. This is pretty sad as it ruins the game experience for me, and it actually made me so frustrated sometimes that I had to turn it off several times. This is kind of unfair to the game Capcom actually made, which is a great and intense game. Well, at least when the sensor can read you right that is.

Story

The Story takes you out to the future 2082 where technology has been abandoned and Kina are going for total world domination. Kina already control almost every soldier in the world which is the UN. Fortunately the Americans and Russians are two strong nations that won’t take this domination without a fight, and you will be right in the middle of it all.

Gameplay

You are playing as a pilot of a Vertical Tank also known as VT. As a VT pilot do you have a lot of functions that you have to use when you’re on the battlefield, and I can tell you that it will be really intense sometimes. Taking damage is a bad thing in this game, but when is that a good time? Anyway, the damage your VT takes will not be repaired during the missions, meaning that your VT can and will be destroyed if you’re not too careful. The feeling of “It’s just like you’re right there on the battlefield” is created by the whole piloting part.

It’s not just enough to use the controller to walk and fire, but you also have to switch back and forth in the cockpit to do different tasks. For instance when you looking for enemies in some parts of the game do you have to stand up just to climb out of the hatch, and use you binoculars with raising your left arm to your head. Other parts is that you have to start the VT after the motor have been started by your engineer, and if you take too much damage and smoke starts to fill the cockpit do you have to use the right instruments to ventilate it. There are also other features that will get you the right feeling right away.

Enemies

Some enemies seem indestructible, and they are. At least until you either restart the mission or just get your self killed. This only goes for the enemy VT’s, at least that’s what I’ve encountered several times, so I would say that this is a major glitch in the gameplay. Of course how much ammo you have to use on the enemies depends on where you hit them, but that don’t make them indestructible just hard to kill. Besides the VT’s, will you encounter infantry with different firearms, but the only infantry weapon that damage you is the rpg. Which is a good thing as you will encounter a lot of infantry.

Developing

Finally it seem like the developers have found out that to make a hardcore Kinect game, do you have to use at least some kind of controller if you don’t want it to fail like Blackwater did. With that understandings will hopefully other developers continue the great work on this matter so we can have more hardcore games for the Kinect in the future. Unfortunately is there some limitation of what they can do as the Kinect it self have been created with equipment that limits the potential.

Conclusion: The fact that the game are struggling during gameplay is not Capcom’s fault, they created a game that give you hours of cool and intense action.

Rating: 7/10

Dawnguard is the first dlc to Skyrim, and it challenges you in new ways. Skyrim is at the brink of a new war, but this time it’s against the vampires. You now stand before a new choice of which side you want to be a part of, so the question is which faction you want to be a part of. If you should choose the vampire side will you be turned into a vampire, which would be a little weird if you stayed pure human in a nest of vampires.

The dlc will not be activated until you reach level 10, then the people in the cities are starting to speak about the dawnguard and you will be able to ask about it. If you don’t want to wait until you reach level 10 you can always go straight to the Dawnguard Fort south of Riften, which will jump start the dlc.

New features have been added to the game as well, for instance the vampire and werewolf skills. This means that you can customise your fighting, depending of which one you chose. There are also some new weapons and armour/clothing that’s been added and that’s the clothing to the new factions, and for weapons you have the crossbow.

Conclusion: It’s a great dlc that will challenge you in new ways and give you many more hours of game play.

Rating: 10/10

It seem like Capcom really have nailed it this time. Dragons Dogma is the best epic RPG game I’ve ever played, and I’ve played a lot since I’m a huge fan of the genre. Of course as every other game developer have Capcom made a few rookie mistakes, but I will come back to that later.

Story and Pawns

The story is more or less about the underdog that fights his/her way up in the world, and in the end fight the huge dragon to earn your heart back. That’s right, earn your heart back from the dragon. In the first encounter with the dragon will you be cursed, and the dragon will take possession of your heart until you can rightfully claim it back. This means that you are now the new “Arisen”, born by man and forged by the dragon. This will grant you the command of the “slaves” Pawns. The pawns are your travelling companions and will aid you as you see fit, the only problem is that you only have one main pawn. Since Dragons Dogma is connected to Capcom’s servers can you enlist other player’s main pawns as support pawns. This will not affect the player you loan it from except that the pawn will gain “Rift Crystals” and possibly quest/enemy information for that player. Changing pawns is a necessarily as the support pawns don’t level up as long as they’re in your party only your main pawn will do that, so watching how your support aid you is the secret of success in this game. The support pawns can’t only help you with the fighting, but if you choose wisely will they probably also be helpful with quest information as well.

Character and equipment

In the character creation can you edit everything on the character, even the size can be edited. There is one thing I have to mention with this creating and that’s the voice setting, Capcom could just have left this out of the creation sequence of the main character. The reason for that statement is that they have made the RPG rookie mistake of not give the character a voice in the game, which in my opinion would have given the game an even better chemistry. It’s kind of weird looking when the npc’s just answer and talk with you and you don’t hear you say anything back in the cut scenes. It’s not a big matter, but it could have made the game experience even cooler.

The equipment you get in this game is just like in every other fantasy RPG game. The equipment can be with and without elemental augmentation, and with the option of enhancing it as well. The cool part with the enhancing is that you can’t only have the money for it, you also have to get the right materials for the specific item you want to enhance. This could have given you a headache if materials and so on weren’t so easy to get by, or at least somewhat easy to get to.

Enemies and Epic Fights

Dragon’s Dogma invites you to a world of not only human enemies, but also mythical creatures as well. The mythical creatures are the reason of why this game so awesome and give you the really feeling of an epic adventure. Some of the creatures you can encounter are the Griffin, Dragons, Chimeras, Cyclopes, Hydras, Ogres, Gargoyles, Goblins, Saurian’s and much more. Sometimes can you even meet more of them at once, and then will you have a really long and epic battle on your hands, I for once had one fight that I used nearly an hour to finish. That fight was of course not with the goblins, but I actually fought two Chimeras and one Wight that summoned Hellhounds. So I got to say that it seems like Capcom haven’t compromised a thing regarding the monsters and the battles, which is a great thing.

Quests and choices

Capcom have been smart with the way you can find new quests and so on. New quest givers have a big green marker over their head, and other with information and those you can turn in the quests to also have their markers too. This makes it easier to find new quests and know where to deliver and whom to ask about that current task.

In some quests do you have different options, whatever you choose will affect the game in one way or another depending on your choices. Some choices can help other and some choices will affect you directly, and that’s not always a positive thing. Anyway, the fact that you have the choices and that the effects are different is a smart move from Capcom as it give the game more life.

If you’re one of those who really enjoyed the Diablo series and are on the lookout for something near it for Xbox, you don’t have to look any further. Dragon’s Dogma is that replacement on Xbox, and I have to say that the hours will just run away. I’ve used over 60 hours and finished the story but not every quest. Luckily have they made the game so you can start the game over with all your progression in a new game plus feature. Although it don’t say New Game Plus can you load the game you completed and you will be asked if you want to continue on that save, if you do will you have everything from the last playthrough.

I almost forgot to mention one minor bug I came across, and that was a bug that made me fall through the ground. Maybe it should be like that since the pawns complaint about the road standard and that the duke should have done something about it. I though I just should mention it as I thought it was a funny coincidence, luckily did I get spawned back on top pretty fast.

Conclusion: A better RPG game do you have to look very hard to find, because this game is the total package.

Rating: 10/10