Friday 29 June 2012

Skyrim: Dawnguard Review




Skyrim was easily one of the best games of last year in my opinion, it just had so much hours of content to play through. There was that much content that there is still some quests I need to do in the main game! I have been waiting for DLC for this game since last year and now it is finally here lets see if Dawnguard is up there with Shivering Isles.

The story

Now the story of this DLC is all about vampires but there is a twist to this you can either fight against them or join them. Which ever decision you pick it will alter the story. Choosing to fight against the vampires means you will join the Dawnguard if however you join with the vampires it gets much more interesting, you can become a vampire lord that brings with it a whole lot of extra features that I will talk about later. 

The story will take you around 7-10 hours to complete and once you have done one story you can do it again and pick the other option to get another 7-10 hours of gameplay out of this DLC. The actual story of the game was OK it wasn't great but it wasn't bad either, I can't really go into much details because of spoilers. In my opinion the joining the vampires quest was the better of the two and it was like they wanted you to pick that option as you get asked many times if you would like to join with the vampires although the joining the Dawnguard quest is OK too.

What new features do we get in the DLC?

I first want to talk about the major story features that you get when joining with the vampires. When you join with them and become a vampire lord here is some of the extras that come with it you can turn in to a bunch of bats and teleport, raise the dead, drain enemies life and float around. The features you get as a vampire lord are pretty cool and bring some freshness to the Skyrim game although it has some good I am sad to say there is also some bad as well which I will talk about later in the review.

Some of the features you can also expect from the new DLC is brand new weapons, armour and shouts but that is just the start of it also added to Skyrim through the DLC is legendary dragons, horseback combat, crossbows and finally a brand new perk system for werewolves. There is quite a lot of new content in the DLC and along with the new quests its a pretty solid DLC package.

Problems?

Yes there was quite a few problems I had with the DLC. The first problem I had was with the vampire lord although he can bring with him some very cool additions he can bring some annoying limitations like not being able to open chests or open doors for you to be able to do any of these you have to switch back to human which will take some time as well so you might be switching a lot if you are a vampire lord. One major problem I also had with the DLC was there was a really bad freeze bug in the DLC were it would freeze for a seconds and also freeze totally and not come back on. 


The Final Verdict

The first DLC for Skyrim was decent its no Shivering Isles but it is still a good DLC that will give you over 10+ hours of extra content for 1600 points which is a little steep but when you think of the content you are getting it is almost worth it. There is some good and there is some bad with the DLC the vampire lord limitations were a let down and the freezing got annoying but the good is its stacked with new content ranging from weapons to shouts to new perk systems and gives you more Skyrim which is always a good thing.


+ Stacked with content
+ 10+ hours of gameplay

- Bad freezing issues
- Vampire lord limitations

+/- OK story some might hate it some might like it

Final score

7.5/10

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