Double your pleasure!
I’m a huge dork. To prove this, I’d be happy to show you my multiple copies of 1st edition Dungeons and Dragons books. Yes, I said multiple copies. Why would I buy more then one Dungeon Master’s Guide, or Player’s Handbook, or Unearthed Arcana? Because my originals were tattered and eBay delighted me with some cheap opportunities to get some new ones. For this reason, I am sure you can imagine how excited I was when I turned on my Xbox and discovered there was a new Dungeons and Dragons game released to celebrate the 4th edition version of the table top game.
Little did I realize after plunking down a cool 1200 space bucks ($15) that Bedlam Games was going to do everything they could to take my enjoyment of D&D and viciously torture it in ways more foul then a Drow with a sunburn and a bad case of athlete’s foot. Literally everything I love about D&D and videogames was murdered in this awful excuse for a game. Let me take you through every painful step.
Upon first seeing this title was going to cost me $15, I thought back to when Braid first came out and how there were a lot of people grumbling about it being the first downloadable title to cost more then $10. I wondered if this game was going to be as good as Braid, after all, it was $15! It HAD to be good. Right? Ahhhh to relive the folly of five hours ago. If only I had known then what I know now. This game isn’t as good as raw brussel sprouts dipped in mayonnaise.
Party of Four, Virgin Style!
I saw that D&D Daggerdale offered 1-4 player online co-op and immediately clicked the download button. Even if the game was dull, being able to play online with friends makes it worth a purchase! (Wrong again, Nostradumbass, but we’ll get to the online in a minute.) The game starts up, I click start and choose single player. The game tells me there is an error. I have no save device selected. That’s weird, I wouldn’t call that an error, but anyways, I choose my save device and move forward, confident that this will only happen once (Wrong. Every time you start the game it tells you there is an error. Not a huge problem in the grand scope of things, but a good indicator that something foul is afoot.) I create a new character and see that I have the choice of a Human Fighter, Dwarven Cleric, Elven Rouge, or Halfling Wizard. It’s kind of a shame that I don’t get to choose the different race and class combinations that I would like to, but that might be asking a lot of a downloadable game (unless that game costs $15… oops.)
I chose a Human Fighter and expect to then get to roll my character. After all, in Dungeons and Dragons the first thing you do is roll up the stats of your character. It’s part of the fun, to design them just the way you want. Heck, if you want to have the smartest fighter in the world more power to you. But no, there’s no opportunity to do that here. Instead, you’re given the option of choosing some special abilities and have to move on from there. Sigh. Well, they may have gotten all of this wrong, but now the game is starting and I’m sure they are going to have some fun with the D&D universe from this point forward. After all, D&D is filled with interesting creatures, characters, and a rich setting any storyteller would be excited to dive into. Ha HA! Not Bedlam Games! Hell no, they’re in it to win it baby, and they’re bound and determined to get everything wrong.
The story of this game is dull as a hammer and has you plunged into a dwarven mine where characters grunt at you instead of talking. It doesn’t really matter though, soon you’ll start skipping past dialogue screens to get back to the game since the storyline is so woefully rote you’ll be pining for the lost wit of the Dungeons and Dragons movie! It looks like Bedlam Games screwed up everything that I enjoy about the table top D&D game, but they must be good at making fun videogames. After all, they deemed this title worth $15! Something about it has to be good! Not only are you wrong again, you are terribly, terribly wrong.
The first time you move the camera around you’ll notice the screen jarringly struggle to keep up and the first barrel you attack you’ll wonder why your having such a hard time hitting things. Better get used to it, because there are hundreds of reappearing barrels to beat up in this game. There’s a quick tutorial, but they skip past one of the central mechanics of the game. In order to use your special abilities you have to hold down on the left trigger, which brings up a hot button menu of abilities to use. The first time I played it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize this.
Bedlam crafted a fairly basic hack and slasher that is almost competent if less then innovative. Your character is given a series of abilities that you can choose from that at first seems fairly deep until you realize the game is only lasts 8 or 9 character levels, ending just as you begin to uncover some of the deeper abilities. It would all be forgivable if not for the one thing that utterly demolishes all enjoyment to be had here: the bugs.
This is the fighter this game needed.
Get your Raid, kids, cause this one’s infested! Daggerdale is loaded, head to toe, with every gameplay bug you can imagine. One of my favorites was when I came out of the pause menu and every creature in the game was frozen in place, allowing me to churn through a huge section with no challenge until finally getting bored and resetting. Another good time was during the final boss battle when I clicked the appropriate button to move past a dialogue screen which then reset the battle, forcing me to play through it five times before I finally quit. Add that to how my character would freeze every now and again when I would block and you can understand how finishing this game is a feat of willpower.
The last few hours of gameplay (of which there are maybe 5) are an exercise of determination. I spent the $15, so the least I can get out of this is a few more points added to my gamerscore and a chance to review it to warn you to stay away. It’s a broken and feels as lifeless as a movie tie-in game rushed out to meet a release date but without the smiling face of Buzz Lightyear to make you forgive it. Instead, here you get some ugly dwarf faces flapping their jaws while grunting out some dialogue every now and again.
Is it at least fun to play online with some friends? Sadly, not at all. If you thought the single player game was rife with bugs, wait until you go online! Expect to have your friends freeze in place, lose their abilities, and get booted constantly. Don’t put yourself or your friends through this. There should be a hotline where kids that are thinking of suffering through Daggerdale can call and get help.
There is one, and only one, thing that Bedlam got right: the loot. Finding a new sword or piece of armor that is better then your previous is just as fun as it is in any other game of this type. I was surprised they didn’t take full advantage of this trait by giving you multiple armor slots for your feet, legs, wrist, etc. But they only offer a chest piece and a helmet, along with a ring and necklace. Still, it’s entertaining when you find your first magical helmet that lights your head on fire. GHOSTRIDER!
If they fix the bugs in this, and drop the price to $10, I’d give this game a thumbs up. But as is, this turd needs to get flushed. Bugs and all.
