Thanks to my proximity to THQ’s Melbourne outpost, I recently had the chance to try my hand at one of the Capcom titles the company plans to distribute in 2012. After watching a brief but informative demonstration of Dragon’s Dogma, I seized a controller and plunged headlong into the game. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past few weeks, I have slowly been getting acquainted with the semi-closed beta for Path of Exile, the debut action RPG from New Zealand based developer Grinding Gear Games. I say semi-closed, because Grinding Gear has taken a rather strange approach for what is a free to play game by selling beta keys to the general public. In the interests of full disclosure, it should be noted that I purchased a key myself in order to preview the title. The minimum spend was $10US, granting me one beta key and 100 coins to spend in Path of Exile’s online store. The store allowed the purchase of extra character slots and in-game storage space. The developers have been insistent that the shop will stock many different items in the future, but have stressed that they will only ever be cosmetic in nature and will not affect gameplay in any way. There were a range of tiered payment options offering different incentives. This was a move reminiscent of that made by the developers of similar title Grim Dawn through crowd funding website Kickstarter. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite being a new IP, Dragon’s Dogma is a game clearly influenced by the heavyweights of the third person action RPG genre which have come before it. Much like the first Darksiders did, it wears these colours with pride, showcasing some of the best aspects of the games it imitates. The storyline takes the familiar ‘chosen one’ route, the demo kicking off with the player’s goal being to traverse a fallen castle in order to destroy a dragon. There is an option to create and edit both the main character and a companion known as a ‘pawn’ using a system which provides many choices without the levels of customisation becoming overwhelming, something which never made much sense given that the hours of time spent crafting a character goes to waste once they are wearing full body armour. The demo provides two options: the Prologue Quest and Countryside Quest, highlighting the gameplay in interior situations and on the expansive overworld respectively. Read the rest of this entry »

SPOILER FREE! Set in a future where humanity shares the galaxies with a multitude of other species, the Mass Effect games have been renowned for meaningful storytelling, deep immersion and engaging gameplay. As the final instalment in a much loved science fiction series, Mass Effect 3 has naturally been the subject of intense speculation. It could even be argued that the level of hype surrounding the game has done more damage than good. Read the rest of this entry »