Released this past tuesday, I have spent the past five days deeply entrenched in Dawnguard, the first expansion pack for one of my favorite games, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I'm not quite finished with it yet, but I already have a lot to say. (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!)
It's no secret that I am an enormous fan of the Elder Scrolls series. I could go on about what a phenomenon Skyrim has become, but if you're a gamer, you already know. You're sick of "Arrow to the knee" jokes, and have Fus Ro Dah burned into your geeky lexicon. So if you're anything like me, you have been anxiously waiting to see what kind of amazing DLC Skyrim was going to get, especially after watching the string of incredible expansion packs we got for Bethesda's last huge open-world game, Fallout 3. And then the trailer came out, and it probably gave you a giant gamer boner, like I got. So now that I've had my hands on Dawnguard for a few days and spent about 20+ hours with it, does it live up to the hype?
Nope. Not even close.
Okay, that's a bit mean. Dawnguard is not bad. It's just not that good, either. A lot of it recycles content, and the new content we get really isn't that great or game-changing at all. What really sort of spoils it even further for me is the price tag of 1600 msp, or $20 USD. Again comparing it to Bethesda's previous efforts with Fallout 3, each DLC pack we got was 800 points, and jam-packed with tons of new shit. Hell, Point Lookout gave us a new map almost half the size of the Capital Wasteland, with tons of new weapons, new monsters, tons of locations, etc. So what the hell went wrong with Dawnguard? Did they think "Hey Skyrim is huge, we can totally gouge our players' wallets?" That's kind of what this feels like, to be honest. Allow me to explain.
I'll start with the new items, crossbows and dragonbone weapons, primarily. I am not going to say they aren't neat, but they're just not enough to me. Dragonbone weapons are just regular weapons with a little more power and a neat style to them, that's it. I know people have been clamoring for them, and that's cool. It gives you something to do with those dragon bones you've been stockpiling. It's almost gamebreaking however, that you can forge TWENTY FOUR dragonbone arrows with one bone (I have 150+ stocked up from my adventures), and they outperform any other arrow in the game. All those Daedric and Ebony arrows you hoarded and used ever-so-sparingly? Pfft, useless now. And crossbows are kinda neat, and I like that there are exploding bolts, but the only reason I use them at all is because they made them so much more powerful than archery. Not only do the damage numbers for bolts and crossbows beat out any arrow and bow, but they also ignore 50% of armor.
The creatures added are kind of a waste, in my incredibly humble opinion. Armored Trolls? Yeah, you aren't fighting them; they're cheap disposable hirelings. Death hounds are okay, but easily killed. I have to admit, the new flying chaurus hunters are kinda awesome. There are Revered and Legendary tier dragons now, but I've yet to encounter one, so I can't really judge them yet.
The most disappointing creature addition has to be the gargoyles. I was so excited to see these in the trailers! Sadly, they are poorly used, and they just run at you, roaring, like a troll with wings and horns. Nothing more. They don't fly at all, there is no real clever AI, and they are never used for anything resembling scares. From the trailer, I was really hoping that the gargoyles would be an Elder Scrolls version of say, the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who; something that you never want to turn your back on. You see a gargoyle on a ledge above. Is it just a stone carving, or is the statue going to come alive and eat you? Maybe you'd inspect it, and think it was just stone, but the moment you turn around it silently begins creeping up on you. We got nothing like that. The ones that will come alive are blatantly obvious, and easy to kill. They burst forth with a roar. Maybe some people like that, but it's really not what I wanted.
The quests are where this game really fell flat for me. I am only halfway into the primary Dawnguard questline, and it's...okay. But I've done all the rest of the side missions, and man did Bethesda drop the ball. They have no new locations (those are reserved for the main quest), and just send you on fetch quests through areas you've probably already cleared by now. One time, it even sent me to the same place twice! The same chest, even! The most popular quest involves some Dwemer artifacts, and...I dunno, I guess it was all right. I liked the character, and I liked the story of the quest, but it sent me all over Skyrim, delving into dungeons I'd already cleared. They didn't even repopulate them, it was just a walk in, grab, get out.
What I've played of the main Dawnguard campaign is okay, I guess. I dunno, it isn't grabbing me. It plays out like a gothic horror version of Mr. Burns' plot to block out the sun from The Simpsons. I like Serana as a character, but hate that she has to accompany me as a follower. I loathe followers, and only use them when forced, and Serana is the worst. I play a silent assassin build; I skulk in the shadows and kill everything in a room before anyone knows I'm there. This is ruined when Serana tiptoes along behind me until I take my first shot, at which point she may as well scream "LEEROY JENKINS!" as she runs into combat.
And lastly, the new areas. There are only four, and I've seen three of them. Castle Volkihar is a spooky gothy castle, while Fort Dawnguard is a block, stoic monastery type place. Neither is very interesting, nor are the areas around them. I was excited to enter the Soul Cairn, a plane of Oblivion where souls go after being trapped in soul gems, but it is basically like Blackreach: vast, beautiful, and functionally empty. There's nothing to do except for the quest points. No cool discoveries or locations, just...boring emptiness once you get over the "ooh" and "ahh".
Okay...so that's all my bitching. For all the complaints I have, I really don't hate Dawnguard. Like I said, it's not bad, it's just not that good. Bethesda set the bar really high for themselves with their previous DLC efforts with Fallout 3 and Oblivion, and this is kind of a letdown after that. Some of the new shit is kinda cool, but I don't want "kinda cool", especially not for $20. For that price, I want "HOLY SHIT THAT'S AMAZING". I want my socks blown off. This was just...a bit of a letdown. Still, for $20 I did get some new gear, new things to kill, and a renewed love for Skyrim all over again (I burned out on it a few months ago), so I can't complain TOO much.
The next one, however, had better be goddamn amazing.
No comments:
Post a Comment