Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale Reviews

We have a new trio of reviews for Atari and Bedlam Games’ hack’n’slash Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale, which doesn’t do much to convince potential customers that the game is worth their money, nor does it dispel the worries over the publisher-developer next collaboration, Gamma World: Alpha Mutation.

Gamedot, 5/10.

Screen tearing is horrific, items will spring up a few feet in front of you as you approach them, enemies can sometimes stay long after you have killed them and environmental textures come into focus far too late. Daggerdale is not a looker by any means, but at least sonically the atmosphere is well set. Wind can be heard rushing through chambers in the mine, flames crackle in the campfires and arrows thud into bodies with a satisfactory sense of impact.

Core combat is fun and real time strategy is applied by the game engine. Damage and saving throws are calculated behind the scenes, so at its heart, and becoming more and more evident the longer you spend at Daggerdale, the game is really one of just hack and slash, especially if you are soloing as a Human Warrior. Tactical play comes into its own online if the party is made up of complimenting classes.

AggroGamer, scoreless.

Game play and combat is so mindless, it hurts. I chose a Human fighter for my first play through and spent more time clicking after enemies than doing anything remotely strategic. This makes for one of the most boring hack n’ slash titles I have played to date. Also frustrating was in certain areas, where enemies could see me from afar, but until I came close enough to trip the ‘trigger’ they just stand back and giggle at each other.

Overall this game is horrible. It really had a lot of potential, but because of all the bugs and lack of support from Bedlam games, this game is almost unplayable. I’ve read on the forums that players have also run into bugs online where they lose all of their stats and loot once they reach a certain level, as well as experience constant lag and drop off issues. Issues like that make me glad that I didn’t have the chance to play online, since that was my hope for this title. Until Bedlam gets a solid patch out and fixes most of these issues – don’t even bother wasting the 15 bucks. There is no excuse for games like this, especially from Atari.

Australian Gamer, which weirdly enough counts it as a DLC, goes scoreless too.

A few generic goblin battles after you start the game you reach a Dwarf. You know this because he is short, bearded and inside a mine! He triggers a cut scene. Of sorts. See he doesn’t actually talk – even though text is coming up on the screen. No he goes (Burrruuughhh urghgghhhrrrr Heerrggoouughh), all while his mouth hangs agape like some sort of heavily inbred redneck that lives deep within a swamp on a steady diet of alligator crap. It is things like this that just make break the game irreparably.

Then there is the camera – I know, I know, cameras in 3rd person action adventures are always bad – but in D&DD it takes it all the way to 11, mainly due to the level design itself. It is not uncommon to come across another randomly spawned group of goblins only to have them obscured by some sort of hanging lantern or overhead beam blocking the camera. What really boggles the mind is this multitude of things that block your view of the game cannot actually be seen in any other way except when they are in front of the camera preventing you from seeing that same goblin model you have seen for the past three hours!!! So why are they in there at all?!!