The Path of the Dragon

In eastern literature there is no mightier creature than the Dragon, I remember watching a martial arts movie where the teacher is trying to explain the concept to his student. He says the difference between the tiger and the dragon is that the tiger only reacts to pain while the dragon considers and thinks, only then acting or reacting. Dragon’s Dogma is Capcom’s first foray into the unforgiving world of RPGs. Best known for their Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, and Street Fighter series; Capcom has made its mission to expand their stable of games in the last five years or so. From Lost Planet to Dead Rising, Capcom has had a few well deserved successes, but they’ve also faltered when they left their comfort zone of Japanese games. The reboot of Bionic Commando was a well-publicized disaster that some took to mean that Capcom wouldn’t take any more chances, but here we are just a few years later with Dragon’s Dogma; Capcom’s biggest roll of the dice yet and boy is it impressive.

DLC on Disc is it an Evil or Necessity of Fair Gaming?

Recently the Japanese publisher Capcom came under fire, for amongst other things storing DLC (Download content) on the disc for the game Street Fighter X Tekken that was sold to consumers for sixty dollars. Not the first company to practice this, Capcom was the latest company to do so at a time when gamer frenzy seems to be at an all-time high. Long time fighting fans were aghast that Capcom had the temerity to sell them finished DLC on the disc. I suppose if Capcom had simply put the content online available for download a week after the launch of the game everyone would have been happy. Which begs the question what is acceptable?

Capcom and other developers have made the contention that games take a long period to develop and it is only feasible to make DLC for a period of time after the game is launched. No matter how long a shelf life the game has, it’s finite. The argument is made that the game content is a finished game and thus any extra content is fair game as DLC. My personal preference is that I don’t enjoy buying or even playing sports games every year, but there are legions of Madden and NBA 2K fans who would disagree with me. The NBA 2K11 game was considered the best Basketball game ever and the 12 version was considered quite excellent as well. The question then isn’t if games should release every year but how much content can be put into a game and still ask for full price. 

Dragon's Dogma Demo

So I played the Dragon's Dogma Demo today. Wow, who said Japanese developers are dead! Capcom swung for the fences on this one and they hit it out of the park. Character creation was very impressive.The game plays tight and yet everything is instinctive. The buttons are exactly what you think they are. X is light attack and Y is heavy. LT is draw your weapon and RT is grab on to the big ass monster trying to eat you a la Shadow of the Colossus.The game play is fun yet the sense of danger when the gryphon swoops down on you is palpable. When you die it's not like that was cheap, rather its like oh so maybe I should have held on to the flying monster instead of get an extra hit and fall to my death. It's all the best parts of Japanese RPG's melded with the open world draw of Western RPG's. If I was stoked about this game before, I see GOTY contender now.