Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale

Game Info

Nerd alert – I used to play a LOT of Dungeons and Dragons.  From 6th grade to probably 10th grade, all I did was D&D.  I had a little group of friends and we’d play whenever we could – on the bus, at school, weekends – you name it, if we had free time and a flat surface to roll dice, we’d be playing.  So whenever a D&D game gets released, I get a twinge of nostalgia and have to try it out.  When I heard about Daggerdale, I was excited.  A year ago.  Because although it was announced for PS3 and released for XBox and PC, there wasn’t a PS3 release until a year later.  So I was finally able to get my D&D on again, in a confused sort of way.

But it’s never a good sign when after releasing their inaugural game, the developer gets shuttered – which is exactly what happened here.  Bedlam Games closed just months after releasing Daggerdale, which was supposed to be the first of three installments of the series.  I think I know why they closed up shop, though, and that reason is Daggerdale.

Call me a sucker, but I love hack’n’slash loot treadmill games.  From Diablo way back in the day, to Dungeon Siege, Dungeon Hunter, really anything with the word “dungeon” in its title.  I love whacking monsters, watching health, and waiting for cooldown timers.  And in that respect, Daggerdale is competent.  The four classes are derived from 4th Edition D&D, with a few tweaks to keep the action more video gamey.  Halfling wizard, dwarf cleric, elf rogue, human fighter – the classic archetypes that everyone knows and loves.  You’re sent off to kill goblins and eventually Rezlus, and along the way you’ll get gear to upgrade your character with.  There’s a lot of tapping square and X, and that’s basically it.  If you’re looking for that, Daggerdale is happy to oblige.  Just don’t ask it for anything else.

Graphically, Daggerdale looks not entirely unlike a World of Warcraft clone.  I know that gets bandied about a lot, but it basically is – without all the silliness of fighting as a panda on a turtle.  It’s that fantasy/stylized blocky look that works pretty well, and makes it easy to distinguish most enemies.  The lighting is pretty neat too, and flame effects are always good.  When you add armor or weapons to your character’s loadout, they show up on your little dude.  Aside from a few hiccups, such as being able to walk through some objects, the graphics are fine, if a bit dated.

And then there’s the sound.  There’s no voice acting – which is fine, we all read much faster anyway – but when conversing to one of the very sparsely-placed NPCs, they’ll make a noise.  It sounds like a cat getting a massage.  At best it’s stupid; at worst, vaguely unsettling.  And they make the noise every time you hit the button to continue the conversation, making each interaction sound like weird animal mating calls.  It’s very odd.  Otherwise, the sound effects are generally good, except for your character’s battlecries or shouts of pain.  Sometimes they’ll happen when you think they should, such as getting hit by an enemy.  Sometimes they won’t.  Sometimes, they’ll just randomly happen while you’re walking through a cave.  And although there is a slider in the options for music, I was 6 hours into the game before I heard any – I didn’t even think there was music here.  Musical spots seem to be tied to physical locations in the game – get closer to a certain room, for example, and the music will pick up.  It’s that sort of generic fantasy battle music.  The rest of the time, it’s an ambient nothing.  It’s a decidedly quiet game.

I was fully ready to give this game a seven or so after playing the single-player stuff.  But was D&D ever a single-person adventure?  Daggerdale comes with local and online co-op to solve this issue.  The local is well enough, just a bit more zoomed out.  Although you don’t get to see the action as sharply, there’s always something to be said about playing with a friend.  And what if your friends don’t live on your couch?  Online is there – but it’ll make you cry.

Although the game runs smoothly enough online, there’s a company logo there that you should be afraid of.  Terrified.  Something that screams “average game ruined.”  It’s the “Powered by Gamespy” logo – and every gamer should learn to hate it.  This is another in a long string of games that Gamespy has ruined the online functionality for.  The first time I saw the logo, I shut it off and DID CALCULUS TO CALM MYSELF.  I haven’t yelled at my TV in anger since The Ocarina of Time at age 14, and there I was, a 28-year old man, shouting in my living room.  Powered by Gamespy made me angry.  I connected to a game, and my worst fears came true.  Like EVERY OTHER POWERED BY GAMESPY online voicechat, the audio is terrible.  It chops, stutters, randomly cuts in and out.  It will pick up too much (I really don’t need to hear my friend breathing) and then switch to pick up too little, leaving you to say “wh-wh-wh-wh-at-at-at-at?”  Games that use Powered by Gamespy should be immediately trashed.  They should come with a warning label.  Or, better yet, they should use something else.  Powered by Gamespy has ruined my experience for so many games, I feel like they owe me an apology.  They should owe you one, too.

This would’ve literally been better without voicechat at all, rather than the half-assed Powered by Gamespy.  So you’ll play without speaking, letting only the most important things get stunted out.  But this is unacceptable.  Dungeons and Dragons is a social game, and conversation is inherent to the experience.  Take that out, and Bedlam Studios deserved to fold.  I can deal with generic fantasy loot grinds – I revel in it.  I can deal with average graphics and a quiet game.  I can deal with the price tag – it’s actually a fairly lengthy game for $15.  But take away the communicative aspect of a game about communicating, and we’re done here.  Terrible.