Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale: First Thoughts

It was some months back that I first heard about Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale, a cooperative action RPG for consoles and PC. I was excited about it because I enjoyed other games in the same vein that bore the Dungeons & Dragons license, games like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes. I particularly enjoyed Heroes for its four-player co-op mode, which yielded many nights of drunken fun. My hope was that Daggerdale would carry on and fill the same niche on the 360 that Heroes did on the original Xbox. In spite of some rough edges, my early feeling is that Daggerdale will not disappoint in that endeavor.

Admittedly, I am a D&D fanboy and a sucker for action RPGs. Those looking for a deep roleplaying experience should look elsewhere. Daggerdale is not that kind of game. It neither intends nor attempts to be that type of game. It's purely hack and slash. My only real hope for this game is that it will be the successor to Heroes, and after my initial foray, I am convinced that was indeed Bedlam's directive in developing Daggerdale.

From the character creation screen, it even feels like Heroes with the race and class offerings: Dwarven Cleric, Human Fighter, Elven Rogue and Halfling Wizard. There's little in the way of customizing the characters, but, like Heroes, you choose starting abilities and feats and then you're on your way.

Gameplay is also very similar to Heroes. Enemies swarm and you slice and dice your way through them. Yes, this kind of gameplay isn't for everyone, but for players like me, there's something very satisfying about a good, button-mashing slasher like this one. And, yes, there are plenty of barrels to bash and chests to open, yielding up gold, potions and other loot.

It's a very linear game that sets the heroes on the path to confront the villain Rezlus who is holed up in the Tower of the Void. To get to the tower characters must first help out some dwarves who are being overrun by goblins. Okay, so it's not the most compelling plot in the D&D universe, but it sets the wheels in motion. I went in fully expecting this, so I am not in the least bit disappointed. I just want some good co-op hack-and-slash fun.

Daggerdale is not without its occasional technical glitches. Players interact with doors and levers by walking up to them and pressing Y. Unfortunately, the objects are often not selected when the character nears them. Players must occasionally try a couple of times to select them and be able to interact.

The same goes for attacking enemies. I played single-player as a ranged fighter and found it sometimes difficult to target enemies for ranged attacks. Most of the time, however, enemies were auto-targeted, and I never had any problem mowing them down. Yes, the fighter has both ranged and melee attacks: Throwing axes and short sword. Players can also choose to give the fighter the Shield Bash ability for close encounters as well as Knee Breaker.

Mowing down hordes of goblins was a lot of fun.

Another glitch I saw was that two goblins remained on screen, frozen like statues, after I killed them. But none of the issues I encountered were showstoppers.

My biggest disappointment so far with the game is the lack spoken dialogue. You speak to a number of dwarf NPCs in the initial levels and, aside from some grunts, there's no real spoken dialogue; it's all scrolling text. Granted, the game is meant to be a small XBL download, so perhaps this was left out to minimize the footprint. Without speech it feels kind of empty. If the developers can do more to make this game a better experience, it's in the sound department.

Another disappointment is the lack of local four-player co-op. It's two-player local co-op, four players online. As my successor to Heroes, this is a small shortcoming. There was nothing more fun than getting four players together for some hack-and-slash mayhem in Heroes. That won't happen with Daggerdale, but at least we can join up online for a reasonable facsimile of that local chaos.

Daggerdale is expected to be a multi-chapter game released in installments, so there's plenty of room for future chapters to improve upon the initial episodes.

In spite of these shortcomings, I'm looking forward to playing Daggerdale with friends online. If you're a D&D fan and an action RPG lover, it would be difficult not to derive some enjoyment from the game. Although you can play Daggerdale single-player, as I just did to get a taste of what it has to offer, it's in multiplayer that the game will really shine. I'll post an update as soon as I've had the opportunity to jump into an online session.

Ding, Dong

Ding, dong the witch is dead. The celebration from the Wizard of Oz is now being re-enacted across the Western world, but mostly in the good ol’ U. S. of A. Though this announcement may very well do much to ease the minds of a people who have lived in fear of one of the biggest boogeymen in history, the victory seems terribly hollow.

Many are already denying that he’s really dead. Some argue that he was already dead a decade ago. Many deniers reject the idea because they see conspiracy in everything. If the government says something happened, they are the first to jump on the idea that it was actually something entirely different. Others, however, deny the death of Osama Bin Laden for purely political reasons—the idea that he was taken down under a president they oppose is just unacceptable, so it didn’t happen.

And that’s one of the many reasons this “victory” is so hollow. Bin Laden could easily have smiled and whispered, “Mission accomplished” as the final breath escaped his lips, for his death is a very small thing compared to the impact the attack he masterminded had on the American people.

It’s time we asked ourselves, was it all worth it? Was it worth two wars and the millions of lives lost? And while one of those wars will forever be inextricably linked to the 9/11 attacks, it had nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden. Though we may long speculate about why that war was even declared, the real motivations behind it may never be known. The justifications for it changed nearly on a daily basis.

While more easily justifiable, the war in Afghanistan in retrospect seems of dubious merit. Was it worth all the bombing and destruction? The cost in human life? In the end it wasn’t brute force that took down the weasel; it was intelligence gathering and a targeted strike. In light of how it was finally brought about, the war seems the equivalent of killing a mosquito with a cannon. If you see a snake in the basement, do you dynamite your house?

We celebrate his death, but America has suffered the far bigger blow. The “United” at the front of our country’s name seems embarrassingly hollow. The wars have divided us, the political manipulation associated with the wars and with the terrorist attacks have divided us, and now the economic fallout from our investment in those wars has further divided us. Would we even be having the bitter budget debates at this time had we not invested trillions in war?

We are a splintered people whose political allegiances dictate the truths we believe. Forget red and blue; we are a nation of black and white. There are few shades of gray these days in the American social and political landscapes.

We see boogeymen around every corner. We check our freedoms at the airport to feel safer from the boogeymen. We sacrifice our privacy to feel safer from the boogeymen. We spy on each other to feel safer from the boogeymen. We build walls along our borders to lock out the boogeymen. We define more strongly the boundaries between Self and Other. We have sacrificed rationality and civility for hate and anger.

We point fingers, we accuse, we look everywhere but in the mirror. The real boogeyman, after all, isn’t out there; he’s inside each and every one of us. We define the boogeyman. We make him real.

The biggest threats to us and our much-touted freedoms come not from scheming bombers thousands of miles away, but from ourselves.

Now the grand schemer is dead. Whether the wounds that have fractured the nation can be healed remains to be seen. It will no doubt be a long recovery. We have lost our identity. Can we find it again? Do we care enough to try?

Ding, dong. The witch is dead. But America still bleeds from its wounds.