Review Of Dawnguard Dlc For Skyrim

By Author: Alduin Montagno
Total Articles: 22
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As someone who has put a large chunk of my time into Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim already I felt like I'd pretty much got as much out of the game as I could, so when (finally) the first piece of DLC was released I was looking forward to playing it, although coming 8 months after the original game was released it does seem a bit late, I stopped playing Skyrim quite a few months ago and Bethesda might have found themselves receiving a few more sales if they'd been a little quicker in releasing it. Still, Skyrim was easily the best game I played in the last year so I was more than willing to give Dawnguard a go.The Dawnguard DLC story focuses around Lord Harkon, a vampire Lord who has his ambitions set on destroying the sun and bringing darkness to Tamriel for ever, allowing his band of vampires to rule the land. Early on you are given the option of either helping him, as a vampire or opposing him, as a member of the "Dawnguard." Both sides have their own new skills and advantages of course and you'll want to play through both sides of the story to get the most out of your DLC.If you decide to join the good guys and save the day and ...
... become a vampire slayer, a member of the Dawnguard, you'll get new equipment such as crossbows and new armor to help you. You can also hire a giant troll, complete with armor, to fight alongside you in battle. Myself I like to play as a werewolf and I received a whole new skill tree to unlock as well as some new allies to fight alongside me. The more interesting side of the Dawnguard DLC however is the ability to play as a powerful vampire Lord (don't worry it's nothing like Twilight!). You gain new powers such as the ability to reanimate enemies, teleport as a cloud of bats as well as a powerful energy blast that acts as a life-steal.The new quests and abilities can be great fun however there were quite a few downsides to Dawnguard as well. Firstly playing as a vampire Lord you are forced into 3rd person viewpoint, which although allows you to watch as your awesome looking vampire rips people to shreds can be a bit unwieldy, especially in tight spaces. The aforementioned life-steal ability can be a bit too powerful as well, I found myself relying on it rather than using some of the other cool abilities available to me simply because it made many fights so easy. When you are in Vampire Lord mode you can't loot or interact anything so you'll often find yourself having to constantly go in and out of vampire Lord mode which can detract from the experience somewhat. Although the two factions offer replayability for your money a significant amount of the quests are used by both factions and so the second run through can feel a bit familiar, although it is worth playing through twice.Dawnguard inherits both positives and negatives from its parent Skyrim. Just as with my initial play-through of Skyrim I found myself stopping and wondering at some of the fantastic visuals and scenery, but just like Skyrim I also found myself contending with bugs and glitches that really should have been ironed out before release. Normally these would result in my having to reload to an earlier saved game in order to complete a quest because a vital NPC was missing.Overall Dawnguard offered decent value for money for its $20 cost. For my money I probably got around 15 hours new gameplay (including replaying the main quest) and enjoyed trying out the new vampire mechanics. $20 is quite expensive for a DLC and the bugs do impact on the gameplay somewhat however if you loved Skyrim you'll still love this, if you didn't love Skyrim Dawnguard won't go very far towards improving your opinion. Overall I give Dawnguard a score of 3.5/5.Want to read more reviews and get the latest news on all of your favorite PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Nintendo Wii games? Visit our website and check out our articles at Secret World MMO.