Death is your faithful companion beneath Bitterblack Isle. It's soaked into the very walls of the gothic demesne that ensnares your party, permeating the bones and bodies that litter the bleak labyrinth sprawling ahead of you.

Biterblack Isle provides 10 or more hours of tough adventuring; well worth the price; Intricate level design; massive unpredictable new enemies and plenty of new items; Original game is still a massive; visceral and quirky proposition

Still graphically primitive despite HD texture pack; hopeless ye olde dialogue; Bitterblack Isle is sometimes unfairly cheap as opposed to satisfyingly difficult; Wonky clamber camera; long NPC pop-in; Pawn idiocy and other annoyances remain; WHERE'S DANGAN ?!

Big, challenging and imaginative, but its hardcore nature won't appeal to everyone. If you have a lot of time, and patience, this is one of the best console RPGs

Dragon's Dogma is like a precociously intelligent teenager, in the sense that it has ideas beyond those of its peers, but struggles to explain itself. There's no better example than the game's rushed opening, which drops you into the armored boots of a warrior about to face a giant chimera.

A grueling; challenging world; Character classes with vastly different play styles; Designing combos rather than earning +1 Intelligence

Uneven visual presentation; Repetitious dialog; The steep learning curve

Dragon's Dogma is a game soundtracked by screaming guitars and a hyperactive orchestra; a game whose story is told with showboating faux-Shakespearean flourish; a game set within acres of countryside scrawled with boastful castles; a game fronted by a hero whose heart has been plucked from his chest...

In Dragon's Dogma , your character earns the title of ‘Arisen' in fairly unusual fashion. In the opening moments of the game proper, you'll fall victim to a dragon attack before having your heart ripped from your chest.

Dragon's Dogma is not made for first impressions. The flaws are visible within the first hour - the dated character modeling, minor clipping, lip-synching issues, and party members constantly blurting dialogue over each other.

Original concept; Challenging enemies; towering bosses; Astounding level design; Open world ready to be explored; Solid pawn system; Lasts for a long time; Transparent loot system

Lip-synching issues; NPC dialogue overlap; Clipping issues; graphics can look dated; Tags

For as much as Dragon's Dogma is a new IP for developer/publisher Capcom, there's a lot about it that is strikingly familiar, not that's a bad thing. It shares a lot of Monster Hunter's DNA especially when it comes to boss battles.

AI-controlled party members hold their own in combat; Superb character and creature animations; Finely crafted open world

Poor escort mission NPC AI; Excessive NPC chatter; Bosses and forests do not mix

Please keep in mind i have only owned this game since midnight (8 hours), my mind kept telling me this would be a bad buy but thank god i listened to my gut.. I am personally sick and tired of the review process, sometimes i feel like they didnt even play the game (joystiq) and although this had...

Dragon's Dogma caters to a very specific type of gamer. If youRead the full article…

+ Vast; open world with plenty to explore; + Responsive; challenging combat

It would've been easy to overlook Dragon's Dogma after it was announced last year. Sure, Capcom has released a few stellar action RPGs over the years with the Monster Hunter series, but this was a brand new game with its own mythology from a company that hasn't exactly been completely winning their...