The next three spots were taken by the Black Ops 2 Season Pass, Skyrim Hearthfire and then Dawnguard. The conditions for these sales aren’t hard to guess: Black Ops Revolution was delayed for the PS3 and released alongside pretty much all the other DLC packs this past February.

Couple that with discounts on the Skyrim’s DLC, which also saw crucial packs being delayed, and also that both games are fairly hot properties, and voila. Making it rain on the PlayStation 3.

In fact, Black Ops 2 ranks number 4 on the Top 20 PS3 and PSN Games list, with thatgamecompany’s Journey holding steady. Nobody ever said minting money was easy.

Source: Examiner

Thankfully, then, the third major Skyrim DLC release. the newly released Dragonborn, is flat out incredible, and one of the best examples of how DLC should be handled. With an entirely new set of locales to explore outside of Skyrim, and near fan favorite Morrowind, an entirely new questline that adds substantially to both general Elder Scrolls lore, and specifically, to Skyrim’s backstory, and finally, a lot of fan service to players who played and enjoyed previous Elder Scrolls games, and most notably Morrowind, Dragonborn nails it completely.

It’s a substantial download, at over 800 MB, and when you actually start the questline, you realize why: Dragonborn takes place on Solstheim, an island off the coast of Morrowind; across the expanse of the island, you will find the geography changing dramatically, from the now familiar snow clad rocky locales of Skyrim, to the more exotic scenery of Morrowind proper, replete with giant mushrooms and the like.

Dragonborn sees you follow the questline of the original Dragonborn, the Dovahkiin Miraak. After Miraak turned evil, he was banished to Oblivion, and he is now trying to return to Tamriel. Frankly, the story and the setup stop mattering after a while. Wheras the setup is great, because it adds substantially to the series’ extensive lore, after it sets the new questlines up, it gradually recedes into the background in terms of importance, eventually degenerating into giving you just an excuse to go perform the next task that you have been given. Sadder still, Miraak never really comes off as menacing, and after a while, his one gimmick begins to come off as genuinely comical, almost as if the game has become self aware at the sheer absurdity of the story it is trying to tell, and is now making fun of itself.

Where the storyline itself fails, pretty much everything else picks up on the slack. The locales in Solstheim are fresh and incredibly varied, and it feels like a miniature Morrowind/Skyrim hybrid all at once. The main questline itself lasts at least a good half dozen hours, following which there is at least twice that many hours worth of extra content, quite a lot of which is, in true Elder Scrolls tradition, banal, but most of which is impressively addictive. And then there is also the dragon riding.

Dragon riding is probably the most publicized feature of the new DLC, and it’s easy to see why, to the legions of new players introduced to the franchise via Skyrim, the prospect of riding a dragon after you tame it becomes so alluring. And while Bethesda went the really safe route and opted to make dragon riding an all on rails affair, with pre determined flight paths, that does not take away from the sheer freshness and absolute excitement of it, although it does become fairly boring once the sheen has worn off. Whereas right now, it is understandable that Bethesda opted to not have free roaming dragon riding in order to keep the player firmly within the designated playground, I hope one day, we get a game where we can use dragons to get to any part of the scenery we damn well please to.

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In spite of its fairly obvious limitations, Dragonborn is brilliant. To any Elder Scrolls fan with Skyrim, it is recommended. To any Morrowind fan, it is recommended. To any Skyrim fan, it is recommended. To anyone who possibly feels that Skyrim somehow needs to provide them with more value for money than it already did, Dragonborn is recommended. It is a rare example of DLC done right, and is flat out the best Skyrim DLC available at the moment.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

So now the question is, who’s to blame here? Is it Sony–for creating a console with an inefficient architecture where developers have to struggle to port games; Bethesda–for taking a path that ensures maximum profitablity; or the consumers– for buying Skyrim PS3 in droves and rewarding inept development practices.

This is such a failure on all levels when you think about it. Skyrim PS3 is sitting at a 92 Metacritic and when you consider the fact that Bethesda sent 360 copies to most reviewers, people simply assumed that the PS3 version was fine and dandy after 40-50 hours of gameplay. Sure some outlets reviewed the PS3 version as well, but this problem only came to the fore after spending significant time with the game.

The problem was clear–it’s because of the PS3’s memory or lack of it. Here’s what Fallout New Vegas developer Josh Sawyer had to say:

“It’s an engine-level issue with how the save game data is stored off as bit flag differences compared to the placed instances in the main .esm + DLC .esms. As the game modifies any placed instance of an object, those changes are stored off into what is essentially another .esm. When you load the save game, you’re loading all of those differences into resident memory.”

“Some areas will reset contents after three (game) days, but a lot of stuff lingers. Additionally, we also have to deal with ‘persistent references,’ he continued. “These are objects that are immediately loaded with the game because we need to be able to reference them anywhere/everywhere in the world — even if the player is nowhere near the object. Characters are the most common example. All of the companions need to be able to move around the world even when they are not in your current area, so they are all persistent references.”

In layman terms, as the save file keeps growing, it stresses the PS3’s 512 MB memory which is split evenly for graphics and memory. Bethesda later refuted this as the reason for PS3’s woes but they were clearly wrong, as they have finally revealed that they are having troubles with the PS3, and it’s one of the main reasons why Skyrim Dawnguard DLC is yet to be released for the system. They have mentioned that they are working with Sony to fix these issues. But will it actually work? The way the game is designed, it will be akin to climbing the Mount Everest on one leg.

“It’s been a few weeks, and we wanted to make sure everyone knows where we’re at with Dawnguard. Skyrim is a massive and dynamic game that requires a lot of resources, and things get much more complex when you’re talking about sizable content like Dawnguard.

“We have tried a number of things, but none of them solve the issue enough to make Dawnguard good for everyone. The PS3 is a powerful system, and we’re working hard to deliver the content you guys want. Dawnguard is obviously not the only DLC we’ve been working on either, so the issues of adding content get even more complicated. This is not a problem we’re positive we can solve, but we are working together with Sony to try to bring you this content.”

So there were go. Bethesda has indirectly mentioned that Josh Sawyer was right, and they aren’t sure whether they can solve this problem. What could they have done differently? They could have released a slightly inferior version on the PS3–backlash be damned. Or they could have delayed the PS3 version, which they did in this case with the DLC, but still whichever angle you look, the consumers are the ones who suffer. It’s kinda ludicrous that even though Bethesda knew PS3 had all these memory constraints they didn’t design it with the console in mind. I mean, that’s sort of expected in a way because, they also have to cater to the Xbox 360 and PC audiences as well.

Bethesda has lost a lot of respect from a sizeable audience and it’s not something they can prevent too, considering they have to be money-minded and create a genre defining product. The best course of the action I feel would be to delay the Dawnguard DLC and release it when it’s working perfectly–which they are doing too, so props to them. PS3 owners have to be very disappointed with this entire fiasco, and somewhere Ken Kutaragi must be shaking his head, and probably regretting the fact that he had a major hand in creating something that caused a lot of inconveniences to plenty of people out there.

Dawnguard first came to be over a month ago, releasing solely on Xbox 360 on 26th June, facing what looked like indefinite postponements for both PlayStation 3 and PC. Computer gamers need wait no longer, giving gamers the choice of joining the Dawnguard stopping Vampire Lord Harkon in his tracks, or sodding that and opting to drink blood like it was cheap supermarket wine.

Harkon’s got this mad idea that getting the Elder Scrolls will grant him the power to end the sun for all time, although I’m not too sure how that would play out for all life, ever and the Vampire ecosystem as a whole.

English, German, French, Spanish and Italian versions of Dawnguard are now on Steam for £13.99/€18.99/$19.99

But that doesn’t include PS3 or, even more mysteriously, PC gamers. Rumours had been flying of an emanate announcement on the same, but Bethesda’s VP of PR and marketing Pete Hines stated differently on Twitter.

We have not announced Dawnguard for any other platform, nor given a timeline for any such news. If we have news, I promise I’d tell you.

Before you rush off with a rage-stained reply though, Hines noted that:

I was simply stating that expecting/demanding something today is unfounded. Not that news is never coming.

So there’s definitely hope. Till then, wait and watch as always.

Source: SuddenBrain

Bethesda’s legendary Elder Scrolls series of role playing games got another installment last November. Skyrim took the world by storm, achieving mainstream success that few games ever manage, breaking into the limelight on account of its iconic protagonist, the Dragonborn, and the fodder for memes that he provided, and for its expert treading of the fine line that divides dumbing down a game too much for mainstream accessibility, and streamlining it while still retaining all its depth. Skyrim was a game with hundreds of hours of content- it is incomprehensible that anyone has actually managed to go through all the content that the game has to offer within the last nine months; at the same time, however, it is entirely possible that people who completed the main quests and were bored of the banality of the daily sidequests had long since turned to other games. For these gamers, and for others, who want more to their Skyrim experience than it already offers, comes Skyrim’s first proper full fledged expansion, Dawnguard.

Offering another couple of dozen hours on top of the hundreds of hours of mileage that you’ve probably extracted from Skyrim, Dawnguard shamelessly sells out to the popular vampire craze that permeates all things these days by being first and foremost about the blood sucking variety of Skyrim’s citizens. Named after the eponymous bunch of vampire hunters, Dawnguard offers the players two sets of campaigns, both of which can be accessed as soon as your player character in the core quest reaches Level 10. The first quest involves you joining Dawnguard and hunting down vampires, whereas the second quest offers you the opportunity to join the vampires, and square off against Dawnguard.

The second quest is actually infinitely more interesting than the first, which is a bit of a shame, particularly since, as long time Elder Scrolls players probably already know, playing as a vampire, though coming with its own fair share of benefits, also comes with a few downsides. There’s quite a few people who do not like playing as a vampire (like yours truly), who would rather go werewolf, or maybe just continue uninfected, , and they might feel slightly cheated out of their money with this expansion.

It’s not like the former Dawnguard quest is lacking. On the contrary, it is exceptionally well made, and adds quite a bit of lore and mythology to Skyrim’s already extensive tome of backstory. However, the vampire quest is just infinitely more interesting, more unique, and considering how similar quests begin to get in the main, vanilla game, and how much Dawnguard’s anti vampire quest begins to mirror them, it’s a bit of a shame, and a feeling of banal repetitiousness might begin to permeate your entire experience.

It’s the other quest where the expansion truly shines. When you have access to vampire powers, the entire Skyrim experience gets a new lease of life; in particular, abilities such as the one that lets you turn into a swarm of bats adds not only mindless fun to the experience, but some depth too. This expansion actually justifies the existence of vampirism within the game, which, as I said above, felt compromised, especially compared to the set of abilities that werewolves get. Here, vampiric powers come into their own, and you can truly feel empowered playing as one.

The Elder Scrolls games have always been about exploring immaculately crafted worlds, with their own geographies, histories, mythologies, and lore, all of which is immense. Skyrim in particular won accolades for how well crafted its Nordic inspired mountain world was, each village having its own personality, its own history, each village being a living, breathing place inhabited by real people. People who were expecting more exciting new places to travel to with Dawnguard will find themselves immensely disappointed.  Dawnguard largely takes you through the same areas as the core game, though there are a few new caves and dungeons to explore. Being that caves and dungeons were perhaps the most unforgivably monotonous portions of the Skyrim experience anyway, and that the newer ones feel baffling and poorly thought out compared to the ones in the vanilla game, it’s not much of a respite. Especially to players who have sunk hundreds of hours into the game already, Dawnguard may come off as feeling quite stale.

Dawnguard does its best to preserve the core Skyrim essence, and so, a very important, albeit undesirable, part of the Elder Scrolls experience has found its way into the expansion: glitches and bugs. Skyrim, when it released, made waves for the sheer number and variety of bugs in it, and the various kinds of ways they could be activated or triggered, and the imaginative fixes that people would sometimes come up with. Unfortunately, after some time, bugs and glitches become tiring, and detrimental to the game experience, no matter how hilarious they are (hello, dragons flying in reverse), and in Dawnguard, which brings its own set of bugs and glitches the the experience, many of which simply have no fix, and most of which should not have made it into the final game, especially after its beta testing period, they are outright frustrating and hinder the enjoyment of the game actively.

Honestly, Dawnguard feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. The quintessential Skyrim experience has always been about literally making your own story that you would then share with others. Although in theory, Dawnguard offers more of that, the problem is, with its rehashing of the same locations as in the core game, and somewhat unimaginative quests, at least on the vampire hunters’ side, you will find it lacking. It offers a nice dozen hours of play per quest, which means you should be able to add about twenty five hours from it if you want to see everything it offers. Unfortunately, what it offers isn’t all that much, and not that compelling to begin with. Fans of vampirism might like the ability to turn into a vampire lord, but that’s the most you’ll get from this.

At $20, Dawnguard cannot be recommended. If you do want to give it a go, wait for the inevitable Skyrim Game of the Year Edition, which will include all the game’s DLC and will probably retail for the same price as Dawnguard does right now.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

If you answered yes to one or more of the above questions then you’ll love these new screenshots for Bethesda’s forthcoming Skyrim DLC Dawnguard. Featuring: castles, vampires, draugr, staring off into the sunset, stoic women, mounted combat, vampires, Soul Cairn,vampires,vampires and vampires. Did I mention you get to play as a vampire Lord?

The Skyrim Dawnguard DLC will be released on the Xbox 360 first and we have some details regarding that courtesy of Game Informer magazine. You can play as a Vampire lord in the DLC, provided you side with Harkon – who is a Vampire lord as well – and seeks to stop his greatest enemy: the Sun.

*Cough* Dawnguards are Vampire hunters and you can choose to join their group as well. There are two groups in the game and choosing one will give you a new home. Vampire lords and Werewolves have their own perk tree, allowing you to gain new powers.

You can visit the ‘Soul Cairn’ – the realm of trapped souls, and they are tied to some quests. Riften’s Ratway allows you to change your character’s face and gender. There will also be some new shouts which allows you to tear away a dead enemy’s soul and use it as a minion. This specific shout is called ‘Soul Tear’.

There are also Crossbows in the game and new enemies like gargoyles, death hounds and armored trolls. Legendary dragons are new high level beasts. Stay tuned to GB for more news and updates.

Via Neogaf.