Legendary

Do you like Griffons? You won't anymore.

Bad stuff first: The silent protagonist is not very likable since he was either stupid or greedy enough to open Pandora's Box. On the plus side, he gains an interesting quasi-vampire ability that lets him absorb energy from dead monsters to heal himself. The abrupt cut scenes also take some getting used to. Lastly, a massive, game breaking clipping bug near the end requires fiddling in game files to fix to progress to the climax, a sure sign of lack of testing.

Maybe the tester got turned to bird feed before he reached that spot.

Other than those, this is a solid first person shooter which has a decent line up of mythical beasts to fight against with some really good ideas behind them. The wall climbing werewolves need to be decapitated to be permanently slain, the fire lizards are stuffed if they get hit by water, and so on. Of course there are also bad guys with guns too and all the AI is quite passable.

Special mention must go to the maps, which while linear as expected from a FPS are quite sprawling and nice to travel through. I liked this game, and the difficulty does ramp up through the missions so those accuracy and dodge timing becomes very important. I'd recommend it to people who like shooters and can are ok to fiddle with files to fix that end bug. Still, such a bug cannot be overlooked so I only give this 2.5 evil fairies out of 5.

Dragon's Dogma: Audience Gathering

Adventures of Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

I've finally gained enough fame to get an audience with the Duke it seems, who invites me to his castle where I meet all the other Wyrm hunt knights which include Ser Fedel the investigator, Ser Julien the "you have no proof I am a traitor" and the now recovered Captain Mercedes. The Duke himself seems a bit crazy, and I suspect it is his dwarf jester that driving him insane. Highlight of the evening is meeting the Duchess Aelinore though who seems to fall in love with me at first sight? That can't end well.

The duke's steward gives me more things to do such as hunt a Griffon, slay another Salvation necromancer in the catacombs, and aid in the trial of rich, bald-guy Fournival. Supposedly he's doing shady stuff so we go about finding proof of his innocence and or guilt which is as easy as talking to people in town, or more challenging - escorting eye witnesses from other forts as suggested by Ingvard.

Griffons look awesome by the way.

I am disappointed that the wandering merchant Reynard who I had saved so long ago from goblins actually sells falsified testimonies of all sorts, as he feels it should be allowed to manipulate the law into how one sees fit. Someone like that who only is after profit is a person who doesn't deserve to exist in the world, so I joyously finish what I interrupted those goblins from doing long ago, and kill the bastard.

Dragon's Dogma: No Salvation

Adventures of Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Upon returning the slates to Ser Maximillian, he gives us our next assignment of infiltrating attacking a Cult of the Dragon Salvation meeting taking place in the not so nearby catacombs and A peasant chubby lady named Sara volunteers to guide us there. Right outside the city gate there is a brief encounter where the city guards are trying to save a merchant wagon from goblins which should have been an easy fight, until a griffon comes along and wrecks everyone. Only my team, including the peasant lady, survives as the Griffon takes the dead Ox and flies off mid combat.

I'm curious why these are nocturnal.

Our journey then takes us through a creepy forest, and since night falls as we traverse it we are beset by numerous undead, including the fat "boomer" type that self explodes. One such creature explodes Sara into many directions. Fortunately Lily knows the way too, so we get to the catacombs and fight through even more of the walking dead to the second level where a surprise ogre manages to kill Monterrey by suiciding into a bottomless chasm, with her attached.

Soon after we find the Salvation meeting point and witness that Ser Julien is here, but he runs off as soon as our presence is made known. The ugly leader guy then kills all the gathered members and reanimates them into zombies to fight us, which is really dumb as from experience they are all much weaker than the generic bandits. Alas the ugly leader escapes but at least we open up a shortcut much nearer to Gran Soren for our return trip.

Arkania: Distractions

[Part of the Darklands of Arkania Story.]

On the road to Phexcaer, a flock of powerful Griffons appear and threaten to whisk Paeroka away as a snack unless the party can solve their riddle. Seriously, there was no option to fight as demonstrated when one effortlessly threw Zubon down a hill. Good thing they gave at least three attempts because I only got it on try number three. :P

I suppose winged lions would be bored enough to play riddles.

After killing a few more orcs they finally reached Phexcaer - the city of thieves, and boy is that appropriately named. With cut purses and charlatan healers and merchants it's amazing the party managed to retain their bag of 750 ducats. They are unable to find any of the leads in the maze like city and instead come into conflict with the forces of con-man cleric Ektor Gremob who unfortunately gets away, despite the party pursuing him to his local villa.

Tired of this terrible place, the team heads back to Thorwal - taking their frustrations out on some hapless orcs and an ogre who happened to be in their way. Upon their return they could finally lay Nerk to rest and recruit the dainty Silvan elf, Emmo Gamerchick to their cause. After listening to their tale she said she might have an idea where the ruins in the mountains were. Zubon wasn't paying attention as his thoughts wandered elsewhere...

Because not everything in Phexcaer was bad.