Dawnguard Keep
So June 26th has been, and Dawnguard has been released for xbox 360.
Among many things, this DLC is expansive, really expansive. The world of Skyrim is already pretty big, and this adds a lot of new areas to explore. Some of the new areas are massive, nearly on par with Blackreach, the underground Dwemer ruin. The new areas introduced fit really well into the world previously established by Bethesda. Because the game world is so incredibly big, there was never a sense of the new areas being tacked on.
This is while playing with a character I’d already sunk 50 hours into, with just about every area discovered and cleared.
Also, being Skyrim, there will be new dragons to fight. One is involved with the main quest, and there’s a new breed of random encounter dragons. Be warned, they are pretty tough, possibly more so than the Elder Dragons. They will use some new shouts on you, ones you can learn.
The falls near Dawnguard Keep aka really freaking pretty.
Length wise, the main story will keep you occupied about 10 hours, if you’re playing with a high leveled character like I was. There are also numerous side quests for the faction you choose to follow. For example, one of the Dawnguard quests involves getting items to upgrade the crossbow.
For those going the vampire or werewolf route, there’s a new perk system put in place. It’s separate to how the normal game works with applying perks to your skills, so max levelled players will have no trouble becoming the top vampire lord.
Also, you can get armored Huskies, which is awesome.
If there are any problems, it’s the occasional bug or glitch, which is to be expected in a game this size. I haven’t encountered any game breakers yet, and most of the big ones have been ironed out in the patches already released.
It’s selling for 1600 MS points, which averages out to $20 dollars. Because of Microsoft’s exclusivity deal, it’ll be on xbox 360 for 30 days at least before it’s available for the other platforms.
If you like Skyrim, I highly recommend you pick this up when you can.
-Charles
