Dragon's Dogma Preview
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Numbers: Dragon's Dogma has a few. Every time you hit an enemy, a numerical damage value pops out of their body and floats upwards for a second or two. In this dank and serious environment it's a very gamey touch, but a great tool for a player it instantly communicates what your equipment and spell changes are doing in battle (the magic types in particular are polarised dramatically), and in the case of the larger fights lets you quickly work out where best to concentrate fire.
It's a reminder that, for all the swordplay and monster wrestling, Dragon's Dogma is an RPG - and an open world one at that. Judging by the menu screens, both in-game and at the point where Pawns were summoned, there's a bevvy of loot waiting to be dropped, and a brief glance of branching skilltrees suggests the currently three classes will have plenty of ways to diverge even further.
There are bits of the game that don't look great: the characters too often seem to float on surfaces, especially on inclines, and at the moment everything clips through everything. Dragon's Dogma also has camera problems: it's not terrible, but it's far too prone to flicking sideways randomly during battles. This is especially true when using the lock-on in tight spaces, but such rough edges will surely be smoothed away by the time of a 2012 release. Or to put it a less kind way, if they're not then Dragon's Dogma will be stillborn.
