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Dungeon Duels

Published July 6, 2012
4 out of 5 starsScore: 80/100

This is early for a review, but I've played through the tutorials which takes a couple of hours and I've played a few games. I haven't posted a review before but I think it's important on this occasion because a 3/10 from IGN is about the only review from a big site so far and it's extremely negative. For £8 (or $10 I think) and even less if you have a Playstation Plus account this is an excellent deal.

The game introduces its concepts well throughout the tutorial, which is lengthy because of the complicated nature of the ruleset and the different moves of the characters. It's a complete version of a board game, which you can play vs AI or online. There's no offline multiplayer which is really unfortunate and easily the biggest negative.

It's far too early to tell if the AI holds up to a lot of repeat plays, but it seems a little easy so far. Hopefully there'll be a decent following online and I'll be able to find games against like-minded board-gamers (ps add me on 'DibMikey'). IGN's very low score seems unfair when you consider the low price and inherent value of getting a virtual version of a boardgame that would otherwise cost £30/$40+.

It's a real shame that IGN is the most visible review and I hope it gets some better coverage over the next few days. I have to accept that the game does look and sound pretty crappy, or at least sloppy. I've been muting the music and picking something else to have in the background. The graphics aren't great either, but at least the colour scheme and models are easy to differentiate so there's no confusion about what's actually going on.

This is a game for anyone who likes deep strategy and isn't scared off by an initially slow paced, but not steep, learning curve. It will take a couple of hours to understand the rules, but once you do the game is very intuitive. I love that excellent modern board games are getting console conversions. For the price you are getting a unique game for a very low price.

If you haven't played many modern board games this is a very cheap way to get a taste. At the very least try the demo as it would be a shame if such an interesting take on turning dungeon crawling mechanics into a duel, was ignored just because it's graphics are a bit lame by today's standards.

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