Get your headsets plugged in, crank up your speaker volume, and prepare for the total non-stop disco-rockathon that is... Sparky's Update. Now with 50% less shrink wrap for you and the environment!

This last week has flown by, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons - and a few right ones. I've got an ill family member who has been in the hospital since Friday evening. I've been up there off and on since Friday, and thankfully, said family member is now home and on the mend. It's been a crazy week of fast food, bad hospital coffee, and waaaaay too much pop, and I've managed to do very little gaming in the time outside of the hospital.

That doesn't mean I haven't anything to talk about, though it will be brief. I've started Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen this week, and although I'm a grand total of about two hours into it, I feel like I know enough about the game to find it enjoyable, if deeply flawed. I've also been revisiting Dead Island Riptide, one of my favorite games of the year. Yes, I'm clearly insane.

In Which I Dog Dogma, Dawg

I'm way late to the Dragon's Dogma party, but that's okay, because it means I get to play the extended version called Dark Arisen. That's led to a little bit of hilarity on my part, since the quest that triggers the expansion happens to take place in the very same town you start in... without warning. Yes, my level 2, vaguely Rastafarian warrior stumbled into the game's hardest point within the first hour of the game. That summarizes Dragon's Dogma in the best way possible - no one sane at any point played this game pre-release.

I can't imagine having been a beta tester for this game, because I don't believe Dragon's Dogma had any. There's no way you can track quests on a map - at least, not that I can see, and if you can, you've got eyes like a fucking eagle, because that map and its writing is completely unintelligble on a regular old TV. Absurdly high level monsters dot the starting zones like this is 1988 and I'm playing a Might and Magic game or something. My party runs the gamut, from ass-kicking to getting caught above a tree. Above it! There are environmental hiccups galore, monsters and NPCs have pathfinding problems, and Dragon's Dogma never heard of a bit of clipping it didn't like.

The story, so far, is atrocious, the characters as flat as cardboard (and that's a pretty big insult to cardboard characters), the music forgettable, and the world about as bland as they come, and that's from a genre where "bland" is the common descriptor to practically every environment ever. The only way I've managed to progress the story is by stumbling into events haphazardly and side-quests are nothing I haven't seen before.

Despite all of this, I find myself enjoying the game. Much like last year's Kingdoms of Amalur, there's a backbone of gameplay here I really enjoy. It's not quite as polished as Amalur was, but it has a similar action-oriented RPG feel and a big open world to play around with. The combat is enhanced by a large focus on customization - every companion character created by friends and strangers has looked completely different. That really sets this game apart from the pack, oddly enough - I've been bemoaning similar characters in games ranging from Skyrim to Lord of the Rings Online for years, and it's nice to see a game where you can see so much creativity. If ever there was a future game in the series, I'd like to see that notion expanded upon by making other people's companions part of your world, perhaps hanging around cities and villages or out and about killing monsters.

I haven't gotten far enough into the game to talk more about its systems, as I suspect I haven't seen everything it has to offer. But so far, I'm okay with purchasing skills via points gained by leveling, though I do prefer traditional skill trees. I definitely like the combat, as it's fast paced without being overwhelmingly so. I want to play around with my NPC options in order to determine how much difference it makes on the way they fight, but so far, the AI actually seems useful. Weird, right?

My Great Love Affair with Shooting and Looting

I'm not going to try to sell you on Dead Island Riptide. Everything Brad Shoemaker's review said about it is absolutely true - it doesn't do enough over its prequel to warrant a purchase by any but the most devoted Dead Island fans, and even then, they should definitely be warned that it is very much more of the same.

So why the hell do I enjoy it so much? The biggest reason I can think of stems from my love towards the shoot-and-loot genre. I've played no game this year so much as I've played Borderlands 2. I'm not kidding you, I've probably sunk around 200-250 hours total into that game. I've never put in a fourth of that time to any shooter whatsoever. Even the original Borderlands only hooked me for probably 50-60 hours. But I can't get enough of Borderlands 2. The classes all feel a lot more fun this time around, and the shared badass ranking between characters is one of my all-time favorite game innovations. Period. Yes, that sounds like hyperbole, but it's really not. I love the badass ranks.

Dead Island Riptide isn't nearly on the level of Borderlands, but it's still got a lot of shoot-and-loot mechanics of its own to keep me from getting bored with it. I love the crafting system (although it's in dire need of more visual and stat variations). There's something awesome about being able to kill a random zombie and find some rare bit of crafting or quest loot on the body, potentially saving me a trip around the island later for a fetch quest.

I'm also a huge fan of the game's melee combat, perhaps not so much in the way it controls, but in the general idea of having a melee-focused FPS/RPG hybrid. I love that these guys are making a fantasy game with the same basic elements of Dead Island, because that seems like a logical way to continue evolving the game's mechanics in a new setting.

I don't think I'll be playing through the campaign with every character, as I did with Borderlands 2, but I'm definitely having fun with my level 68 knife-based character. I guess that makes two games this week wherein I'm completely willing to overlook a lot of problems because I love the basics of the genre they're representing so much. I hope we see more unique IPs in the shoot-and-loot and the action-RPG with the next generation of consoles, because holy hell, the idea of how RPG elements will continue to evolve gets me stupidly excited.

iPad Corner

-The Journey Down is one of those adventure games that wouldn't really exist if it wasn't for the popularity of Telltale's episodic games. There's nothing that really sets it apart, gameplay wise (other than some really effin' fantastic touch controls), as you'll be combining objects to advance the story in usually trivial ways. But the game has a terrific sense of artistic style, based on what I believe to be African artwork. It really is one of the most unique looking games I've ever seen, and brings to mind Grim Fandango without ever actually looking like Grim Fandango. Only the first episode has been released, with the second slated for the second half of 2013, but I can't wait. If they can expand the narrow scope of the first episode and feature more varied environments and characters, this will be a classic adventure game.

The Rest

-Sonic's pretzel dog is not nearly as delicious as it should be. But if you ever find yourself in a convenience store with those flavorings for the soda dispenser, try mixing huckleberry with diet Pepsi. It mixes fantastically well together.

-Continuum is yet another one of those Syfy shows that starts off with a neat premise and is quickly mired down by the typical Syfy episodic show bullshit. Also, don't watch it if you have an aversion to shows with inexplicable plot holes, because it'll practically send you into convulsions. Actually, probably just don't watch it at all. It's not great.

That's it for this week, folks. Stay cool out there. This damn heat is for the birds.