Dragon Ball Xenoverse - PS3

Dragon Ball Xenoverse is the game many fans have been waiting for - a sprawling epic into which players can insert themselves.

The premise for Xenoverse is pretty simple - someone is travelling through time and altering historical events for an unknown purpose. Trunks uses the Dragon Balls to summon Shenron and asks the great Dragon to provide him with a warrior capable enough to deal with these evil doers and find out the truth behind their schemes. This is where you get to create your own hero.

You can choose between five races - Earthling, Saiyan, Namekian, Majin and Frieza Race. Each race and gender has it's own stat balance. For example Saiyans have low health but high attack power. There are different faces, hair and body types to choose from.

After a few brief tutorials on the basics, you have free roam of your home for the duration of this game - Toki Toki City. This is a place of convergence for all time travellers, for it houses the Supreme Kai of time herself. There are three areas to roam which offer different activities such as main missions, side quests and a shopping district. You can buy many things here, armour, items, accessories and skills to customise your warrior to your liking. There are around 400 pieces of equipment to collect, most with their own stats and around 200 skills to master, so customisation is wonderfully varied.

If you choose to play offline, the City will be mostly populated by NPCs, some of which will offer side quests. Other players' characters will show up too, but you won't be able to interact with the players themselves. Instead, their avatar will appear and you can hire them for a set amount of zeni. If other players hire your warrior, you will receive experience points and zeni the next time you play the game. Online mode is better if you're the socialising type - you will share the city with your fellow warriors. I enjoy going online just to see the characters that some people have created, often chuckling heartily at some of the silly ones.

Fighting itself is pretty basic on the surface but can be fast, furious and a lot of fun with more depth and complexity emerging as you get further in. You can choose to play a character you have unlocked or you can be your customised warrior.

For battle you have the usual suspects - light and heavy attacks (which can be chained together for various combos), blocking, throws, ki blasts and teleportation if you time it right. Items can be used with the d-pad to heal health points, stamina etc. There are also special items that you can equip called Z Souls which, when activated in battle after certain conditions are met, will provide you with some nice boosts.

Parallel Quests are little side battles that you can complete to gain experience points, zeni, armour, skills and items.

There are also a few PVP options - starting at 1v1, you can have up to 3v3 showdowns. Also of course a Dragon Ball game would not be complete without a World Tournament and this game is no exception. You can also duke it out with a friend in local battles so there are plenty of options for PVP lovers.

The main story missions are staying true to the Dragon Ball universe but have a nice little twist - history is being altered and you are thrust in the middle of these legendary fights in order to make sure that the fight goes the way it should.

All in all this game is an epic addition to the Dragon Ball universe and a great and fresh approach to the story. more