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As gamers, boss battles are practically in our blood.  They go back at least as far as 1975.  They’ve long been the go-to climax for a game adventure, the final goal for players of all ages.  Sometimes they are epic set pieces.  Sometimes…not.

Recent years have seen several titles get criticized for weak boss battles, even become notorious for them.  Has gaming outgrown bosses?  Has the march of progress left boss battles as vestigial as so many instruction booklets?  Dix and Steerpike clash in the bottommost dungeon to find out.

When I think back over the last twelve months of my gaming year, the word that instantly springs to my mind is “change”. I began 2011 the same way I’ve started and ended the last fifteen years; as an exclusively console gamer. But mid way through this particular year something changed. I built my own PC. On a personal level this represented a huge undertaking, something I never thought I’d achieve and certainly not successfully, …