The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Introduction

Oh how I hated Diablo II and Dungeon Siege looked a lot like that game I hated so much. But I plunked down my money and bought it anyways, after all if I did not like it I could return it within a week penalty free. That was four weeks ago and I found myself wrong, captivated and impressed.

I will not debate that the RPG elements with in Dungeon Siege are lacking, they are. But there is a plot within the game, a fair number of quests and they all funnel you towards the end game. Skipping quests really does little to impair the game save for gathering loot and experience. Both of which are important because the game after about the first third gets very tricky at points.

Gameplay

Dungeon Siege is an immense game, but its game engine itself is simplistic. There are three statistics (Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence) and four skills (melee, missile, combat magic and nature magic). How characters advance in skills and statistics is determined by what your character does. Hence if a character does mostly melee combat, their strength and melee combat will garner the most advancement. I personally really like this design, it is more realistic that stacking experience points or skill points in things you did not use to gain advancement. The only knock about this is if you have a plan for a character to become an powerful combat mage, then you have to be dedicated to devoting that characters efforts to using combat magic. Some othe rplayers I have talked to have bemoaned the games towards the end because they pigeon holed their characters to be archers and couldn’t use much of the fighter oriented equipment.

An interesting, but purely window dressing feature of Dungeon Siege is the character class system. The character’s class (or title, really) is determined by their skills and statistics. The class title changes over time as character’s skills advance or diversify.

The game starts with your main character and of course the land is in need of a hero as evil lurks in the hinterlands where your character is an unskilled farmer. Then you move along fighting creatures and then start gaining items and gold. The acquisition of wealth and stuff advances very slowly but starts to hit a threshold about half way through the game. However Dungeon Siege does a good job of making new items available throughout the game, so your party is always changing out equipment. The acquisition of wealth is key to the game because most NPC’s that you can recruit require some funds to join up.

A neat addition to Dungeon Siege is the pack mule, which counts as a character, but just has more inventory spaces to carry extra stuff. The AI does a good job of keeping the pack mule out of trouble unless you get ambushed from the side or behind.

Your party can consist of up to 8 characters and the game really encourages the player to fillup all eight slots. Although this had best be done early because after a certain point the number of available characters to recruit drops to nil. While having that many characters seems like a neat idea it is mostly cumbersome. The amount of equipment a character can use is extensive and nearly every item in the game has qualifiers for use. For example a bow might require dexterity of 30 and strength of 18, or a spell requires a combat magic of 35. As well the combat can get a bit hectic, because while your party might have eight characters the game throws a lot of creatures to fight.

The one nice feature in party management is that each character has three sets of options to determine how the react. Some examples of these options are hold ground, move freely, attack strongest, attack closest, defend only, do not attack, etc. As well each character has four actions in which to choose from: melee, missile and 2 spells. So changing actions is fairly easy, like going from missile to melee. Also the characters will do only what you flag them to do. Hence if their missile weapon in selected and they have the ability to move freely and attack the weakest; they will do just that. The only cumbersome thing involved in this process is changing the spells as only two can be displayed with a character at any one time. Luckily the game can be paused (and saved) at any juncture so the need to manically click options is reduced to nil.

Combat gets a little tedious at times, mostly due to the fact that creatures are determined by geography and there is not a great deal of various in singular zones. Each area usually has a more powerful villain to vanquish and for the most part Dungeon Siege makes these confrontations very satisfying. The creature AI is a little weak in that it usually will attack the first character’s it sees. Usually this is your front line characters, which should be fairly stout. But they rarely change their target, which is odd because the player options and AI is much more diverse.

The Looks

If you judge a book solely on the cover than Dungeon Siege is simply a fabulous game. The terrain, character and special effects are fabulous.

Like many games of late it is an isometric view, but unlike many of them you gave swivel the camera angle to suit your particular need. In the case of Dungeon Siege you do a lot of jockeying with the angles. For the most part this works, but there are times when the terrain gets in the way of smoothly seeing things, such as at the bottom of cliffs. A cool aside if you pause the game mid-action and swivel the point of view, it mimics the same effect that were so darn spiffy in The Matrix.

The player only gets to choose the looks of the primary character, of which there are enough options to make them look like just about anyone. I made my character look like one I am playing in a D&D3e campaign. The characters that are picked up along the way also have distinct features, though some of them probably could have been made to look a little better. Characters are represented with what they are equipped with. Hence if you get a powerful, yet ugly hat; get used to a character wearing it (untill a better one comes along that is).

The character animations are very nice. Every creature type and character is distinctive

Multiplayer

Dungeon Siege is also a great multiplayer game. Rather than a party dynamic, it allows a player to use only one character and the group up with other adventurers. In this respect the game resembles Diablo II much more, save for the same game mechanics as the single player game are used.

However the biggest difference is that Dungeon Siege uses a different campaign setting for the multiplayer game. So going through the maps are a completely different experience. However the single player map is available to play on too. Basically the playing area for multi player is twice as big. This is a good thing because in some respects I prefer the multiplayer game more.

The multiplayer portion of the game is still bug laden as it puts my Windows XP system into a BSOD once in a while. Which leads to a major criticism in that the Dungeon Siege has been out for over a month, has known bugs and Microsoft has yet to release a patch. Their customer support is nearly as bad but they managed to be somewhat helpful.

Summary

Dungeon Siege is a great game that is engaging and addictive. Hardcore RPG fans might be disappointed, as it is only slightly more robust than Diablo II in that regard. While there are cumbersome elements to character management, the tactical decisions and game pace more than make up for that shortcoming. Dungeon Siege does a good job of training the player and building up the plot and difficulty as you play through it. There is some tedium but it does not detract from the overall game as it most occurs in the early third of play.

Visually Dungeon Siege is stunning and easily the best looking RPG/Adventure game to date. The interface is simple and with the one exception stated above is easy to use.

All that said, go buy this game. It lives up to its press and will consume as much of your time as you give it.

Dungeon Siege
Dungeon Siege Capsule Review by Wes Johnson on 10/05/02 Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 3 (Average) Dungeon Siege is an engaging RPG-Lite and will suck the time right out of your day. Product: Dungeon Siege Author: Gas Powered Games Category: CRPG Company/Publisher: Microsoft Line: Cost: 49.95 Page count: n/a Year published: 2002 ISBN: SKU: Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Wes Johnson on 10/05/02 Genre tags: Fantasy Other	Introduction Oh how I hated Diablo II and Dungeon Siege looked a lot like that game I hated so much. But I plunked down my money and bought it anyways, after all if I did not like it I could return it within a week penalty free. That was four weeks ago and I found myself wrong, captivated and impressed. I will not debate that the RPG elements with in Dungeon Siege are lacking, they are. But there is a plot within the game, a fair number of quests and they all funnel you towards the end game. Skipping quests really does little to impair the game save for gathering loot and experience. Both of which are important because the game after about the first third gets very tricky at points. Gameplay Dungeon Siege is an immense game, but its game engine itself is simplistic. There are three statistics (Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence) and four skills (melee, missile, combat magic and nature magic). How characters advance in skills and statistics is determined by what your character does. Hence if a character does mostly melee combat, their strength and melee combat will garner the most advancement. I personally really like this design, it is more realistic that stacking experience points or skill points in things you did not use to gain advancement. The only knock about this is if you have a plan for a character to become an powerful combat mage, then you have to be dedicated to devoting that characters efforts to using combat magic. Some othe rplayers I have talked to have bemoaned the games towards the end because they pigeon holed their characters to be archers and couldn’t use much of the fighter oriented equipment. An interesting, but purely window dressing feature of Dungeon Siege is the character class system. The character’s class (or title, really) is determined by their skills and statistics. The class title changes over time as character’s skills advance or diversify. The game starts with your main character and of course the land is in need of a hero as evil lurks in the hinterlands where your character is an unskilled farmer. Then you move along fighting creatures and then start gaining items and gold. The acquisition of wealth and stuff advances very slowly but starts to hit a threshold about half way through the game. However Dungeon Siege does a good job of making new items available throughout the game, so your party is always changing out equipment. The acquisition of wealth is key to the game because most NPC’s that you can recruit require some funds to join up. A neat addition to Dungeon Siege is the pack mule, which counts as a character, but just has more inventory spaces to carry extra stuff. The AI does a good job of keeping the pack mule out of trouble unless you get ambushed from the side or behind. Your party can consist of up to 8 characters and the game really encourages the player to fillup all eight slots. Although this had best be done early because after a certain point the number of available characters to recruit drops to nil. While having that many characters seems like a neat idea it is mostly cumbersome. The amount of equipment a character can use is extensive and nearly every item in the game has qualifiers for use. For example a bow might require dexterity of 30 and strength of 18, or a spell requires a combat magic of 35. As well the combat can get a bit hectic, because while your party might have eight characters the game throws a lot of creatures to fight. The one nice feature in party management is that each character has three sets of options to determine how the react. Some examples of these options are hold ground, move freely, attack strongest, attack closest, defend only, do not attack, etc. As well each character has four actions in which to choose from: melee, missile and 2 spells. So changing actions is fairly easy, like going from missile to melee. Also the characters will do only what you flag them to do. Hence if their missile weapon in selected and they have the ability to move freely and attack the weakest; they will do just that. The only cumbersome thing involved in this process is changing the spells as only two can be displayed with a character at any one time. Luckily the game can be paused (and saved) at any juncture so the need to manically click options is reduced to nil. Combat gets a little tedious at times, mostly due to the fact that creatures are determined by geography and there is not a great deal of various in singular zones. Each area usually has a more powerful villain to vanquish and for the most part Dungeon Siege makes these confrontations very satisfying. The creature AI is a little weak in that it usually will attack the first character’s it sees. Usually this is your front line characters, which should be fairly stout. But they rarely change their target, which is odd because the player options and AI is much more diverse. The Looks If you judge a book solely on the cover than Dungeon Siege is simply a fabulous game. The terrain, character and special effects are fabulous. Like many games of late it is an isometric view, but unlike many of them you gave swivel the camera angle to suit your particular need. In the case of Dungeon Siege you do a lot of jockeying with the angles. For the most part this works, but there are times when the terrain gets in the way of smoothly seeing things, such as at the bottom of cliffs. A cool aside if you pause the game mid-action and swivel the point of view, it mimics the same effect that were so darn spiffy in The Matrix. The player only gets to choose the looks of the primary character, of which there are enough options to make them look like just about anyone. I made my character look like one I am playing in a D&D3e campaign. The characters that are picked up along the way also have distinct features, though some of them probably could have been made to look a little better. Characters are represented with what they are equipped with. Hence if you get a powerful, yet ugly hat; get used to a character wearing it (untill a better one comes along that is). The character animations are very nice. Every creature type and character is distinctive Multiplayer Dungeon Siege is also a great multiplayer game. Rather than a party dynamic, it allows a player to use only one character and the group up with other adventurers. In this respect the game resembles Diablo II much more, save for the same game mechanics as the single player game are used. However the biggest difference is that Dungeon Siege uses a different campaign setting for the multiplayer game. So going through the maps are a completely different experience. However the single player map is available to play on too. Basically the playing area for multi player is twice as big. This is a good thing because in some respects I prefer the multiplayer game more. The multiplayer portion of the game is still bug laden as it puts my Windows XP system into a BSOD once in a while. Which leads to a major criticism in that the Dungeon Siege has been out for over a month, has known bugs and Microsoft has yet to release a patch. Their customer support is nearly as bad but they managed to be somewhat helpful. Summary Dungeon Siege is a great game that is engaging and addictive. Hardcore RPG fans might be disappointed, as it is only slightly more robust than Diablo II in that regard. While there are cumbersome elements to character management, the tactical decisions and game pace more than make up for that shortcoming. Dungeon Siege does a good job of training the player and building up the plot and difficulty as you play through it. There is some tedium but it does not detract from the overall game as it most occurs in the early third of play. Visually Dungeon Siege is stunning and easily the best looking RPG/Adventure game to date. The interface is simple and with the one exception stated above is easy to use. All that said, go buy this game. It lives up to its press and will consume as much of your time as you give it.