I think I’ll start off this review by saying that Dungeon Siege is really deserves 2.5 stars, but I rounded up since we can’t give the ˝ on our system. The game itself is a combination of RPG and Action. However, these are not even amounts. The action is much more than that of the role playing elements, and much more than the plot for that matter.
This “action” feel made me want to finish it more than play it. So, I literally raced around the sceneries, which were nice, but wanted to constantly see what was on the other side, what happened at the end. Eventually, battles, which are this games trademark really, became uninteresting. That “Get to the Other Side!” mentality overtook me and kept me playing, but didn’t leave me satisfied and definitely didn’t leave me wanting more. It was the classic case of bits of fun between long droughts.
Now, let’s back up to see where Dungeon Siege went wrong and what it did right. The first part that I’ll tackle, I’ve already mentioned: the plot. It was virtually non-existent. It was more of a skeleton which they never filled in. So, you just went from bullet to bullet on a PowerPoint presentation with no real meat.
What’s funny is that they actually have a nice background story that is written in the manual. It’s odd that they would do such a bang up job in there but not in the game. Did they run out of time?
I think what magnifies this is that in the game you have can find books to read. This was actually very interesting. It was similar to the Forgotten Realms types of games, but not as many books. For me, this worked well, because I was not over inundated with them like in Baldur’s Gate. I didn’t have to feel bad for not reading them all. Dungeon Siege has spaced them nicely to give a full background story.
The problem is that the background story amplifies the weakness in the plot. You’re left wondering, “Where’s the rest?” and “This is a fun history, why can’t I play that game?” It’s funny in the sense that if they doubled the plot of the game they would only have added about 30 more minutes. However, it would make Dungeon Siege much better.
So, I tried to go to the locals to scrounge up plot. And, this has some good payoff. The locals, even though more sparse than a regular RPG, are usually unique. One NPC won’t say the same exact thing as the guy you met two houses ago. I probably enjoyed getting to towns the most.
But, like all great things they come to an end. In the beginning towns are short spaced and it’s a very nice ratio of fighting between towns and spending time in towns. As you play the game, they get more and more spread apart. The feelings of enjoyment get less and less. This tends to make me question again if Microsoft and Atari rushed out there product.
There can be some poor voice over acting as well. In fact some of the worst is up front. I thought some of the first characters that you meet were falling asleep. I guess they were classically Duchovny trained actors. Actually I like Duchovny on the X-Files, but you can’t dead-pan everything. It felt a little lifeless.
The actual framework of the game was well done. They seemed to have coded the game up nicely. I didn’t encounter any bugs. It looks like they made sure things would work well in their environment. They even got the 3rd person, roaming (and controllable) camera correct. There was no Tomb Raider effect where your guy has his back to a wall and you get a great close up shot of the other side of the wall.
The fighting, although not fulfilling most times was actually well coordinated, too. You have the option to fight in a group that’s up to 8 people. At first, it is challenging to coordinate the group. You almost want to try to go the whole game solo. Although, once you get it, you get it. Your members can fight without too much supervision. And once you can get the group to respond reasonably well you can get into these giant throw downs, which can be real fun.
There are some draw backs in fighting. Sometimes people who normally stay back will sometimes inexplicably run in front of you, then the opponents. This is a real drag when those people are your healers and they have little armor. You might as well load a saved game than see that one work itself out. They also like giving mages a sea of spells that you have to offload inches away from the bad guys. Yeah, that will work. Why don’t we have a character called Grandma that we only let battle hand-to-hand? You have to allow the weaker armored teammates to get away from the vanguard of your defense.
The mages are the worse in general. They even can’t control summoned creatures. The creatures just hang around you like leashed dogs. You just hope that they will figure out whom to go after if someone attacks.
They do have this nice system that builds up your points based on your experience. You start out with a set of attributes like the typical game (i.e. strength, dexterity, etc.) However, you don’t level and give yourself more points in different areas. You actually get stronger based on the things that you do. So, if you like to bash someone with an axe, your point total in strength goes up. If you like magic, your strength does not go up as fast, but your intelligence does.
Some of the tools sets they give you are unnecessary. Some aren’t helpful. They give you an in-game map that is just useless. You can’t zoom out far enough and can only look at where your are. You can’t look back to where you’ve been. It’s really just a top view of the scene.
Quests and NPC’s don’t update either. One person wanted me to find his sister. I found the sister and brought her back to the first person. It had no effect. It was almost like he didn’t recognize that she was in the group. All people, although mostly unique, pretty much say the same exact thing every time that you talk to them. It’s not really worth going back to anyone. If you are going to call yourself a RPG, you really have to handle that better.
The game architecture is a little too linear. It doesn’t affect the outcome too much, but it will try to direct you in these long convoluted paths. So you follow this spaghetti string forever. The distance traveled seems unneeded. It would have been better served to make a shorter length with a wider area. I think they just had a lot of nice landscape work that they wanted to show it off. It’s nice to have pretty pictures, but not at the sacrifice of game play.
The last thing that bugged me was that peddlers usually sold stuff way beyond you. I usually couldn’t use the armor or weapons or spell books on many, if any, of my party. So, you either have to load up on stuff you may get to use by the end of the game, or you just hope you can find something when you loot the dead bodies. As with most games, what you loot is usually more suited for selling than wearing. The economics appears poorly planned.
To sum up by addressing the title, this game was lackluster. Both Atari and Microsoft always do something well, although their games are never very unique. They seem to take no risks and end up with something solid but not heads and shoulders above their genre counterparts. Their games always sound good on paper but are lacking when you play them. Good sometimes, but rarely great. They do this on an individual basis. So, when you put the two together you get almost a soulless RPG. Talk about a non-wow factor.
Microsoft is probably the worst of the two. They seem to overplay it safe. This is an RPG with a weak RPG base. Why? Probably because they wanted to keep it in the safe “Action” genre sales bracket. Also, I didn’t appreciate the fact that Microsoft was going onto the internet in the background when I played the game. That’s becoming way too typical for them. By the way, can any of you tell me why my XP works worse now than it did before all of those updates? I digress.
Atari’s hand in this, although can be unimpressive, is a little more understandable. They made it big making arcade style games. Unfortunately, this is what the game feels like … an advanced arcade game. Some people will be happy with this. I just don’t think that you can call it good.
Enter the mystic world of Aranna in Dungeon Siege II: The River of Souls. Based on the upcoming game Dungeon Siege II from Gas Powered Games, The Rive...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
platform:windows 98/me/2000/xppublisher:ataripackaging:jewel caserating:teendungeon siege combines the immersive elements of a role-playing game with ...More at UnbeatableSale, Inc.
joellyjoel store ALL ORDERS ARE SHIPPED THE NEXT BUSINESS DAY AFTER PAYMENT IS RECEIVED (Monday-Friday, except Holidays or as noted); OR SAME DAY ON P...More at eBay
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.