"There comes a time in a gamers life, that a new breed of game develops and will set a standard for other games to be judged. I pried myself away from the game for a few hours to write this review. As you are reading this, I am already back at my PC, drudging through the brilliant gameplay of Dungeon Siege."
Intro
Anyone who has been interested in the gaming world, has heard of the developments of this game for the last two years. We have seen the screen shots, and heard the previews. Briefly, the entire Dungeon Siege project was headed up by mastermind Chris Taylor. Taylor was the muscle behind Total Annihilation one of the greatest RTS games of all time. Dungeon Siege was set to be a hack-n-slash RPG (a la Diablo), but with added elements to keep gamers coming back for more. Before DS, Blizzard sat on their throne letting the masses hack away with Diablo II. Until now, no one challenged this successful market. Microsoft teamed up with GAS Powered Games to make one of the most unique, enveloping and amazing games to cross the PC in years.
Your basic story is one of puzzles, questions and an increasing developing plot. It really can't be summarized in one or two paragraphs, simply because it evolves as time goes on. After creating your character, you find yourself on the edge of Kingdom of Ehb. You play the role of a domestic farmer, and with news of hordes of Krag attacking a village; you investigate. To tell anymore of the story, would truly damper the surprises in store for you.
More than meets the eye
To start things off, you have to realize that the game is not limited to one world. What make this unique are the differences in multiplayer and single player. The single player allows you to traverse the Kingdom of Ehb, and the multiplayer pits you on the Utraean Peninsula. Both worlds are gigantic and amazingly detailed. During your single player adventure, the game pans out like similar games in the genre. You are given main objectives with a ton of sub-plots. The side quests are all tagged in your journal, and completing them is up to you. Of course if you complete these quests, you will receive some hefty rewards. These quests can be anything from finding a family rune, to cleansing a dungeon filled with bad guys.
While much of the game can be compared to Diablo, you will soon find out that this it really can't be comparable. The single player mode, allows you to have up to eight different members in your party. These members can range from elven archers, to dark mages. Of course, they all develop in to the storyline and depending on how and what you choose depends on the plots direction.
This isn't a "choose your own adventure" game, and is still fairly linear... however, the degree of change is brilliant and allows you to tackle tasks at your whim...
Changing primary characters is simply done by using your F1 to F8 keys. Luckily, your team A.I. is quite good, and will fend for themselves quite nicely. At your controls, you are given some useful tools. These include formation and stance. I chose to take an aggressive stance, where your players will attack first, and attack the closest enemy available. These actions are all customizable, and can range from attacking only when attacked first to attacking the strongest/weakest enemy first. The controls are easily understood, and should take you no time to get familiar with them. You individual controls are neatly arranged and quite familiar if you are used to RPG's. Clicking on your character will bring up his inventory. The inventory also shows his spell book with some basic instructions. Choosing a functional setup is up to you. There are three primary cells that include your weapons and spells. Your primary weapon and two spells are right at your fingertips during gameplay. If you select your primary weapon, he will attack with that unless you choose otherwise. The same goes for selecting a spell. Your character will use this unless you change it.
Experience comes in depending on how much you use something (weapon or spell). Your fighting skills will improve if you continually use melee weapons. Or if you choose to use spells, they will increase the more you use them. Each of the three buttons have an experience meter, showing you how much longer until you reach the next level. For those who prefer spells, these can be found scattered throughout the world, or learned from people you meet up with. Healing is also easier than pie. The bottom left screen shows a "pause" menu with a red and blue bottle next to it. Pausing the menu will allow you to select either health (red) or mana (blue). Unpausing the game will restore your character as needed, only using as much of the potion as needed; which is nice so there is nothing wasted.
The combat system is a hybrid of many other games and nicely forms a new breed of play. Depending on your preferred gamestyle, you can simply click-n-slash to your hearts desire (aka Diablo). I personally prefer to automate most of the combat by having it automatically attack any nearby bad guys. I change this setting when fighting more powerful enemies, but since the majority of the game is busting low-level monsters; I keep the setting how it is.
As with previous hack-n-slash games there is a myriad of items and weapons. To begin to categorize them would take forever. You can upgrade anything from weapons and armor to accessories and jewelry. Your basic control is just that... basic. Point and click to move your party, and point and click to attack. A nice added bonus is the map control mode. By accessing your map (Tab) you can move your party around. Shaded areas show where you haven't been, and battles engage even if you are in this mode. Items also show up on this mode, and by clicking on them allow you to pick them up. There is also a button to loot everything lootable, which saves a ton of time. Outside the map mode, the basic mode is very enjoyable. This is a true 3D world, even though the game is not in first person perspective. Moving your mouse will automatically rotate your view, and moving the mouse up and down will pan to other views. The camera angles (which often plague many games) are resourceful, and add to the drama of this vast 3D environment. Exploration also plays a huge role within the game, and your cursor will turn in to a fist if you are able to investigate. This can be either bashing a barrel or crate or opening a door or chest.
To be 100% honest, I have not come close to beating the game in single player mode. I've only registered a bit over 10 hours into the game, and I don't see it ending anytime soon. If I had to give an educated guess, I would estimate that the game would easily last 40-50 hours. Let me repeat myself... 40-50 hours. Dungeon Siege is one huge game, that requires a ton of attention and should keep you interested for months to come.
If that wasn't enough...
Putting in only ten hours on the single player level, I've only scratched the surface of the multiplayer mode (about five hours). As with any newer successful PC game, the online aspects have to be top-notched to keep it going. To be completely up front, the multiplayer aspects drowned my expectations. There is so much there, that I couldn't imagine how long it would take to become a viable dominate player.
As mentioned, the multiplayer is on a totally different land as the single player. Some of the ties between the two parallel at times; but mostly it is individualistic with so much to do. Similar to Diablo, you can create a player and build them up to challenge the plethora of quests available. You can team up with up to eight others or go at it alone (yea right). The nice thing (and bad thing) I noticed is your team’s differences. If another group challenges you, they challenge the entire party. Since the game is quite new, there are too many out there playing it just yet. But, I came across a few "elite" bands that thought they were the shizit, and tackled and raided our party like there was no tomorrow. I found it quite lame, but couldn't blame them.
Chatting amidst your party was simple and the quests given were even more engrossing than the single player levels. I also noticed it was much easier discovering new and unique items via multiplayer than single player, and upgrading your character was much easier as well. The online lag was not bad at all. In fact, I had a hard time telling that I was actually on line or not. I'm sure this will change when the game smacks the public in the face with greatness.
You will never play Diablo again
I know I keep mentioning Diablo, but many aspects of the game are found here in Dungeon Siege. And believe it or not, I'm not dogging the game. In fact, I lovedDiablo II and the expansion. It was one of my favorite games to be truthful. All of this has changed, however, and when you actually see the game, you won't believe your eyes.
The world is a brilliant combination of 2D/three quarter view gaming with huge 3D influences. Every detail is dynamically changing, and beautiful. Every effect imaginable is here. The trees sway with the breeze, the fog dissipates and character animations are fluid. If you don't have a GeForce card, now is the time to invest in one. The graphics are simply amazing. I'm not saying that this is the next demo that PC gamers will show to their XBOX friends; but for the RPG genre this is the best to date. It's not truly on the same level as a Final Fantasy X but it is a totally different feel, that really does play, look and feel like a role-playing game. For those who loved the old Dungeons & Dragons games (like Pool of Radiance), you will find sanctuary and bliss.
One thing that amazed me was not only the animation and backgrounds; but also the performance. The game never had a load screen. Don't ask me how, but once the game is loaded up (quickly I might add) it never stopped the action and went to a load screen. This kept the action intense, and the story increasingly involving. No more loading action when entering a dungeon, imagine that! I found little to no pixelation or flickering within the game. In fact, I only remember once the screen caching to catch up with action. Overall, the graphics are the best ever in the genre, and I know you will be impressed.
Audible, the game was a treasure as well. After getting over the installation error I had regarding the audio, everything was perfect. I had a glitch where the voices were blocked out, and after reinstalling the game (three times) it worked fine. The background music was amazingly composed of rich and exotic medieval tunes, and the sound effects were ambient (and if you have EAX hold onto your hat). The voice-overs were also well done and the acting was top notched. I was more than impressed with the music, however this is the only area where Diablo has an edge. Sorry, you just can't beat the tunage of Diablo II...
PC upgrade?
For those concerned with disk space, you better make room. The sucker takes over a gig's worth of room, so leave some extra for caching purposes. The game is two disks big, but I've yet had to switch them; except for the install.
My once powerful gaming system is a bit 86'ed now, but still ran the game flawlessly. I'm running a Celeron 933 with 256MB of RAM. I also am sporting a nice GeForce 3 card with 64MB of RAM. I believe if you invest in a nice video card, you should have no problems running this with anything above a 600mHz machine. Again, I never experience any hesitation or slowdown; and found the game to be very stable.
The only drawback was the installation, where I had to install it three times to get it to fully install. My CDROM is a bit slow (only 32x) and took about 20 minutes to install it. So, I was a bit frustrated because it took about an hour to get the game up and running.
66 Says:
Ah yes... most of you simply scrolled down to the bottom to get the 'ole 66 Says: part. Well, I've tried to hide most of my giddiness about the game. But, I just can't stop thinking about it. If you loved Diablo than you will definitely love this game. If you liked parts of Diablo than you will love the game... If you love RPG's, you will love this game... If you love God and all good things... you will love this game...
The bottom line here is that this is a truly revolutionary game. This has set the bar so far for Blizzard that I would love to see how they combat this. I can easily vouch that this will still be played a year from now, and can't see it going out of style anytime soon. Hopefully with the right marketing, and word of mouth; this will become the next online mega-hit. I can't wait to finish the game, and explore the online aspects of Dungeon Siege.
I admit that the name sounds cheesy, but rest assured, this is easily the best game of the year and you owe it to yourself to invest the $50 in it. I hope you all have a chance to check out the game, and please get back to me once you have it. I'd love to hear your input. I'm excited about the game, and excited to get other hooked on this as well. I've set aside my Ghost Recon, threw away my copy of Diablo; and Dungeon Siege is soldered to my CDROM. Go get it.
Gameplay: [9]
Microsoft must have read all of the forums at Blizzard and took them to heart when creating this game. It is a joy to play, and addictive as salt and vinegar chips
Graphics: [9]
You've seen everything, but you have never played a game that looked this good. These aren't the best graphics out there, but for the genre it is simply amazing... amazing I tell you!
Audio: [8]
The only thing comparable is Diablo, but the voice-overs and acting is top shelf liquor. The background music is superb and the sound effects are solid.
Replay: [10]
40-50 hours single player? And who knows how long you can play the multiplayer... Your game disk will wear out before your boredom does...
Overall: [9]
Not only am I surprised with this quality coming from Microsoft, I'm in awe. This game has everything I was looking for and more. Easily the best game of 2002, and I don't think even Square has a shot at toppling this one...
**** UPDATE ****
The "official" online play started on April 5th. The online play is much better than it was prior to this review (and during).
However, the setup for online play is no where near as good as Diablo II. I think in order for Dungeon Siege to become wildly popular, they are going to have to change the online setup. Once in a game, all is good; but getting to it takes some patience.
Hopefully Microsoft and ZoneMatch will work on this aspect.
**** UPDATE #2 ****
Well, my dissapointment of the online aspects are increasing daily. I so love the single player game, and have beaten it three times so far... It hasn't bored me even a bit, but the multiplayer is frustrating.
Once into a game, it is great; but actually GETTING to the game is very tedious. Microsoft has/had a chance to really make this a chart-topper. If they don't get off of their butts soon and change the menu format; expect this to fizzle out... Still, the game is highly recommended and I totally love the single player games.
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