Dungeon Siege
Gas Powered Games inspirational debut...
The graphics and visual effects deserve the next special mention. Right from the word go you are immersed in a rich, vibrant landscape, with swaying trees, sturdy crop fields, shorelines, towering keeps and cosy homesteads all lit by a dynamic day/night cycle. The ravages brought about by the baddies are shown in slaughtered peasants scattered about your path, overturned carts and burning buildings. The lights coming through the trees in a deep forest enchanting, the swirling lights of a healing temple awed. It is reminiscent of Ultima games with their attention to detail and lavishing atmosphere. The third person camera works wonderfully well, becoming a breeze to control very quickly, never hindering you in your attempt to bring justice to these lands. Combat in a forest or dungeon is never against the camera with trees and walls becoming transparent as needed, although sometimes it was a little too helpful by revealing enemies lurking around the next corner.
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This RPG places no restrictions on who fights in what way. All characters can wear armour, wield weapons and cast spells with a character's ability in doing an action being determined by how often they use it. As my party grew I began to specialise my characters, assigning magic to two members and front line hacking to another two. Yet no matter how little my priest would use a weapon she could still take out a staff and defend herself well just as my fighter could put away his axe to cast an acid-cloud on an approaching foe. This sheer versatility, this brave move to let the player decide exactly how they want their party to work is one of the strongest elements of the game. I loved it, as I did the inventory auto-arrange function, the pack mules you can buy to increase your carrying space and the absence of poison.
All is not progress however, although most of the problems I encountered were probably due to the uncompleted nature of the game. Bugs such as losing money for no reason and random exceptions should be ironed out in the finished version. No, the only faults I could find I probably wouldn’t have noticed if the game as a whole hadn’t set itself such high standards. The larger map (which you can use to get about) just doesn’t zoom out enough to adequately portray the huge levels and the autosave is far too infrequent leading to too much repetition of the same areas. The level of fogging also seems somewhat extreme as it hinders your orientation and hides too much of the beautiful graphics for my liking. The largest problem is one common to all RPG and most shooters as well: a large group of monsters can usually be beaten by retreating round a corner to pick the baddies off in more managable numbers.
This is one area where Gas Powered Games has not managed to evolve the RPG genre, but considering the amount they have done in all other areas they must leave themselves something to do for the sequel. All in all this is the best action RPG that I have ever played, making me happy just to be near such a lovingly produced game and enthralling me with its freshness and vigour. There are so many little touches in this game, so many well thought out enhancements and well implemented design decisions. I can’t wait to finish off this adventure when I get my hands on the completed project.
Comments
I thought I'd talk about what the game was like to play, how the design of the game mechanics is superb. I take on board the critiscm that I didn't concentrate on the gameplay - I have to leave something for the review. I'm glad that my piece has stimulated some repsonse, especialy as this is my first try. And unless you have played it yourself Max I think it a mite unfair to say the praise is undeserved for it most certainly is. I've played most PC games out there and this is one of the best made and well thouht out titles in a very long time, regardless of genre.
I have to say I liked reading the review. It’s beautifully written, analytical yet descriptive. In response, to the criticism above, I remind that person that this a preview not a review. It's not good journalistic practice to make conjunctions before a game is fully developed.<br>Keep up the good work.<br>
What a surprise. The real game and review turns up and guess what? A game with near zero gameplay and replayability arrives on the scene. By God and all the saints my radar must be the sharpest in the business. If only publishers were so sharp we wouldn't have to wade through so much crap to get our sticky fingers on a decent game.
A huge tree and went were called else to our in many A huge pirates
community I'd surprise visit were called places I thought
The game is great. And the graphics. The only downfall is the fact that Microsoft stoped hosting Zonematch. So if you aren't loading the server it's not you're falt. It's just that there isn't a server to load.