Dungeon Siege II: Broken World

Broken indeed...

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Dungeon Siege is a series that, like many others in its genre you will either relish to play or avoid like the plague at a moment's glance. If you're attracted by fantasy-based characters with five ears, three legs and a face ugly enough to scare small children, then it might just be your bag. In fact if you're that person then you might also be familiar with 2002's original Dungeon Siege and/or its 2005 follow-up, Dungeon Siege II. If on the other hand the sight of the foreboding land mass called Aranna, with monsters, dragons and evil on an epic scale is enough to make you weep at the seemingly over-bearing nerdiness then you might want to stop reading now. Dungeon Siege II: Broken World as you might've guessed is not a brand new game, but an expansion to last year's 'RPG of the year*', (so the official site says, though the reference the asterisk points to is suspiciously missing). RPG of the year or not, the majority of critics warmed to a sequel that thrived on fast-paced action, a compelling storyline and oodles of gory battles. The expansion pack offers over 10 further hours of game play which carries on the story from where it's prequel left off, although not directly. Additionally, rather than being simply a 'you want more? Here's more' add-on, Broken World tries to justify its production with the inclusion of a couple of brand new features, some admittedly which work better than others...

Dungeon Siege II is too big a game with too grand a storyline to ruin in just one sentence, but for the sake of those who've seen it all before and the constraints of space, here's how the story ended: there's this big, bad guy called Valdia, yeah? At the end he gets his ass whooped. That's pretty much it, but everyone knows the good guys always win out in the end. Broken World's plot reveals that defeating Valdia wasn't the end of the madness to unfold on Arriana. His death has only unleashed an unspeakable abomination that has waited a millennium for its freedom, hasn't it? Talk about whoopsie-doo. Obviously there's not going to be much time to party like it's 1999 while groups of Bound Elves, Familiars and all other manner of monster (innocents plagued by evil), are out and about causing havoc. Oh, there's also the small point of dark lord Zeramoth wanting to destroy the world too. And, y'know, since it was really your fault that this all happened in the first place, it's probably only fair that you admit responsibility and set off to sort things out once and for all. Well, perhaps after you've finished your cup of tea and checked the footie results on Teletext. Then it's time to show them who's boss.

Booting up Broken World for the first time, you'll first notice some lovely FMV footage before being asked to choose which race of character you'd like to play with. There are six on offer, five of which were already available in the prequel... and Dwarves, included by popular demand, apparently. You can customise your character with a few basic attributes, (hair, face etc.) and give it a name like 'Bob' or, if you wish, 'Lady-man' for comic purposes. Alternatively you can import your characters from Dungeon Siege II who will presumably all be pumped up and ready to embarrass the relatively weak enemies that you encounter throughout the game's first areas. While the option to play as a dwarf makes no real impact on the way the game plays, the two new classes do. Different classes hone different skills which can then be developed and improved while you play. For instance, then, you might want your character to be the king of the castle when it comes to attacking at close range, or maybe from a distance. Or if you want a magician of an avatar who specialises in healing then you can. The Blood Assassin and the Fist of Stone classes mix range-attacks with magic and nature with combat respectively which makes them useful for different things. As a consequence, although your basic progression through the game is fixed, the way you choose to get where you're going is open to a fair amount of interpretation and experimentation.

Pausing the game reveals a detailed yet accessible inventory. Here you can delve into reams of information with regards to the items you collect, the weapons you arm yourself with and the overall condition of your character. As you play it is important to occasionally skim through these options in order to be sure that you are asserting yourself to your full capabilities. However, while all of this is nicely displayed and organised, you're surely going to want to be fighting in real-time for the most part, and, unfortunately this is one important area in which Dungeon Siege II's expansion feels somewhat rushed and ill-thought out. Battling with enemies is a bloody affair that involves mouse clicking on a mammoth scale. This in itself is fine, but having to do it over and over across uninspiring, often linear landscapes isn't really a pinnacle in videogaming. In fact it sometimes even descends into the kind of task that has you becoming jealous of what the rest of the world is doing whilst you sit there tap-tapping away. What are they laughing at on the television? What's that cooking in the kitchen? You're telling me there's a world outside this continuous rampage against enemies with beefed up health in order to cheaply extend game play? Get outta town!

Since Broken World's graphical engine is based on that of its predecessors, it is perhaps predictable that the way the game presents itself isn't going to have you anxiously breathing into a brown paper bag every time you play. It's not even like what you see is bad, it's just not as impressive as we're all accustomed to by now - either that or we're all just extremely fickle individuals. That said, for the most part the environments are convincingly alien and unforgiving while the game's wealthy set of attacking animations are enough to feel like you're doing some proper damage. On the downside, the ability to zoom in on your character reveals their blocky-blemishes, while the settings they traverse can often feel lifeless and repetitive. Broken World's saving grace in aesthetic terms is its audio. Every character plays their part with real gusto and personality at the same time as an orchestral backing track revels atop of the fantasy environment, rising in profile and volume at key moments.

Laid bare, Broken World isn't much to phone home about. If anything it casts a dreary shadow over Dungeon Siege II, a game that while far from perfection was solidly put together and worth recommending. This expansion on the other hand doesn't really offer enough either in terms of single-player, or the unchanged multiplayer features. For those interested you're best off with the main game, for everyone else, don't worry, it's okay to feel apathetic about Aranna's fate.

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By Andrew Macarthy