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I feel that the most important thing in an RPG
is playability. Does it hold my attention, and is it more then just running around killing stuff?
I need character building, new weapons and armor to strive for, new quests to do, and new
friends to join me in my quests. I need the game to suck me into its world. If I only have
an hour to play I want to be able to accomplish something. On top of all that I also want ease
of use, and beautiful smooth graphics. I want my cake… all of it!
Playability
Microsoft did what it does best when it came to this game. They took the best features of other
popular games and incorporated them into Dungeon Siege. You start the game off by picking your
sex (yes please!), your skin, hair, and clothing. That’s about all you get when you start as you’re
just a simple farmer when the Krug start to invade the area.
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Your forced to make your way through monster infested areas so that you can get
into town and find out more about what is happening. As you fight the krug monsters
you start building your character according to how you play him. If you like to
run up and melee the monsters you will start building a warrior character building
strength and more slowly dexterity. If you like to use a bow you will start building
an archer and start raising dexterity and more slowly strength. You also have the option
of building your character as a wizard in which intelligence is your most valuable skill.
In this field you can be either a combat mage, or nature mage each with their own unique
spells. Along with these different characters you can also make hybrids of these and make
a nature mage/warrior (paladin), a pure tank/mage, a warrior/archer, etc., but it will take
much longer to develop your character in two or more fields.
As you fight not only do your attributes such as intelligence, strength, and dexterity increase,
but also your skills such as melee, ranged attacks, nature magic, and combat magic.
As these skills increase your damage goes up, your health increases, and you become
more powerful. This, in a nutshell, is the key ingredients of a good RPG.
As you adventure and complete quests you not only gain and increase your skills but also
gather new armor, weapons, and spells. If you have played games like diablo you know the
attraction and staying power that this gives you. Striving to get that great weapon or
breastplate keeps a gamer interested.
As you move through the world you also meet new people who will wish to join you in your
quest or perhaps theirs. You will have to make up your mind if you wish to have them join
based on their current skills, the money that it costs to hire some of them, or what mission
or quest that they need your help in accomplishing.
Many of the quests are very long and may not be completed right away or in the order of which
you get them from speaking with the npc’s (non-player characters). Some of them will only
take a few minutes to complete, and some will take hours. Some of the easier quests will
get you a quick “thanks!” from the npc who gave you the quest, while some will get you a
nice piece of armor or weapon. The quests add a nice side story in some cases and in others
are integral to completing your main objective.
*Dungeon Siege also allows you to play online with friends. I have yet to do this however so I
cannot comment on the playability online.*
Controls
If you’ve played games like diablo, myth, or the baldur’s gate titles you’ll be accustomed to
Dungeon Siege pretty quickly. It’s similar to all of them with the top camera view looking down
on your character(s). The controls allow you to tilt the camera all the way up so you are looking
straight down and tilting it down so you are looking over your character(s) shoulders. You can
also circle your view around your party and zoom in and out all with just using your mouse. All of
these views have purposes such as easier targeting when fighting, and easier movement through the world.
In Dungeon Siege single player mode you can have up to 8 different characters in your group.
Sounds confusing, and like a lot of work to keep them all together right? With the use of auto-follow,
formation commands, and terrific pathing it’s fairly simple once you get used to it. Along with the
formation controls you have combat and other movement commands such as hold position, fight freely,
target strongest monster first, target weakest monster first, etc. That allow you to fight more effectively.
You can also assign these commands to the whole group or each character in turn. Hotkeys are available to
you as well and definitely help to alleviate the headache of making sure each party member is doing what you
are asking them to do.
Graphics
The graphics are very nice and are right on par with today’s high 3-d standards. With the zoom all the
way in you get to see nicely detailed characters and beautiful scenery. The game world is vast and filled
with many different outside areas, buildings, dungeons, and monsters. In some of the war ravaged towns
there are smoking ruined buildings, and catapults that add a nice touch to the story line. The monsters
and boss monsters are very nicely detailed and diverse which goes a long way with keeping the gamer
interested in seeing your mission all the way through.
Overall impression
Is this a great game worth spending the money on? Definitely! Is this game filled with brand new ideas?
No, not really. Microsoft got this RPG right though with giving Dungeon Siege a good story, diverse
and interesting quests, interesting weapons, nice graphics, and great looking challenging monsters.
All of this while allowing the gamer to play with relative ease. This is a fun, challenging game
that will give you hours of entertainment.
Does this game give me everything that I could ever want in my ideal RPG? Well not all of it but
pretty damn close. I mean I would love to have a rogue/thief character, and to have different
factions similar to Baldur’s Gate titles. I would like to have the graphics be a tad bit smoother
as well. If these are my only complaints though I’ll happily play it and give it a good 4 planets.
Yacka's Rating:
4 out of 5 Planets
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