Diablo killer or not?



Genre: 3D Hack & Slash RPG
Developed by: Gas Powered Games
Published by: Microsoft

It's been quite some time since Chris Taylor left the already late Cavedog. Chris Taylor was one of the many charismatic project leaders who abandoned their first employers to start their own company: other figures in this infamous band are Peter Molyneux (Lionhead), John Romero (Ion Storm), Lawrence Holland (Totally Games),... All became famous because they worked on a classic game, and all also promised that their new firms would create even better and hotter games. But sadly, only a few have delivered good games. John Romero is the saddest example of how ego and bad decision-making can bring down a brave and ambititous initiative.

Dungeon Siege, the brainchild of Chris Taylor, the man behind Total Annihilation, had been in the works by his company, Gas Powered Games, for a good 3-4 years now. Very little material has been released through the development, and the promise of a Diablo in full 3D had sent hack & slash fans shivers down their spines for a long time. How many of us have growled in themselves when receiveing material on Dungeon Siege "Grr...I want it"? Well, released by Microsoft, the game now finally is out.

Dungeon Siege start off in a nice menu, similar to that from Nox. Taking a quick peek at the graphic options, not many things can be altered. But oh well, who cares right, as long as it looks good and runs smoothly. "Start new game". After selecting a character (with attributes like hair, skin, body, clothes,...) the game starts. First of, there seem to be no FMV sequences. The story is told ingame. Speaking of which, Dungeon Siege's plot goes as follows: the land of Ehb has been established by the Tenth Legion, a group of rightious knights and soldiers. The land has lived in peace and never succumbed to invasion or any incursion. You are a simple farmer, but soon, the village elder enters your field, wounded and attacked.

Well, the game can start I guess. First thing I noticed was the slimness of the interface and the graphics. Let's start with the latter. The visuals look pretty slick, and the loading times are either non-existant or very short, which obviously is a good thing. Notable is the abundance of vegetation. While these are only flat bitmaps, it still renders the surroundings as being very lively and colourful, as it is supposed to be in RPG's. The trees are polygons, and fade out when the camera passes through them. Talking about the camera, you can completely adjust the camera angle to your liking. The fact that this panning and zooming is very smooth and fast, is a great plus. You can very easily switch to an angle to suit your needs. Also, the mini-map is active, like in Icewind Dale: in Dungeon Siege you can even click on the minimap to navigate. This is probably a better mo than the overlay system in Diablo 2. The characters are rather low detail, but have sufficient geometry to look and move convincingly. While the polygon count may be a bit lower, the textures are rather high detail: you can distinctly discern clothing and armour: even on monsters. The animation of your main character and your partymembers might appear a bit stiff, but this is rather okay.
The terrain, next to being very lively and detailed, is also complex enough to allow strategic possibilties: higher ground is certainly advantageous for magic users and archers.

The interface looks pretty familiar, and is almost flawless. It's a bit a mix between the hack & slash blueprint of Diablo, the party organization of Baldur's Gate, and the design and layout of Nox. As in Diablo, the item hunt is on :) The characteristics of these items are very similar to Diablo: increased hp, increased attack speed, better chance of getting magic item, etc. Talking about stats, Dungeon Siege has quite a forgiving system of automatic evolution. This means that your stats will progress in a manner that's decided how you play: if you prefer ranged attack, your dexterity stat will rise, if you are a melee grunt, your strength will improve, and if you use magic, your intelligence will improve. Dungeon Siege does not have classes, since your class will effectively be determined on how you play the game. Another last thing I'd like to mention concerning the interface is the pack muel. Diablo 2 players, especially those who don't have the expansion pack, have a chronical problem with inventory space. In Dungeon Siege, a pack muel can carry the bulk of your stuff. When in battle, the muel will seek cover, but if attacked, it ahs a fiesty kick in his legs :).

Other than most hack & slash games, Dungeon Siege will not be a one man journey. In Dungeon Siege, you can travel with up to 8 party members. You can arrange them in formations just as you would in Baldur's Gate, and assign stances to them (concerning movement, attack and target choice). This is one of the strong points of the game. The party play is very smooth and much more intense than Diablo's mercenary system. Party members no longer are just extra's, but are real partners. with the many stance options and decent AI, Dungeon Siege excels in this field.

The story of Dungeon Siege is quite lineair: you have certain subplots, but backtracking is not very useful: monsters don't respawn. It's perhaps here Dungeon Siege has a weakness. It cold be me, but the drive of the story is not so strong as the all-out crusade against evil from Diablo, and not the complex and deep Tolkien-like story of Baldur's Gate. The universe of Dungeon Siege somewhat resembles that from the German game Gothic. Especially since party battle is important is Dungeon Siege, I somewhat missed the deep relationships in Baldur's Gate.

The multiplayer option are co-op singleplayer and a seperate multiplayer realm. The multiplayer is well worked out, but we did notice laggy performance. Also the fact that the left click both indicates movement and action probably has a word in this. What also hindered multiplayer battle, where you can only control one character, is the fact that your quick inventory is rather small: you can for instance only ready 2 spells in your spell book. In singleplayer this is no problem, because you can easily pause the game, but in multiplayer this breaks the pace a bit.

To close up, we'd like to mention that both music and sound are good. The soundtrack delivers good atmosphere, while the voices are alos adequate. Also, Dungeon Siege ships with the Siege Editor: a very complex editor which is virtually built to host various mods. It looks like Gas Powered Games have read the message that Counterstrike brought loud and clear.

EP sez:

Dungeon Siege is a good hack & slash rpg, combining the best elements from it's rivals, and added with the great 3D surroundings. Unfortunately, the game has limited depth and misses the raw gameplay of classics like Baldur's Gate and Diablo. Still, the game's technical quality and nevertheless smooth gameplay make this a very fun hack & slasher.

Pros and Cons

+ Graphics
+ Interface
+ Party combat
- Lack of depth

Score:

Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 9
Sound & Music: 9
Addictiviness: 8

Overall: 83%

(c) 2002 Erwin's Pages
Erwin "Reaper" Husin

Links

> Official Dungeon Siege Site