Dungeon Siege

"An unbelievably well made Action RPG... Is this the Diablo killer?"

I bought Dungeon Siege because I was bored and was looking for a good RPG to bide my time. I wasn't really expecting too much from this game, just maybe 20 hours of enjoyable gameplay, nothing more. Damn, I was quite surprised. Dungeon Siege is a very well made RPG, and it shows.

Dungeon Siege follows a similar engine to Diablo. You basically run around the world and click on an enemy to engage them. However, unlike Diablo, there is no constant clicking needed, as once you initiate combat, you will fight until you or the enemy is dead, whichever comes first.

When you begin a single player game, you will first be asked to customize the main character, who you will be able to name as well. You can choose from a variety of faces, hair styles, and clothing to make the main character look like you want him to. It's nice to be able to customize the main character, but, it's not really that deep and there isn't a heck of a lot of options, but it's still better than nothing.

Once you have your character customized and named, you're ready to begin your journey in Ehb. You find yourself in vast forest farmlands where you meet Norrick, an old man who has been attacked by the Krug and is dieing. Before Norrick dies, he whispers to you your quest. Other than that, there isn't a whole heck of a lot of story. Yes, there's dialogue between characters and quests to do but there really is no depth to the story, and it's pretty ordinary at times.

As you journey, you will be able to customize your main character to suit your fighting needs. You can choose to have your character be a melee specialist, a range fighter, a combat mage, or a nature mage. By equipping different weapons or spells, you can raise your skill in one of the 4 classes, and thus, level your character. If you want to be a melee fighter, you equip staves, daggers, swords, axes, etc and go and fight with them. Each blow you land raises your experience in the Melee skill. The same goes when you equip bows and arrows or spells, only for the appropriate skills. By training a specific type of class skill, you effectively raise your HP, Mana, Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence depending on the crucial attribute for the class. For instance, training Melee will raise your HP and Strength the most while training one of the 2 mage classes will raise your Intelligence the most. This is the whole premise behind leveling and building your characters.

The main character can be any of the 4 classes, all you need to do is decide what class you want him to practice. You can mix classes and be a specialist in more than one type of class, however this isn't generally a good idea because you'll never reap the full benefits of the class. Example- If you choose to train melee and range- You will eventually find a very powerful melee weapon or piece of armor, however, because you're not focusing on melee, your strength may not be high enough (and probably won't be) to equip the weapon. This forces you to use the weaker weapons/armors of the class. This is why it is generally a good idea to pick just one of the classes in the beginning and sticking with it. You will eventually meet 7 other party members, all of which have their own base skills. One character may be better with a bow and have higher dexterity, this character you would want to train Range. This whole system is really well done. Before long, you will have an 8 person party dishing out insane damage with your meleers, archers, and mages.

One of the more important aspects of combat is the whole party strategy. Once you have more than one person in your party, you will be able to customize the formation and how they individually react to enemies. The formation is important. You need to format it so you have your meleers out front ready to intercept, your archers back ready to blast away, and your spellcasters out of harms way where they can nuke away or heal. A lot of strategy comes into play when you have a big party. Also, you can control whether you want your characters pursuing enemies, or whether you want them to hang back and defend the area. You can basically control just about everything. The combat system is excellent

Aside from the excellent single player game, Dungeon Siege has an awesome multiplayer mode. You basically get to explore and fight in an entirely different realm where you will battle and adventure with other Dungeon Siege players from around the world.

Probably the best thing about Dungeon Siege is the graphics. They are absolutely spectacular. Usually in games where you have a 3D isometric view, the graphics aren't spectacular and generally come across as flat and usually lack sufficient detail. Dungeon Siege raises the bar for isometric view games. I have never seen this superb quality of graphics in this type of game. The environments are enormous and vividly detailed and filled with vibrant color. You will see all forms of landscape during your quest. Night and day pass as well, along with the occasional rain storm. Spell effects are beautiful and very colorful. The water effects are also quite stunning. Probably the most amazing thing about the graphics is that this enormous world is seamless, meaning there's no loading at all between areas. You can literally walk into another area without leaving the gameplay screen. You should be awed by the visuals in Dungeon Siege.

The audio in Dungeon Siege is also very well done. You will hear epic music and wonderful uplifting songs as you adventure. The sound effects are also very well done. The audio contributes greatly to the overall ambience created by the stunning graphics.

Overall Dungeon Siege is an excellent game. It was so beautifully crafted, there should almost never be any confusion. The interface is excellent.

A lot of people are comparing Dungeon Siege to Diablo. Whether or not it's the ''Diablo killer'' is up to you, I personally think both games kick arse and are awesome examples of the Action/RPG genre.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/08/02, Updated 05/08/02