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I haven't actually played Dungeon Siege, I use the game to play the Ultima 5 remake: Lazarus. Best game in the Ultima series, hands down. Best fan-made game ever too.http://lazarus.planetdungeonsiege.gamespy.com/
and one of the cleanest and simplest levelup systems I've ever seen.When you're through with the original game, and Legends of Aranna, it's important to note that there are many siegelets (small games that are built on the dungeon siege engine) available; two from the company, and many available at random sites on the internet. Dungeon Siege removes most of the frustrations that can occur in a hack-and-slash game, and strips down the genre to good, clean fun.
No one I've talked to had heard of it, yet after reading ancient reviews of the game, I went out on a limb and purchased Legends of Aranna (definitely the way to go; Microsoft included Dungeon Siege with its expansion). STORY: 2/10GAMEPLAY: 9/10SOUND: 8/10GRAPHICS: 10/10VOICEACTING: 7/10CONTROLS: 10/10INTUITIVITY: 10/10COMBAT: 10/10FRUSTRATION LEVEL: 0Dungeon Siege is a most entertaining game that has been lost in the dank, dusty halls of video game antiquity.
However, where Dungeon Siege really shines is its pure and unadulterated hacking and slashing. I was delighted.I received the game on a quiet weekend and ended up playing it for three days straight, every spare moment.
I still didn't get a third of the way through the ORIGINAL game.I cannot honestly say Dungeon Siege has a great story; it's recycled, it's simplistic, and it barely makes an appearance in the game. There are far too many features aiding in making the experience simple and fun for me to go into here, but as a taste, Dungeon Siege includes packmules to carry extra loot, a spell called Transmute that turns the loot you still can't carry into gold (so you never lose any of your delightful items).
These can add many dozens of hours of gameplay to an already turbo charged product.In conclusion, for those who like hack and slash gameplay, Dungeon Siege delivers an incredible amount of value at an incredibly small cost.
I played the demo of this back when it first came out and was impressed but had other games I wanted to play. And if you feel like being a casual gamer, the AI takes control of your character if you're not doing anything with it and will generally seek out enemies and defend itself. The enemies are unique and bosses are big and scary. Several years have gone by and I thought I'd buy this, with the expansion pack for cheap. Lots of unique goodies. So I've played and beat the original game, and just started on the expansion. I wasn't really into the party gaming thing and enjoyed the solo romp of games like Diablo II and Morrowind. So if like me, you like to play games during dinner or snacking, this game is great, because it auto-plays itself :)The story is typical, the AI is fairly well developed.
It doesn't seem like you can import your character into the expansion, which makes it more like a new game than a true expansion, but that's how it goes. Anyway, it's not particularly wonderful, and definitely dated at this point, but it's a great time killer. weapons are fairly cool. The average swords and bows, but there's also a chain-gun and flame-thrower, so you know, it's definitely pushing the boundaries of sword and shield fantasy.I'm running a fairly decent gaming rig with Windows Vista, and despite the warnings of incompatibility, I was able to install and NO-CD patch the game and it plays flawlessly.Definitely worth my money.
Having just completed this game that I've had in my shelf for years now, but never played before now, I must say it was a bit of a mixed experience. Recommended if you liked NWN or any of the Black Isle-games, just don't expect to tickle your intellect. There aren't really any "quests" to speak of, it is just a linear story where you speak to a few people, and you sometimes accidentally complete a task they wanted you to do, but that you would have to do anyway to progress in the game.
The graphics are also very beautiful, but because of the way the scenery is built up, you start using the minimap a lot while you play, which makes you loose out on a lot of beautiful scenery. Another issue is that the game is too "easy", meaning the usual strategy would be just to run in and attract as many monsters as you can, then sit and watch while your characters slaughter them. The creators of the game have removed quite a lot of those annoying things we know from other games; running 50 miles back just to pick up the one item you needed but had no idea what was and various other small issues that tend to get annoying in RPG's.
If they had bothered to make a proper story for the game, and perhaps made some of the dungeons a bit smaller, it gets tiresome just watching your characters hack and slash their way through the same type of monsters for hours on end while the same dungeon never ends. I wish they could have included a "maximap" too, so it would be possible to see which areas you hadn't gone to yet, instead of just a tiny area. In addition to this, the biggest flaw in this rather "standard" RPG-game is the lack of a story.
So all in all, doesn't even come close to the Black Isle-games or NWN, but despite what may seem like a very negative review, I did enjoy the game enough to complete it, something I seldom do. 4 stars.
This is my all time favorite RPG for the PC. I had it when it originally came out then got rid of it and moved onto other games, but nothing entertained me like this one did.
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