DUNGEON SIEGE! How long we all waited since we first read about this ground breaking title from GAS
POWERED GAMES! Such beatiful levels. Such breathtaking vistas, such as we'd never seen in a computer
game before. All in 3D with free camera movement to boot. Graphics that would leave our eye's popping
out of our heads! Many said that this is what DIABLO II should have been. If you loved Diablo I and II
then you will slot straight into Dungeon Seige. The parallels between the two border on treasonous. But
the game is NOT simply a copy of the gameplay you enjoyed with Blizzards Diablo series. Dungeon Siege
has a flavour all of it's own.



Again I was astounded to find that as this game was hitting the shelves in America, so too did my local
Electroics Boutique have the game on the shelf. Why do I keep harping on this? Because in the not too
distant past, we in Australia have had to wait up to a MONTH after people in America got their games
before we were able to get a copy here. That truly SUCKED! So it's good that Australia is finally becoming
a point on the map. The Dungeon Siege box is typical. A chick with a flaming sword and a "come get some"
look on her face. At least this chick is not ridiculously scantily clad in some bikini armour that might
serve to bedazzle a monster, but do little to stop a damaged spiky mace, durability 5. Interestingly
enough the box states that you can get away with using a 333mhz CPU with a mere 8mb video card. Truly
I'd have to see that to believe it! I'd say you can easily TREBLE those specs and you might get somewhere.
More on that in a sec. When I bought the game I was offered a free T-Shirt, which I graciously accepted,
Heck who wouldn't. The shirt is black with the armoured chick and her flaming sword on the front.
Basically the same design that appears on the box. Otherwise the box itself only contains a manual and
the game CD.



You will have noticed by now that most reviews have been quick to criticise many aspects of Dungeon
Siege. While some criticism is warranted, I belive that many people have been way too harsh of the
games achievements. This id the FIRST totally 3D, totally immersive Role Playing Game yet! For that
it deserves great accolades indeed. This is what we all really burned for! And Gas Powered Games has
delivered something that has blown me away. I find it very difficult indeed to find something bad to
say about this game as you can plainly see that the developers have spent a great deal of time perfecting
the title, so odd quirks don't ruin our experience. Sure there are problems, but I can see that they
COULD have been a lot worse. Gas Powered Games really has done a fine job in creating this game.


BUT. I find the manual to be a different story. Many times I delved into the maual to try and find out
basic stuff, such as how to resurrect somebody after they have died. Nothing, not a sausage. I had to
stuff about and experiment with cursor positioning and mouse clicks before I eventually found the deal.
I also found the part about death to be a little ambiguous. When you lose all your hit points you become
unconsious and your character falls to the ground and can't do anything. When this happens you must wait
a while for your hit points to increase again to the point where you become consious. Then you can gulp
a health potion down and get back into it. But when you fall unconsious, you DON'T lose all the things
you had stashed in your inventory. But, if after you fall unconsious, the monsters continue to beat your
limp body, YOU WILL DIE! Then, all your stuff spills out onto the ground for anybody to pick up. But that
is not your last hope, because you can be resurrected from death by a mage, or somebody who has a
resurrect scroll. You can then pick up your stuff, which is conveniently put back just where it was, and
you can be on your way again. This I found out through trial and error. No thanks to the stupid manual.
In this way I found the maual to be very wishy washy and not explain things in enough detail, or not at
all. For instance, if you press the screenshot button on your keyboard. Dungeon Seige will store
successive shots in your 'My Documents' folder for you to go through later. The manual makes no mention
of this at all. BUMMER!



I found the game a snap to install on Windows XP Home. The thing with XP is that you really MUST get
the specific XP drivers for ALL your components. If you do this you'll have no problems. I've yet
to see a single glitch with the game after hours of playing. It takes a while to install but man,
grab a coffee and you won't even notice. Dungeon Siege comes with two disks, both of which you will
need to insert during installation. When the game is loaded the menu navigation will send you to
sleep as it is really simple and is nothing you haven't already seen. On that note the menus have
very quoole animations that look and sound wicked.



To the game itself! Now, Does Dungeon Siege live up to the hype? I am going to give that the YES!
vote. Yes, Dungeon Siege has some shortcomings. But the plusses squash those into dust to be blown
away by the slightest breeze. I am going to say that Dungeon Siege is one of the best games I have
seen for a LONG time. Have you ever bought a new game and had that ho hum feeling after about 20
minutes of playing it? I know I have. But this time, the first day I got it I was playing well
into the night simply entranced by the beauty of the game and the freedom it allows. I don't
care what others say. Dungeon Siege is a game in a class of it's own. Very well made, very
professionally done and extremely creative. And you can see evidence of that at every turn.BR>

To the graphics. The actual textures themselves are actually of medium quality. Nothing like
those we saw in the Jedi Temple in Jedi Knight II. My god those were good textures! If you look
closely at the texturing work in Dungeon Siege you will notice them to be the somewhat blurry type
that only get good definition as you get some distance away from them. That may sound a little
questionable, but the reality is that you spend the majority of your time looking down on the
action from above at whatever angle you choose. And from up there things look really really good.
Added to this the sheer amount of detail in every scene, trees with leaves swaying in the wind,
grassy hills, forest plants in full splendour, rivers flowing, rain, snow, all of this is so well
done that the full picture is nothing like a game you've seen to date. Sure, the actual textures
dont hold a lot of detail temselves, but they don't have to. There is so much in any one scene
that it becomes impossible for the level to become tacky.



As always, I like to look at the geometric complexity of the polygons used to create the game levels.
This really only applies to first person shooters but I think it also has a place here. Dungeon
Siege's game engine is able to make quite nicely rolling countryside. But mostly you'll see high
ridges that you won't be able to fall down or climb up. Most of the outside levels are so thickly
wooded that you really won't be able to notice the underlying geometry work. The geometry used
is actually quite lacking in detail, with most structures having quite a low polygon count. You'll
either come across a gentle slope or an abrupt ridge. You won't actually find a rounded hill in the
game. At least, I haven't seen one yet. And yet nothing really calls for anything more than whats
been used. Houses, bridges and crypts all look great. The simplicity of the open spaces has been
well hidden by the use of trees and lush grass texturing. Added to this, is the fact you're never
left looking at a plain boring scene. There always seems to be a scene with enough detail to never
tacky or old. If you look at a tree trunl you can indeed see how notoriously square looking it is
but it never seems to matter because you're in the middle of a lush forest with fairies flitting
about. Crypts are crypts, square in any way you look at them.

Added to the breathtaking outdoor scenery, Dungeon Siege just wouldn't make it without the below
ground contingent of cellars, crypts, mines and caves. These could be straight out of Diablo I
or II. You kill mosters in them and gold or weapons fall off their bodies for you to pick up.
You heave the covers of sealed graves to see what treasures the dead guy was buried with, heck
even the dreaded trapped barrels and crates make an appearance, sprouting gold, weapons, health,
or mana when you destroy them. But you don't just get the crypt type of places, I just explored
a mine and an ice cave that both presented different problems and environments for me to battle
my way through. To date, I have never tired of any environment I entered. When I wanted something
more than just plain forest, man it started to snow!! Wicked!


It's probably time to mention the navigation and control methods used in Dungeon Siege. You have
a camera that you can control and put in just about any position you like. You can zoom right up
into the sky and look striaght down on the action or you can go right down to the ground with the
camera and look off into the distance. But you can't look up into the sky from the ground. You
just can't and that is really sad as that would present true camera freedom. As it is you have
enough to keep you interested at ground level. Also, as you look off into the distance, your
view is always obscured by a fog, or some kind of haze that limits your view. I'm sure that is
an engine performance thing, but it actually works very well creating the effect of things in
the distance becoming lost in the fog or snow.

At any time you are able to zoom right out into the sky or zoom right in to get a closer look
at your characters or whatever it is you might be wanting to look at. By default the camera
zoom is set to your mouse wheel which really works well. It is a simple thing to zoom out
during a fight to see if you're being attacked from another angle.

You move the camera by shifting the cursor to the edge of the screen which causes the camera to
move in the direction you've specified when you set up you'r options. It sounds a bit of an
annoying way to move the camera. But it actually works well. If you've ever played a game
3rd person view such as Max Payne or Heretic II, then you'll have the camera navigation licked
within minutes. However for those not so schooled, this kind of navigation seems ponderous.
My girlfriend finds it difficult to navigate this way, always making the camera do everything
but what she wants it to do. So I guess If you aren't a veteran of 3D games the navigation of
the camera might take some getting used to. not like good old Diablo where the camera was
fixed and moved when you moved.


There are some instances where the camera will do things that peeves you. For instance when
your character goes up against a high wall, the camera will zoom up the wall to avoid hitting
your character. It's an inevitable situation and throws you off a bit when it happens, but it
isn't life threatening. When you walk underneath a tree, the tree will actually become
transparent so you can still see your character. And so this happens in all instances where
your character becomes blocked from view by a bridge, the roof of a house, or the enterance
to a cave.

For instance, when you walk into a house the roof will disappear so you can still see your
character and the inside of the house. If then, you go up some stairs in the house to the
next level, the upper storey will appear when you get there, and again disappear when you
go back down. Sounds Wierd? I guess it does but it is a really clever aspect of Dungeon
Siege that gives rise to the SEAMLESS GAMEPLAY that has been one of the hot topics
that has been discussed about the game. When you descend into a cellar the whole above
ground scenery disappears and you're left with the passageway you just entered. In this
way Dungeon Siege has absolutely NO loading screens. Thats right! NONE. You load the
game at the beginning and thats it, BANG! You're in the world without ANY interruptions.
Incidentally, loading times are very swift indeed. 10 seconds perhaps, no more.


To move about the world you must click your mouse on the spot you'd like to go to next.
There is no moving your character with direction keys on the keyboard. In fact you can
play the game without touching your keyboard at all. It is VERY mouse oriented. You
have hotkeys of course that bring up inventories and so forth but you can also bring
those up by clicking on screen. To fight an enemy you must move the mouse cursor over
the enemy and click. You can't plant your feet and fire arrows or throw magic from
a distance like you could in Diablo. That was disconcerting at first because I kept wanting
to use the feet plant style of play I used in Diablo. Because the danger is you're going to
click right next to the monster you want to kill instead of actually clicking ON him. If you
do this your character walks right up next to the beasty in question for a nice pummeling.
This IS a problem in Dungeon Siege. With no way of planting your feet and dishing out damage
you need a steady hand to actually make sure you click the monster. But you only need to click
on the monster once. You can klick on him and your character will attack. You can then retreat
to a safer distance and your character will still attack the beasty from the new location
without any further prodding. Of course this means nothing if you are fighting melee style.



Character development in Dungeon Siege is also done in an interesting fashion. Many reviews
criticise the fact that there is no development tree that spells out the skills your character
is going to learn as you progress through the game. Ok, that was good. But Diablo has been
there and done that. Why make a carbon copy of Diablo? Dungeon Siege is already very much
like Diablo without making character development the same. You simply start out with a character
that you are able to define when you start the game. Male or Female. Hair colour / type, facial
features, skin colour, shirt type / colour, and pants. You don't start out as a mage, archer, or
warrior as you do in Diablo. You define what skills you get by simply using that type of weapon.
For instance if you pick up and start using a bow you become skilled in archery. You also have
statistics such as strength, intelligence and dexterity which are increased depending on what
fighting style you adopt. If you become a melee fighter you quickly gain in strength, allowing
you to put on heavier armour. However you gain little in intelligence and moderately in dexterity.
Becoming an archer will cause your character to gain dexterity quickly, strength moderately, and
intelligence slowly.

Your characters inventory is large compared to that your character had in Diablo. But functions
in exactly the same manner. You have inventory boxes superimposed over the top of your character
outline where you put your characters hat, gloves, boots, armour, rings, amulets, melee weapon
and ranged weapon. Putting on various items will change your character stats a la Diablo.
You can even see what your character looks like after making a change by pressing the view button
included in your inventory screen. Quite early on in the game you are able to buy a mule. Mules
have an absolutely HUGE space for you to pack stuff you find into. I bought two mules and just
shoved anything I found onto them. You can then go back to town and sell a crapload of stuff for
heaps of cash. When I first got a mule I was disappointed I couldn't leave them at the enterance
of a crypt and only bring them through when it was safe. I had views of the stupid animals getting
in the way of fights and killing themselves through rediculous stupidity. My fears were soon
quashed though. Mules are relegated to the back of your party's formation and follow at a
respectable distance behind your party, never getting in your party's way. When your party is
attacked the mules trot off to a quiet spot a little distance away where they don't get in the
way. The mules have been done very well in Dungeon Siege and aren't the burden on your party
that you may think.


You of course don't progress through the game all on your own. You soon get people wanting to
travel along with you a la Baldeur's Gate. Some people join willingly for zip. Others want
some exorbitant fee to 'settle their accounts' in town before they'll join you. You can tell
them to get stuffed if you want, or allow them to join. If you don't like the way somebody is
performing along the way, you can expel them from the group at any time. At the moment I have
6 people and 2 mules in my party. You soon realise it is in your best interest to train people
in a wide range of skills. In my party I have 2 archers, 2 mages and 2 melee fighters. One
of the mages simply heals people when their health gets down too low via a healing spell.
Different situations will require the different skills that someone in your party might have.



Many reviews have also bagged the need to split your party up in order to get everybody up an
elevator or transport of some type. Saying that it is a pain to have to do so. I on the other
hand think that this is a stroke of genius on the part of the game designers. You must think
who to send across first and who to leave behind with the mules in case of attack. Often you
can see monstes waiting for you on the other side of some huge chasm, such as in the glitterdelve
mine and know that you will have quite a reception comittee once you get off the transport platform.
This is a level of gameplay that diablo lacked. I mean after a while Diablo just became a click
fest anyhow. With this aspect of party dividing, you cannot allow yourself to fall asleep.


Your weapons in Dungeon Siege are straight out of Diablo. Things such as Plate mail and Brilliant
Bow of Perforation, are all the rage. Damage is still quoted in the minimum-maximum range like
16-25. However your equipment does not wear out and you have an unlimited supply of arrows if
you become an archer. You also find mana wells and health fountains which are borrowed straight
out of Diablo.


Lets now look at the enemies. While not especially bright, they have the hitpoints to make up for
it. IT seems that most enemies will simply stand there hacking away at you while in turn hack away
at them. The Krug will see you coming, let out a roar of disapproval and come rushing toward you
brandishing whatever weapon they might have. Still they're not meant to be all that bright anyhow.
To start with, you cop a hiding from the Krug. As you progress you begin in turn to dish them out
hiding instead. Until you finish a notable pice of the game. Then it is instantly noticeable that
the strength of all the enemies has been raised to keep you on your toes. It is very noticeable
when this happens as you lose a little more health than you expected and the baddie took a little
longer to dispatch. There is a great variety of enemies. Wolves, Flying insects, killer furry
animals, spiders, bats, huge worm things, huge stone guys with bad tempers, bug eyed goons with
some kind of magic stuff that really hurts. Also there are other forest animals and beings that
you might come across such as little furry creatures, deer, and wispy fairy guys that flit about.
Really there is a rich array of enemies you come across which means you never get tired of the
old guy but wearing something else syndrome.



All in all I hail Dungeon Siege as the beginning of an era of computer gaming. Stunning visuals
New aspects of gameplay all in the hugely popular Diablo style of game play. I make mention of
Diablo a lot in this review. But don't let that fool you. This game is not Diablo imitation.
Dungeon Siege is a game on completely new level. If you liked Diablo then Dungeon Siege is going
to blow you away. I have played the game for 15 hours so far, or so the save games tell me, and
I haven't grown the slightest bit bored of the game yet. Other games on my computer have been
left half or quarter finished, and are going to stay that way untill Dungeon Siege is finished.
That will take a while considering that it is also possible to play the multiplayer game with one
character, thus turning it into a single player game. As the multiplayer games are completely new
maps, Dungeon Siege offers sheer hours of game play. Some say the world is a little too linear for
their liking. The world IS linear. If you follow the beaten path you'll find all you need to find.
But if you do a little bush bashing you'll be rewarded with some hidden caves and crypts to explore.
GET DUNGEON SIEGE for the living love of GOD! You Won't regret it.

Graphics 9.5 / 10
Level Design 9.5 / 10
Sound 9.5 / 10
Enemies 8.0 / 10
Detail 9.9 / 10 (Nothing is perfect)
Gameplay 9.6 / 10
Addictiveness 9.8 / 10
OVERALL SCORE 65.8 / 70