by Stow on Jun 20, 2011
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style="font-style: italic;">Dungeon Siege sure as hell isn't
just dungeons. You'll run into some pretty colorful segments
like this too in your travels.
Instead of having total freedom with
your characters, each
character has a limited range of equipment and skills.
Being an Obsidian game, the personality of
the characters themselves have undertaken an exponential improvement
over the
previous installments. Youll
notice
several big trade-offs as you go, making this a Dungeon Siege
game only
in name. Gone are
the ridiculous skills
and huge variety of magic spells, and gone are the huge treks without
shops or
towns. Save points
are common place.
So with a combination of increased
rpg elements, decreased
freedom, console-ification and a new developer at the helm, do we have
a winner
on our hands? To be
honest, it depends
on your patience for the initial gameplay.
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Blood and profanity will happen in your travels, but nothing too graphic. If the kids are playing any other RPG, they can play this one.
The first thing you have to do in
order to have any fun with
this game is get accustomed to the controls.
If youve got an Xbox 360 controller you can hook up to
your PC to play
this, youre golden. Otherwise,
youre
controlling from one of two views, both fairly close to your
characters, and
fighting with a camera that will sometimes get stuck behind terrain in
the
middle of a fight if you maneuver in the wrong direction or even while
attacking at range. Of
course you can
control the camera, but let me give you a brief overview of how you
control the
game.
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style="font-style: italic;">If you get surrounded, you will
die. Fast. The moment someone is in your face, you
need to stun them or move!
Player models and people you speak to
are on par with Mass
Effect 2 at best, and the combat graphics are reminiscent of Darkspore.
style=""> Some of the later spells,
such as PIllar of
Flame, look absolutely great.
Unfortunately, youre not going to get a lot of stellar
mid-combat eye
candy until multiple hours in. Otherwise
youll just be slashing and shooting your way to victory like the old
days.
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style="font-style: italic;">The character models aren't
going to blow you away, but they're not going to make your eyes cringe
either.
The cutscenes have a good art style
to them,
and while they lack animation, theyre still damn pretty to look at.
style=""> This game also doesnt
require a whole lot to
run--my Radeon HD 4870 has had its fair share of problems with some
games
lately, but not this one. Everything
is
smooth as silk.
Your party has a variety of silly accents, so dont expect to evoke a ton of emotion from the voice acting of your characters. Music-wise, youll get a lot more emotion from the soundtrack here than you will most games of this genre. Youll hear lots of good background music for your travels, whether they be between dimensions or through haunted manors. To accompany the music of combat, the wind howls, gunfire and fireballs ignite and crackle with enunciated crispness, and the sound of combat is spot on.
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style="font-style: italic;">Bosses are intense on Hardcore,
but beatable if you're good at dodging their telegraphed attacks.
As the commercials say, Couch Co-op
is back. Well, for
those of us playing it on PC,
youll need some friends. Playing
two
ranged characters together is an exercise in frustration for some
bosses, and
enemy health increases in multiplayer and is multiplied by the
difficulty
setting. If youre fighting bosses on Hardcore with buddies, its going
to take
you a damn long time to bring them down!
But if you have a balanced team and some coordination,
this is one of
the better co-op experiences on PC I've played in a long time.
With three difficulty settings and four characters to play as, theres a fair bit of work to be done in Dungeon Siege 3. The skill variety may not be what it used to be as compared to previous games, but youll find that the action oriented gameplay now demands a new skill set and has its own satisfaction to it. Is it worth the 40-60$ price tag? Yes, but only if you download the demo first and ensure that you can tolerate the controls. If you can make it through the first hour, you can enjoy the next thirty.
Loot is everywhere, and everyone loves loot. There are a million stats in the game, so putting together various sets of armor for different areas will be common place as people tackle the game on Hardcore. Itll need patches or an expansion in a hurry though, as the world isnt randomly generated. Unlike Darkspore, the world gets old, and the backtracking sure as hell doesnt help that one bit. For those of you looking for a little flavor text to go with your loot farming, this is right up your alley for a while.
Pros:
Fluid and pretty on almost allCons
Pathetic skill depth-9 perWhile its a departure from the
spirit of the first two
games, and lacking that Chris Taylor touch of over-the-top awesomeness,
Dungeon
Siege III manages to be a good game.
The words good game are highly subjective though, as the
PC control
setup will have you close to rage-uninstalling more than likely.
style=""> It may lack the character
skill depth of Diablo,
and the character development of Mass Effect, but
it strikes a strong
balance and the closest game I can possibly relate the frantic feel of
combat
to is Phantasy Star Online 2 or Demons
Souls, games where taking
damage is not an option and you have to choose when to attack and when
to evade
very carefully. If
you can stomach the
controls, youll find a well-polished action RPG beneath that ugly
surface.