Dungeon Siege

Dungeon Siege Review

Dungeon Siege comes to us from Gas Powered Games formed in May 1998 under the helm of famed designer Chris Taylor of the award winning strategy game, Total Annihilation. When Chris Taylor began this company he envisioned an RPG world that was simple in design and execution. He also had a strong desire to make a world that players could modify themselves through a Siege editor that has been made available at the games website to create what are called Siegelets, which are files that can be downloaded and used within the game to add new worlds, new quests, new items, and so many other things made by players for players to explore and have fun in. The Siege editor is a very powerful tool indeed and allows players to create the environments and quests just like in the actual game and is only limited by the players creative imagination. Many of you may wonder whether this companies first RPG release is as good as one would hope and whether it offers the ultimate RPG experience that we all long for.

Dungeon Siege takes place in the kingdom of Ehb, a kingdom that is attempting to make a new beginning after years of war destroyed most of the Empire of Stars, which Ehb belongs to. You play the role of a farmer who fate has chosen to find the source of the evil which now threatens the once peaceful kingdom. What an impressive kingdom it is, as the Siege engine is capable of rendering stunning and strikingly beautiful detail to huge and complex environments. Most impressive is how the graphics, music and sound effects work in unison to provide a unique gaming experience. From the very beginning of the single player campaign you can begin to witness some of the artistic touches that grace this living and breathing world. Trees sway from wind that is rushing through them as well as water flows on its natural course over a ridge from a river nearby your home. At certain times of the day you will also be treated to a change in the weather and rain will begin falling upon the land. As you proceed to determine the threat that has invaded your farmland and the entire kingdom itself, you take up any weapon that you can use at hand and proceed into the forest nearby. As you enter the forest unaware of your surroundings, you see orc-like creatures known as Krug jump out at you from hidden locations within the bushes. You know you must attack these creatures before you and with an iron determination quickly eliminate these enemies and then proceed further along this path. You then start hearing the faint sounds of water falling nearby, as your heart beats to the rhythm of the music provided by award winning composer Jeremy Soule, as you wonder what lies ahead of you and the source of these distant sounds. As you traverse deeper into the forest, the sounds of danger and nature itself intensify, creatures continue to attack you but you soon easily dispatch them and then the sounds of water falling rises even higher and the music soars to an even higher pitch as you are then treated to the beauty of a cascading waterfall before you, overlooking a scenic mountain ridge with a bridge in the middle and a deep chasm below. As you have just experienced, sounds will get louder or softer depending on the distance you are from them, creatures will come out at you when you least expect them, the music will come and go depending on the event occurring and then you realize that this is all due to the artistry of Chris Taylor and his team. Chris Taylor will take you from forested lands, to snowy alpine caverns, to the cliffs of fire and to so many more unique and diverse locations that have been created with special touches like I have just mentioned. This is true art, when music, graphics, and sound effects can come together to produce an intense and exciting gaming experience.

In order to understand the gameplay within Dungeon Siege you must understand the difference of this game to an RPG such as Baldur’s Gate. The designer of this game wanted to create a world that was easy to begin playing, and especially one that was easy to understand. You begin the game by customizing the look and design of your main character which does not take very long, followed by a brief introduction cutscene of the evil threatening and then within a matter of minutes from starting the game, you are in control of your character and ready to begin your adventure. The game was made to appeal to the player who did not want an epic story, wanted an easier way of leveling up their characters through three primary stat areas consisting of: Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence. Beyond the three primary stat areas there are also an additional four skill areas that you can level up, which include: Melee, Ranged, Nature and Combat magic. This level up system is very simple and unique and relies on what the player does frequently within the game to decide how your character will develop. If you tend to enjoy attacking with a bow, the level of your ranged attack will increase but only as long as you keep using that bow as your main weapon. If you begin using another weapon such as a sword instead of the bow, only the sword will begin increasing in levels and not your bow since you will not be using it anymore. The type of character you develop as well as other party members that join you is all left within your hands as they develop according to the weapons and spells that you allow them to use the most. If a party member uses combat magic the most, they will become proficient with the combat spells they use most or if you are a warrior and you use a sword often, you will become proficient in melee damage. Where other RPG’s may have relied on the player using complex systems of points to learn skills and level up, the level up system in Dungeon Siege is made simpler for the player, to reduce the frustration that other RPG’s might cause and the reason for the limited amount of stat and skill areas as well.

The interface is streamlined for ease of use and understanding as well as offering a paper doll screen for you to equip the many swords, shields, spell scrolls and other magical treasures that you might find along your journey. With all of the items one finds in an RPG game, where would we find the room to store all of these things? The designer of this game decided to add the use of donkeys, which have a huge storage capacity, because he always felt that there was never enough room to store the multitude of items a player accumulates in an RPG game. Attacking enemies is very simple and like games such as Diablo you click on the enemy that you are going to attack and proceed to begin attacking them as a health bar above them will indicate how much health they have left before they are defeated. The player also has a red health and a green mana bar that can be easily viewed on the screen that will indicate how much health or magic you have at a given time. You will gain your experience through quests given to you within the game, such as finding a certain character in an area or by completely eliminating all the enemies within an area. The quests that you are given usually involve proceeding through an area infested with many types of creatures, such as foul goblins, fierce skeleton warriors, menacing stone golems and eventually encounter mystical dragons as you continue your quest to reach the source of the evil that is threatening the land at the end. The single player campaign is divided into chapters with a main objective wrapped around smaller objectives that are usually needed to be completed before the player can proceed to the next chapter and main objective, continuing in this fashion until eventually reaching the end. Multiplayer gaming brings to the player the Utraean Peninsula campaign which can be played alone or with friends and offers its own unique storyline, quests and experiences separate from the single player campaign. Throughout the game the player can also find diverse assortments of spells such as combative ones that unleash fire or summon gargoyles to nature based spells which can provide defense or healing properties. As the weapons can be leveled up through continual use, so can the continual use of a particular spell as well. You are also able to command a party of 8 distinct characters and tailor each according to your own desires. The AI or artificial intelligence of your party members can be adjusted to how you would like to have them respond in battle, by deciding whether they will attack enemies, defend themselves, or cast some specific beneficial spells upon your entire party. Your choices and options in this game are endless as you trek across the land of Ehb.

When evaluating Dungeon Siege one must look at the things that it could have done better as we have already seen many of things it does so well. Dungeon Siege does provide an enjoyable gaming experience but it is one that could have been much better and marred by some serious flaws. This game was always known to have a very minor storyline within its 30+ hour single player campaign, with occasional books that can be picked up along the way that detail the history of the world, yet there should have been more attention given to the story. The story is so paper-thin as to only be enough to fuel the quests necessary for the player to engage in repetitive battles as they progress from one location to the next and on and on until they reach the end of the game. Due to this, many players may get tired of the excessive and long drawn-out battles that occur within underground caverns and many other areas and quit playing. There are the occasional voiced cutscenes that appear throughout the game at the end of the players current main objective and chapter. Nevertheless; this is not enough to satisfy the serious RPG gamer who desires the need for a better storyline, which does not need to be of epic length because this game does not aspire to such goals, but certainly a better storyline that will interest the player enough to keep playing would have been appreciated. Characters also seem unimportant as they are briefly introduced to your party without the player ever having the chance to get to know them better. Quests are also in need of serious attention as many of them are so simplistic in nature as to feel a chore when doing them. One quest involves retrieving a sword from an abandoned farmhouse or finding a lost person within an underground cavern. These quests are never very interesting and again like the paper-thin storyline, only serve to move the player forward to the next area that involves more enemies which you need to deal with before you can complete your current main objective. If you expect more from your RPG’s then you will not find it within this game. A game like Baldur’s Gate or Planescape Torment would be better suited for the more serious RPG gamer. If you instead enjoy RPG games that have very little story and simplistic gameplay mechanics with an abundance of quests that focus primarily on the hacking and slashing of creatures, beautiful environments, thrilling music and intense sound effects, then this is the game for you. The promise of new worlds being created by players with the Siege editor promises to add even more value to this game. Despite these flaws and while not offering the best RPG experience, Chris Taylor and his team should be complemented for this game, which excels in accomplishing what it set out to do, offering an intriguing RPG experience that is simplistic in story and gameplay, giving players the ability to enter the world of Ehb as easily and as quickly as possible!

Dungeon Siege Screenshots

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Dungeon Siege Videos

Dungeon Siege Cinematic Trailer

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Dungeon Siege Guides / Links

Dungeon Siege Wikipedia Entry

FAQ/Walkthrough