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Hey all, this is the first I've actually done this, but since I won the game and it came this morning I figured I'd put some screenshots up and give a quick review for those of you who don't have access to it yet.

First of all, here's the link to the screenshots I've done (56 currently, more soon
http://www.timbrewolf.com/ds/dungeonsiege.htm

Now a quick review:

Overview
I haven't finished the game yet, only played multiplayer briefly, and have only had it since this morning. So these are just first impressions, basically.

Overall, the game is really fantastic. If you focus on some of the smaller sections (which I will below) it breaks down a little more, but there are some fantastic graphics/effects, exciting moments, and fun fun fun gameplay that everyone will enjoy!

It's not innovative and exciting like Diablo I was. But it's also not limited and repetitive like Diablo II was. It's a mix of quality use of elements and developments previously done in other games (BG2, Diablo, even Black and White), but put together in such a way to make a game that's very rich in quality and content.

The World
The world is truly beautiful. It feels non-linear, and that's what counts. In truth, as you play it's still pretty linear (go here, bridge out? go through the crypt... then go to this city. Here's another mission, etc.). But it seems larger than that. There are certain hidden areas, side quests, etc. It's not BG2, though, so don't except to have absolute freedom (except possibly in Multiplayer). You have a direction, you have a goal, you have mini-goals to get you there.

The trees and foilage are wonderful. The cities are laid-out true-to-life, and many little enhancements truly build atmosphere. Crypts and dungeons seem dark and forboding, the wilderness seems uninhibited and lush. Waterfalls are spectacular and some of the scenery involving high vantage points are really breathtaking. But screw all that, you'll probably spend most of your time fighting for your life

The Story / Quests
The storyline unfolds as you play the game. This is really good for an RPG, because you only learn a little bit of what's going on as you talk to different characters, although you can see what's happening as you wander around the landscape. Gives it a Neverending Story type of feel.

Most of the quests and objectives are straight-forward and involve multiple steps (which you won't see until you reach an impasse). It's a simplified quest system that keeps you focused on action, since your journal consist of a one-line note and allows you to replay the original conversation (which is a nice touch).

While I hate to say that the quests aren't innovative and interesting, so far they are basically 'fight through this area and get to this place so you can talk to this person'. This may change later on, but it's still better than the Diablo II 'just run around and kill everything'. You have a purpose and the storyline promotes your character.

The Characters
Well, you get to play your main character, obviously, but you also get to play up to 7 other characters (including the pack mule). Does this make it like BG2 or the Black Isle games? Unfortunately not. While being able to hire additional characters is exciting, and makes combat a bit easier, most of them have no personality and cause plenty of difficulties. Moreso than with any of the Infinity Engine games, I wish I could just solo Dungeon Siege (with a pack mule or two).

Let me explain a little better in the section called...

Combat
This is what the game's all about, and to be perfectly honest, it's fantastic!! Well, fantastic until you bring multiple characters into it. As I progressed through the game, I had 4 characters and a pack mule. My primary character would switch between a bow and an axe. I stayed on him to focus his efforts and set everyone else to freely attack all enemies.

Except they don't, really, and when they do they're not too bright. The other warrior in my party would just stand around until something got right beside him. I changed the formation (which was troublesome, _and_ didn't really cause any difference). He acted the same. Well, my mage still attacked and my other ranged character attacked. Except that's another problem. I set my mage with four quick-weapons: staff, bow, healing spell, and zap spell. I had him set on the healing spell and whenever anyone got low on hit points, he would heal them. But if he got attacked, he'd just stand there being attacked until he could heal himself.

In other words, your characters don't automatically pick a weapon to use (much less automatically select spells from their spellbook), they don't change their weapons, sometimes they don't attack the bad guys (if you run ahead to lead the charge), and sometimes they just get themselves in trouble.

So what needs to be done to make multi-party combat work? As far as I've been able to tell: You need to pause the game when monsters come into view. Issues your orders, and let the game run until you need to change the orders. There's no auto-pause features like Infinity Engine, and the camera angles make it a pain to track and view each of your characters (especially in small areas), so basically you'll spend 15 minutes on a fight that should be done in 3.

Maybe it's just me, although I've tried a variety of things and read through the manual multiple times, but the multi-character style works well for Infinity Engine games, but poorly for Diablo-style games. We want action and character focus, not micromanagement of lower intelligent party members.

The main problem this presents, as far as I've been able to tell, is that most of the areas later in the game are designed for larger parties and don't scale down for solo players. So, like the non-linear feel of the world, you have a linear selection of stupid companions that you will probably need to figure out how to get to fight correctly later in the game.

Monsters
The monsters are fantastic looking and very unique, for the most part. The problem here is that they suffer from the same type of party members that you do, and they also have the diablo-style 'rush toward you and attack' quality.

Not that that's bad, I mean, there's only so much you can do in a combat-oriented game. They don't seek advantage positions (which is good, because it allows you to), the don't generally try to flee (although some do!). They do tend to work together sometimes... With melee fighters rushing you while ranged attackers stand behind. But they also don't have highly intelligent party members.. or maybe just bad eyesight, as they won't rush to attack you until you step over the 'invisible line'. You can't kill one monster standing next to another without them noticing, fortunately, but you can take out the permiter and slowly move in.

The impressive monsters are truly impressive, though. I've only seen a couple at this time, but the size and style are fantastic! A handful of them really put some fear into you, and they all have interesting attack styles.

Bottom Line
I'd give Dungeon Siege 4 paws (out of 5). It's original, but not innovative, and it's action packed, but sometimes frustrating. The worst aspects of the game aren't that bad if you don't focus on them and with a little effort you can work around them. But the best aspects of the game.... From the flowing, no-loading screen, beautifully landscaped world. To the adreneline pumping, arrows and swords whizzing by your head, fast paced combat, are what makes a game like this work.

Dungeon Siege succeeds in a variety of areas where others haven't. It brings a touch of role-playing to an action-oriented game. It seems large and non-linear, although it has to be linear by it's action-oriented design. It adds skills that increase by use to allow pure customization of your character. And builds an atmosphere unlike anything else you've played (although not as immersive as something like BG2, which was pure RPG).

It's almost perfect. Almost, because the multi-character AI makes it nearly impossible to take advantage of spellcasting, unless you primarily play the spell caster so you can select different spells. Or unless you want to pause the game every couple of seconds to make individual orders.

It'll be interesting to see how Neverwinter Nights handles multi-character parties in their 3D engine since the primary problem of pausing to issue orders in Dungeon Siege is caused be difficult camera switching. In the Infinity Engine, you could easily scroll around and see your characters, but in Dungeon Siege you can only move the character on individuals. So you have to select them, _then_ move the camera around to get a better view.

Well, enough of my rambling Take a look at my screenshots at http://www.timbrewolf.com/ds/dungeonsiege.htm and I'll try to post more later!

Timbrewolf

PS - If anyone else has played the game much and has some insight into working with the multiple characters better, please let me know. I don't mean to harp on a good game for some single issues, but it becomes frustrating to have a full party and end up fighting alone

First off, @Timbrewolf, thanks a lot for the detailed game review. It gave quite a bit of info, which is great. As for questions--

The world is truly beautiful. It feels non-linear, and that's what counts. In truth, as you play it's still pretty linear (go here, bridge out? go through the crypt... then go to this city. Here's another mission, etc.). But it seems larger than that. There are certain hidden areas, side quests, etc. It's not BG2, though, so don't except to have absolute freedom (except possibly in Multiplayer). You have a direction, you have a goal, you have mini-goals to get you there.

Do you have the option to consider, say, eight or nine potential quests in your logs at the same time, sort of like the second chapter in BG2?

Party problms

Their is always a tugawar betwen a desire to micro manage and a live and let live attatude for the party members. The way this game is built offers a way out. Its a data driven! So when the editor comes out just use it to replace the 6 party members with wolves! thats right your own pack of fellow lil Timbers! And since you can change all party behavors useing notepad you can set the wolvs to attak or defend how ever you want to. This will keep the story balanced and at the same time allow you to play with one main persona, that is what i prefer. I still rember BG, I was so ready to off that winey little child they stuck me with, but the game would not allow me totake on CE chrtrs. What BS! opps off track!.... any way the editor comes out in May so you are gonna have to deal-WI till then...out

Cool shots

Thanks for the cool screens and the initial review. I'm counting down the days before I can get in and do some hacking myself.

Thanks for the replies

Sorry it took so long for me to write back but I've been busy playing

Fable, I haven't seen anything in single player or multiplayer that allows you to have multiple quests in your log like BG2. You can have multiple quests, but they're usually the same objected (get to the next city by going through caverns and all). So it's not really heavy RPG like BG2, it's much more action/rpg like Diablo.

But, I did want to update my early review now that I've had a chance to spend a great deal of time in the multiplayer section of the game. Multiplayer is fantastic (with the exception that you can't get a pack mule
It eliminates all the bad elements of the game, and the multiplayer continent is absolutely incredible. You really have to see this place. You spend most of your time moving from one town to the next (which takes a number of hours later on). There are signs throughout that tell you how far it is to the next town, and your travels will take you from putrid swamps, through mountain apexes, over grasslands, deep into goblin caverns, and further!

It's a remarkable experience that really feels much more like PnP RPGs even though it's much more action oriented... The adventure is there 100%! You strive for every mile and the closer you get to town, the better you feel. The towns are a good payoff too, not only a intermittent stopping point to regroup, but equipment that varies from one town to the next is vast and surprising. Every time I think 'Man, I have the absolute best equipment out there', you'll find something better

Especially the Goblin Caves. I'm not going to say anything, but they show a real diversity of the engine and what could be done with this game once the Siege Editor is released.

My multiplayer character is like 40th level now (Master Sharpshooter... I like Ranged And my single character is about 12th level. Once you get a feel for the game and tweak your party, all of the problems I mentioned earlier can be resolved without too much difficulty.

The only elements that are detractors from the game, in my opinion, are the single player party AI (or lack thereof), the inability to buy pack mules in multiplayer (minor, but I don't understand why they don't just let the mule follow whoever bought it if they were concerned about 'control' of the pack mule), and sometimes the camera. The camera and 3D engine are really fantastic, but sometimes it can be frustrating. When you walk into a house/cave and the camera moves to an almost top-down position to avoid sticking you behind something. When you're back against the wall and the camera is basically right behind you. And some sections that don't go transparent in front of the camera. To be honest, the sections that don't go transparent are generally entrances to house or caves. So it may be a design issue that they tend to populate entrances to caves with monsters so you get a bad camera angle instead of putting the monsters 20' inside the cave.

I'm working on developing a site that will focus on development of dungeon siege siegelets once the Siege Editor is released along with a few other things. Possibly some strategy guides and information I've learned. I also have a slew of new, and much more diverse screenshots I'll post here soon!

After playing for hours on end, I believe that Dungeon Siege may not only be a fantastic game, one of the best in its style to come out since the original Diablo. But it may also complement, not compete, with Neverwinter Nights. If NWN offers more detailed focus on RPG elements and storyline development, it can easily pick up where DS lacks. But when it comes to beautifully diverse landscapes, with huge intimidating monsters that fight you to the bloody end, Dungeon Siege has the market.

TW

Sounds like it competes directly with IWD, then, being more of a dungeon crawl than a CRPG. Not that this is bad at all, but it doesn't really sound like a CRPG game, or like an action title, such as Diablo. NWN, on the other hand, is supposed to a CRPG--or so at least Bioware was saying a couple of years ago. We'll see, soon enough.

Multi-character?

I've played the game a bit since it came out. I thought the multi character AI was pretty good. It was much better then the game Summoner, where the characters stood around even when they got hit. ....

Timberwolf, have you tried setting the characters AI's ? I thought by selecting them to move about freely ( and in agressive mode), they actually went and attacked the enemies, but sometimes they would need provoking though. Right now, i have my main character as a bowlady, the scribe girl as a sorceress with her zap, and sometimes i'd let her swing a club, the nostalgic ex-catapult collector as my main melee dude, my Packmule (cost: 995 gold coins !!!, almost as much as the Wizard for hire which I didn't hire cause I was greedy) and now I just recruited the short irish dwarf ( no really! he works in a mine too).

Maybe their field of vision is less then ours, even though there was an enemy close by it won't attack the creature until that creature strays close enough and shoots something at my character. It's a lot more fun if you set all your characters to their most "agressive" state.

I really like the option in which you can set your primary character to attack units on their own which kinda takes away at the redundancy of point click and chop, point click click click and chop. Some people don't like this because now you're taking away at the control of the character and its now become "lazy playing", best comparison would probably be a Summoning Necromancer from D2. I haven't played enough of it, and I don't know enough of it to give any more details of the game. ......


But itz a fun game, anyways: Does anyone know how to attack without moving? You know? like the shift key from D2 ?

Anyone know where I could get strategical help too? ... I have no knowledge in the game and I don't want to totally mess up my characters !


Poop on you !!!!

Great review, Timbrewolf!

I'm really eager to get this game, amazon.de currently says it will be in my mailbox around April 18th. Being a great fan of Total Annihilation (Chris Taylor's first big game project) I'm somewhat sure that the editing possibilities will carry this game far beyond anything we know from Diablo and it's followers. Fan communities have created whole races, terrifying mods and fearsome AIs for TA over the years and I think it will be the same with DS.

Popoo -

Yeah, I set my characters to the most aggressive stance and it's still not the best AI. If you set it to aggressive, they actually join the fight sometimes, but usually they just chance some stupid monster and bring back a whole pack of them

Also, I think you can right-click a target to hold your ground as you attack. May not work on melee if they're far away, but I haven't had a problem with that and didn't need to use it much.

Also, to an extent I found a way around the party AI issue by reducing my party (I primarily use ranged and melee up close) and getting a wizard that can use nature magic (keep him set on healing hands and he'll auto-heal you no matter how far you are from him) and a battle magic wizard. This works best, in my opinion, because the wizard spells have a bit of range and they'll actually attack anything within that range. So with spells, he'll attack monsters even if they don't hit him first. Plus, they don't run off and activate a thousand monsters to come rushing me.

TW