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Role Playing (Games)

Review: Dungeon Siege II 300

Posted by Zonk from the if-hacking-and-slashing-are-wrong-i-don't-want-to-be-right dept.
Like most of the games that Blizzard has produced, the original Diablo laid down many of the rules for the hack and slash adventure genre. Followers of the Diablo design have been numerous, but few have been as well received as 2002's Dungeon Siege. The sequel, imaginatively named Dungeon Siege II, follows faithfully in the footsteps of the original fantasy RPG from Gas Powered Games. Solid, satisfying combat and a worthwhile storyline mark this solid genre title. Read on for my impressions of this medieval slasher.
  • Title: Dungeon Siege II
  • Developer: Gas Powered Games
  • Publisher: Microsoft Games
  • System: PC
  • Reviewer: Zonk
  • Score: 7/10
If you've ever played a fantasy hack and slash game, you've played Dungeon Siege II. This double edged sword swings heavily. On the one hand, you'll be familiar with the tropes, the controls, and the expectations. On the other, if you know you don't like hack and slashers you can safely avoid DSII without missing out on content you might have otherwise appreciated. That said, if you do enjoy the genre there is a lot to like here.

The first Dungeon Siege was widely hailed for its combination of strategy elements and party based combat. Dungeon Siege II doesn't mess with a good thing. As a mercenary far from home, you begin the game working for a powerful evil force that is just starting to work its way across the land. As with the original title, characters develop abilities by using them. If you want your main character to be a melee fighter, you equip him with a sword and start him swinging. If you want him to be a combat mage you put a spellbook in his hands and let him blast away. During the course of the adventure, you can recruit other hearty travelers to round out other roles in your party. As with your main character, you control their inventory and can thus guide their ability development. Though this may initially seem like a system with possibilities to exploit you quickly realize the "multiclassing" capabilities are limited. While you can give a spellcaster a sword to swing around, you're going to want to focus each character on a particular set of abilities in order to maximize their power. Unlockable critical powers are revealed with higher levels of specialization as well, giving you very little incentive to have jacks-of-all-trades.

Those critical powers are used when your characters enter combat. Combat is a major focus of the game, and while there isn't a lot of innovation here the hacking and slashing is very satisfying. Holding down the mouse button on an opponent tells your main character to go to town. NPC allies can be given instructions to focus their attacks on your target, or put into a spree mode where they'll cut down anything that moves. Combat moves for both melee fighters and spellcasters have a lot of crunch to them. Opponents are dispatched with zeal, explosions of blood and body parts accompanying your victory. While the makers of the Dungeon Siege series have a background in RTS games, there isn't really a whole lot of strategy involved once the axes start falling. As long as you've got all the characters equipped with the best weapons and spells you could find or purchase, the chaos of battle will mostly run itself. The downside to this is that it's very hard to protect your weaker NPC allies. Magic users in particular fare badly, as the monsters all known the "geek the mage first" addage. In large combats you'll almost certainly be waiting on your spellcaster to regenerate from the large holes that have been ripped in his thinking parts. Additionally, while the entertainment value of new critters to kill is high, the combat mechanic never really changes and thus can get old in a hurry.

Combatting creatures, as always, nets you experience which eventually allows your party to level up. Depending on what they use in combat, you are given several options in a skill tree for ways to focus their advancement. While multi-classing is again not the best idea, each character has available all the different skill trees. Using the weapon type appropriate to each tree nets you skill points for that tree. For example, using a bow nets you a skill point for the Ranged Tree after a sufficient time spent in the field. Within the trees you are given several options to customize your adventurer's attacks. Melee fighters can specialize in one handed weapons with a shield, or can go the path of the strongman and wield a two handed weapon. Combat mages can focus on different elements (fire, electricity, etc.), while ranged combatants can focus on crossbows or throwing axes. Given the limited number of allies you can have, this ability to focus their abilities is crucial to ensuring that you have party roles fulfilled to your satisfaction.

Combat and mechanics are all well and good, but roleplaying games should be about storytelling. Questing and story are always important elements to a roleplaying game (though in this case I use the term lightly), and in this respect Dungeon Siege II manages to break a little ways out of the cookie cutter mold much of the rest of the game adheres to. Starting your career as an adventurer in a Dryad prison is hardly an auspicious start, but from there you are swept up into fight against your former employer, a wielder of a deadly dangerous artifact from an older era. Aside from the main quest pushing you ever outward into the world at large, folks you meet along the way have a series of errands and personal vendettas to settle up. While they're the usual "i can't be bothered to go five minutes down the road" type of RPG sidequests, the writing and voice acting are usually fairly well done. This adds a level of personality and polish to the experience that many other games can't touch. Additionally, the game isn't shy about giving you quests some time before you can complete them, giving you time to consider you objectives and watch out for the opportunity before you can actually fulfill the request. The only real frustration with the game's theming is the vanilla nature of your NPC allies. They occasionally stop to have prescripted interactions between themselves, and those are well done and usually amusing to listen to. You'll never grow that attached to your companions because they simply don't have a lot in the way of soul. The blank faces of DS II can't hold a candle to the likes of Minsc or HK-47.

The game is somewhat lacking in personality when it comes to visual presentation as well. Up close, characters and monsters have a likeable roughness, with interesting details and personality coming to the fore. Pul back to keep track of the action, however, and the somewhat dated graphical look of Dungeon Siege II is readily apparent. There are some blocky elements to characters which stand out at a distance, and environmental textures can become somewhat repetitive. On the positive side effects for special attacks and magical combat add the same visceral quality to the game that the melee combat movements do, with sparks of light and fire limning the field of battle during most engagements. The auditory experience has the same quality, grunts and cries adding a first person experience to what could otherwise be dry hacking and slashing. The musical accompaniment is as successful in augmenting the gaming experience without overwhelming the player with its presence. The music itself has a similarity to the musical experience from the first game, but somehow didn't come off as repetition. The orchestrations are different enough that the feeling evoked is one of remembrance rather than ripoff, and works well within the gameworld.

Dungeon Siege II, then, is a competent hack and slash RPG. Built on the Diablo 2 model and paying close attention to the lessons learned from the original title, the sequel to the 2002 hit is a satisfying gaming experience if you're a fan of spilling orc blood. Combat, story, and questing are all well executed, with an eye towards presentation and visceral feel. Even though the game hews very close to the genre standard, the entertaining and visceral combat gameplay can make this a worthwhile addition to your library. If you're looking for some mindless fantasy fun, Dungeon Siege II will provide.

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Review: Dungeon Siege II More

Review: Dungeon Siege II

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  • Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bryan Ischo ( 893 ) * on Friday September 02, 2005 @02:47PM (#13465558) Homepage
    The review doesn't describe *any* differences between DS2 and DS1. Which I guess is OK since DS1 was fun already.

    DS1 was a very easy game. You don't have to aim or exercise much skill, you just have to follow along as the game more or less plays itself. As long as you don't stray too far outside of the realm that you are supposed to be in at any given point in your character's development, the creatures around you will be easy to kill and will provide more than enough experience to quickly level up and move on to harder creatures (which aren't really harder at all since your character is now more capable). It's repetitive but satisfying.

    By far the most fun I had with DS1 was when playing multiplayer with my friend, when we would purposefully move early out into harder areas and try to figure out how to, using cooperation, kill creatures that would be far too difficult for either one of us to kill on our own. Usually the strategy involved having one character be chased around while the other laid into the creature, and then switching roles, until the creature was dead. Sometimes we could lure creatures into spots where they couldn't hit us but we could hit them (like from a ledge above them), which was fun too.

    I personally much prefer games where you have to aim and dodge to games where you don't, but the DS series is still fun. I just wish these games didn't cost $50, or take so long (years) to drop down to lower prices.

    • I played the original hoping it would fill in the blanks of Diablo 2. I found it extremely boring. The character develop as a consequence of what action they happen to be ordered to repeat. Shoot a bow, become better at shooting a bow. Swing a sword, etc.

      Well I downloaded the demo and found the game really hasn't changed much. You walk down a predetermined path fighting, casting, and drinking potions over and over again. The leveling doesn't feel special. Just a ++ to your weapon or skills. And speaking o

      • Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I (Score:5, Insightful)

        by schon ( 31600 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:20PM (#13465829)
        The problem I had with DS1 was that playing it involved the following steps:

        1. move forward a little bit along the predefined path until the hiding monsters run out at you.
        2. kill the monsters.
        3. goto 1.

        If you strayed from this (say by moving forward too fast) you activate too many hiding monsters, and they kill you.

        Why does *every* monster have to be hiding [in the bushes|behind a boulder|in a crevasse] waiting to ambush you?

        The only reason I played DS1 to the end was because I couldn't believe that they'd actually make a game *that* boring - exactly the same pattern over and over, and I was hoping that things would change. I got to the final boss (a dragon, IIRC) I couldn't believe that the game was over.
      • I agree with the "plays itself" notion. I used the same exact tactic for every fight and it worked every time in their linear world. D2 kicked the shit out of DS1 because the mobs had varied behavior and what worked on one type of mobs may fail miserably on another type. The Gas Powered Games people just can't seem to get that an action adventure game shouldn't "play itself". Once again, D2, as old as it is, still kicks the competition's ass. How sad is that?
      • When me and my friend started playing DS 1 we were pretty excited. It seemed really cool at first. Shortly after that the boring-ness set in.
        DS 1 is one of a handful of games I have actually fallen asleep while playing.
        I really WANTED to enjoy the game as I am a big fan of the genre, having spent countless hours with games such as Sword of Fargoal, Rogue, Diablo and Neverwinter Nights.

      • Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I (Score:5, Interesting)

        by SpryGuy ( 206254 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @04:25PM (#13466297)
        I'm with you. I've played through Diablo 2 (and its expansion pack) numerous times. I love that game. It's very satisfying.

        I bought Dungeon Siege 1, and found it to be tedious and dull beyond believe. I never finished it. I doubt I even made it half-way. I've never had any desire to pick it up again.

        Quite unlike Diablo 2, which I still play from time to time.

        I doubt I'll be giving Dungeon Siege 2 much of a look, given this review.
    • I didn't like DS1's multiplayer at all. I loved DS1 because you could control a party; but in multiplayer you only control a single character!

      And when it came to playing a single character, DS1 felt like a crappy, feature limited version of Diablo. I don't remember exactly what it was that made it feel like that, but I remember feeling like there was very little to do in combat compared to D2.

      I hope they've done something interesting with DS2's multiplayer.
      • DSII multiplayer does allow control of multiple 'parties' up to 3 players per party (or so it seems). However, I have had a number of problems getting the multiplayer (LAN) to work correctly on a regular basis. The issue seems to be that there is no effective error reporting when attempting to host a game, so you end up in black-screen mode when an error does occur with no idea why.
    • My friends and I thought it was fun until we realized early on that the winning solution was to buy as many health/mana potions as you could carry and use them instead of anyone actually developing any support roles. We soon were able to get so much money in the game that we all had godlike equipment. After that, it wasn't so interesting.
      • solution" is. A game becomes more fun when you dicipline yourself. Try playing in a way that you get bashed less so you use less potions. Don't buy that shiny new weapon when you can get by with what you have no matter how many times over your wallet can buy that new equipment.
        • wow, excellent advice! Let's not bother with develeopping good, challenging games anymore. Let's train the players to adjust their gameplay so that the game will last a bit longer. What did you use to do with in the old days when an arcade game was too easy? Will your hand/eye coordination to be worse? on second thought that might still work on some games nowadays
    • I personally much prefer games where you have to aim and dodge to games where you don't, but the DS series is still fun. I just wish these games didn't cost $50, or take so long (years) to drop down to lower prices.

      I got a copy at Fry's for $35 - within a week of it hitting the shelves. I saw one other ad for a $35 copy.

    • Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I (Score:5, Informative)

      by 0xABADC0DA ( 867955 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:32PM (#13465907)
      The review is totally bogus. The voice acting is completely absurd... it appears to have been aimed at 10-year-olds. For a 1.5 gb game demo I expect some decent graphics, but they were basically crap. I think the graphics are even worse than the original; they certainly have had no improvement at all except for a few pixel shaders that look out of place with the 100-polygon models. Games from 2001 (like Giants Citizen Kabuto) had more detailed character models! Another annoying thing from the first game is not being able to pan the camera past 30-degrees (you can't ever look into the distance). This is ridiculously irritating, but it's a limitation imposed so you won't see that there is no 3rd world, just a 3d path.

      What is really annoying about this game is that there is exactly one story. You participate in countless dialog, but you only have one thing to say. Sometimes you can say it two ways, or have choices that have zero bearing on anything (contrast to Neverwinter Nights where lots of your dialog choices have consequences later on). Then there's the one path you can take through the entire game (there's no exploring).

      Also, of course they want you to specialize your party by class; then later in the game they have an 'ambush' where the dudes attack your weak mage, and that's basically the entire challenge of the game. This game blows, I wouldn't even recommend playing the demo because it's pretty sad.
    • I'm about three quarters of the way through this game. I'm still wondering where the dungeons are; I don't think I'm going to find them anytime soon -- much less siege them.

      That and I'd really like to know why my 'Pack Mule' pet has 156 intelligence and I only have 154.
    • A few friends and I picked up DS1 specifically to play in a LAN. We actually spent the whole weekend playing it, but really wish we had something else.
      First off, the game didn't scale well to 6 players. It seems that the only thing which changes is the Hit Points of the enemies. e.g. Every enemy had a zillion HP. This was fine for the fighter types, as they could just put their character in attack mode and wait while they chopped down the enemy. For those of us who went the magic user route, it was an

  • What a terrible review. (Score:5, Informative)

    by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Friday September 02, 2005 @02:48PM (#13465567)
    I'm not trying to troll here, so let's forget for a moment that the
    article clearly wasn't spellchecked, that the grammar and
    capitilzation are terrible, and that the poor punctuation makes many
    of the sentences mean things that were clearly not intended (or at
    least not correct).

    The big problem here is that this review doesn't tell us anything
    about the game! Sure, combat and graphics. Nice. What about the menus?
    The story? It only had one word about the story. Items, and item
    creation? Is the UI frustrating? Does the game crash? Does it have
    multi-player? Co-op?

    Please, Zonk, if you're reading these comments (seems dubious, but
    if..), tell us what it's like to play this game!
    • Don't forget to check back in a few days for the dupe^W update to this review...
    • Here's a pocket review. Two of the cheats for DS II are reportedly the following:

      Teleport ... +bushsux-oluaowr
      Silver ring ... +iraqsux-eszaryz

      Some folks may decide this sort of thing is worth rewarding, some may decide it's worth avoiding, and some may decide it's not important either way. I merely report for the edification of potential purchasers.

    • It's all wrong anyway. The first game was prized for its strategy? Uh, did you PLAY the first game, Zonk? The first game was 25 hours of clicking on the screen with the mouse. It didn't really matter where you clicked, you just clicked. The game was dull as hell, and after enduring its boringness, there's no way I'd buy the sequel.
  • One of the key things about Diablo II was the ability to play it online. Can you do that with this game?
    • Speaking of Diablo II, I want to replay that game again on extremely Hi-Resolution. Is there a hack to make that happen?

      • Diablo 2 is based on pre-rendered bitmap graphics and sprites. Only some of the special effects take advantage of 3D cards. What this means is that the low res graphics would not scale up well to a different resolution.
    • Not in the way you can with Diablo II. You are limited to three modes:

      2 Player, where you can have 3 party members.
      3 Player, where you can have 2 party members.
      and 6 player, where you can have 1 party member, your main hero.

      The multiplayer experience is almost identical to the single player experience, it's just that you all share quests and quest items. Lots of fun at LANs, but I doubt it'd be very entertaining online with people you don't know.
  • Screenshots? Zonk, you shouldn't have.. when did slashdot get the bandwidth for that!?

  • Yawn (Score:3, Insightful)

    by popo ( 107611 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @02:56PM (#13465629) Homepage

    This review tries to make it sound like the game is good... but I can't help noticing that it succeeds in exactly the opposite.

    "Diablo model"? (How old is Diablo now?)

    "Very close to Dungeon Seige I"? (DS I was good but that was years ago.)

    Those games are both archaic at this point when we have WOW and other MMORPGS, the game needs to offer something that those other games don't. Storyline? NPC's? FMV Cutscenes? Depth of character development? Thousands of rare items a la BGII?

    I don't know if it was this review, but the game sounds positively retro.

    • Re:Yawn (Score:2, Interesting)

      by DrMrLordX ( 559371 )
      Retro games aren't necessarily bad. If there's a lot of raw "fun" factor to them, there can be replayability, etc.

      Sadly, Dungeon Seige I wasn't that great, and it had major problems scaling well at high levels. XP rewards were totally off, spells were messed up, etc. Totally unacceptable from a single-player game.

  • Why do you keep talking about Diablo? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rufusdufus ( 450462 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @02:58PM (#13465645)
    the original Diablo laid down many of the rules for the hack and slash adventure genre

    This is totally incorrect. Diablo is a direct rip-off of Rogue and its many clones including NetHack. All Diablo brought to the table was evolutionary graphics.

    • True but Diablo was the first game in this genre to bring it "to the masses", so to speak, let alone integrate all the graphics and sounds and such.
      • It was a bit more than that. You see, when Diablo came out, multiplayer gaming had been around for quite a while (around twenty years, in fact), and people who were playing multiplayer CRPGs were playing them on services like Compuserve - where you dialed directly into the server itself.

        The Internet was released to the public around 1992/3, and the first thing that companies like Compuserve did was ignore it. Sad but true. It took the small ISPs making money hand over fist to actually make the larger s
    • Diablo is a direct rip-off of Rogue and its many clones including NetHack. All Diablo brought to the table was evolutionary graphics.

      And clicking! Can't forget the clicking!

      OH! A pallette shifted *BLUE* skeleton! That's new; I've only killed the Red, Yellow, and Brown skeletons up till now!

      CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK.
      Take that Blue skeleton!

      In all seriousness, I find diablo's interface a little easier to use than NetHack's. Did Rogue/Nethack even have plot much less quests and

      • Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by scribblej ( 195445 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:40PM (#13465974)
        Haaa... yes, way too much clicking in Diablo.

        As a long time fan of Nethack, Angband and even Rogue, I'd like to point out the most critical difference. Rogue, Nethack, and all it's ilk are turn-based. Diablo is real time. It makes a huge difference. In Nethack you can spend a long time sitting in one spot debating whether you're going to try an unknown potion or scroll and possibly die. In Diablo if you spend a long time thinking, you *will* die.

        Not to mention the multiplayer... I have yet to see a Roguelike with decent multiplayer.

        Also, it' snot really fair to call Diablo a "ripoff" as the grandparent does. The designers of Diablo give a LOT of credit to Nethack for their inspiration. I think they did a great job.

        I still play Nethack more though.

        • Oh, forgot to respond to your question. Nethack has a few NPCs, such as the shopkeepers. There's not much dialogue to speak of, unless you count the shopkeepers talking to themselves, or getting seduced by a succubus or something... and there ARE quests, plural, though not as many as in a game of Diablo.

          Rogue, aside from the overall quest to get the Amulet of Yendor, didn't have any of the above as far as I can recall. It's been a long time.

        • Diablo built on the game structure outlined by much, much earlier games such as Rogue, Hack, Nethack, Larn, Angband, Sword of Fargoal etc. Now these were all turn based, but there were a couple of early efforts to bring this type of game to a more action oriented real time style of play. The most famous is of course the arcade game Gauntlet, which stripped out almost all of the little details of the previous game, focusing instead on a heavily action oriented arcade game play.
          Another early attempt that com
      • You want plot and quests in a Rogue-like? Try ADOM. Available from http://www.adom.de/ [www.adom.de]

        There are two features of Rogue-like games I'd like to see implemented in modern hack-and-slashes:

        (1) The ability to die without being a moron.
        Seriously, unless you try to screw up, most hack n slash games are a breeze. I haven't played a single one where there is fear of what's behind the corner, the difficulty is always tailored to the strength of your character. There's nothing quite like worrying about y
      • Well yeah they do have 1 main quest per class, there is a plot, and for talking enemies, most inteligent enemies will say something to you when you #chat with them, though it only serves to get feedback on their health sometimes, there are some that affect more gameplay like:
        • Shopkeepers: Talk to them to buy sell or try to calm them(ie: bribe them) if you robbed them in the past.
        • Temple priests: Can give you buffs for money.
        • The oracle: Will tell you many tricks useful to know in the game, and also will
    • Sure, and Warcraft wasn't the first RTS, Everquest wasn't the first MMORPG, and, hell, Tolkein wasn't the first author to talk about elves. All of those still "laid down many of the rules" that their respective genres continue to follow. I've logged thousands of hours in ZAngband, so I know where you're coming from, but Dungeon Siege (and the rest of the post-Diablo hack-and-slash explosion) aren't ripping off Roguelikes, they're ripping off Diablo.
      • Whatever. The Norse totally ripped off the idea for trolls from Tolkein. Though on the other hand, Tolkein totally ripped the idea of a bad-ass villain with a lesser, but still bad-ass minion who used to be on the side of good from Lucas.
    • Ridiculous. That's like saying King's Quest is a direct ripoff of Zork.

  • You can download the demo.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by oliverthered ( 187439 ) <oliverthered@hotmail. c o m> on Friday September 02, 2005 @02:58PM (#13465650) Journal
    You can download the demo from here [gaspowered.com] a review the game for yourself.

    Hopefully I can get it working under wine!

  • the only bad thing is.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by xot ( 663131 ) <fragiledeath&gmail,com> on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:00PM (#13465666) Journal
    that this game is so close to being Diablo 2 that you always find something missing.Its the closest that come to D2 which in my opinion is the best RPG ever. People who have played D2 will like this game and find it very easy to play.Unlike Neverwinter Nights the DS I was very fast paced.So for everyone who like fast paced RPG(lots of spells n magic) go for this one!
    • People who have played D2 will like this game and find it very easy to play.

      Actually, I didn't, and the same goes for the majority of the community of 9,757 registered members that I'm part of. ;-) We have about 5-10 people I know are interested in the game.

      It just feels like a game lacking spirit and attention to detail to me. It doesn't even look good for being a game of 2005. Compare DS2 to Guild Wars in that department. And when you dig deeper in its actual gameplay, it's DS1 all over with a few tweaks

  • I'm a nerd (Score:3, Funny)

    by toad3k ( 882007 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:00PM (#13465668)
    I feel like such a nerd for knowing who minsc and hk-47 are.

  • I called it Diablo 2.5 (Score:4, Informative)

    by Eugene ( 6671 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:06PM (#13465720) Homepage
    the game plays a lot more like Diablo2 then Original Dungeon Siege. Although Dungeon Siege 1 copied some element from D2, Dungeon Siege 2 took A LOT MORE from D2.

    Skill points, even the graphics and description looks like D2.

    Teleporter system

    Magical, Rare, Set, and Unique items

    Town stash

    game difficulty system

    if you are D2 fan, you'll spot a lot of similarities..

    of course, the game has put a lot more then just copying D2, the party fighting, enchantment system, summoning, and special powers are all pretty good.

    Graphics is pretty good, but I like the , and I have decent framerate with my AMD 1700+ with ATI 9600XT. so hardware requirement isn't too bad.

    the game do have a lot of bugs though, hopefully the next patch will solve the majority of the problem, such as adding party members and various scripting bug.

    my most disappointment is the network play, which only allow maximum of 4 players to join a single game(I have more friends). and there's no way to play IP based game (to prevent pirated copy going online?). however LAN based game is possible, and I know you can trick the game to use Hamachi to play LAN over internet.

  • My own mini-review (Score:3, Informative)

    by Muerte23 ( 178626 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:08PM (#13465735) Journal
    I have found that while DS1 was more like the SSI type DnD games, DS2 is *much* more like Diablo 2. The craziest lacking thing is the ability to control single characters. So you can't make a picket line and send one guy to pull the baddies in. It's either "everyone do what i click" (mirror mode) or "everyone kinda do what i click" (rampage mode).

    It's taken almost ALL of the strategy away, but the result is much faster paced combat, including massive explosions and lots of gibs.

    Instead of runes (ala D2), there are Reagents which an NPC can enchant into enchantable items. But these reagents are typically not so powerful compared to the set based and uniqe items. Some of which are pretty awe-inspiring.

    One new feature (?) is the autocast section in the spellbooks. Each mage may have 2 spells (not direct fire ones, more like curses or monster summons) that automatically cast at appropriate times.

    The super-linear plotline and map is kind of annoying after playing so much D2 with a more area-based (vs linear) approach, but the maps are nice.

    However, I have not seen the same beautiful landscapes that actually sometimes wowed me in DS1.

    Anyways, the game was a good buy. It's super long, and some of the sub-missions are pretty cool.

    m
    • I finished the game, and I agree with your points. The gameplay is very long (especially if you're a pack rat like myself who tries to complete every set of armor and refuses to sell "Unique" items :)).

      The lack of single PC control got annoying at times. There is a certain point in the game where one party member has to run into a room to activate something and another member has to stay near another control. Doing this in DS2 required "Rampage" mode and directly clicking the items in question so that peopl

  • Tedium ad nausium (Score:3, Interesting)

    by B5_geek ( 638928 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:11PM (#13465754)
    I very much enjoyed the original DS. I loved how the game allowed you to advance based on how you play.

    BUT...

    After 20 hours it gets damn annoying to smash every crate and check the loot to find the good upgrades. I would have preferred fewer crates with more 'valuable' goods in them. After finding my 200th Robe of Defence +1 it gets annoying.

    Advancing your character: one fun trick that I found at later levels;

    Set your healer to auto-heal himself & you, never attack. Have your character start roaming in an area of low-power bad-guys auto-attacking everything he sees with the weapon you want to increase in power.

    Let the game play itself for a few days, and your player & healer have both leveled up 10+ levels.

    • Better trick -- (Score:3, Interesting)

      by oneiros27 ( 46144 )
      In the swamps area, there are 'Swamp Hags' who will summon creatures that attack the party -- they are the most valuable creatures in the game, if done right:
      1. Tell everyone in your party to not attack.
      2. Save the game. (we might want to come back if we mess this up)
      3. Set one or two of your party members to cast healing spells. (they'll do it automatically.)
      4. Take the character that the hag is attacking (we'll call him 'bait'), and have him stand away from the rest of the group.
      5. Set the other members to not ad

      • Re:Better trick -- (Score:3, Insightful)

        by TobyWong ( 168498 )
        You might as well just use a trainer if you are going to engage in that level of metagaming. Either you're a purist who wants to play it through completley the way it was intended, or you are the IDDQD type in which case save yourself the time and trouble and just use a trainer.

  • This is a reveiw of Dungeon Siege I. DSII is only mentioned in passing. I mean, come on! :)

  • Guild Wars -- a better alternative to DS2? (Score:5, Informative)

    by IronChefMorimoto ( 691038 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:15PM (#13465785)
    I don't play fantasy games often. RPGs, MMORPGs, etc. Just has never been fun.

    I did, however, LOVE Diablo2. I loved playing 8 hours straight with some friends in a LAN game. So much fun.

    I recently was asked by one of those friends to try out Guild Wars, which I incorrectly thought at the time was a pay-to-play MMORPG. From what I've read, and since I've played the game for nearly 90 hours now as a complete novice, it's more of an online RPG that (a) doesn't cost you monthly to play but (b) doesn't include the limitless exploration and community building that you might expect from World of Warcraft.

    DIFFERENCES FROM DIABLO2

    First off, you have to log in online to play Guild Wars -- kind of annoying if you're not used to online RPGs, but you do get instant updates. I hated having to keep up with updates in Diablo2 -- since I didn't play anything but LAN games, so I never did the Battle.net thing.

    Secondly, you have total control over your PoV in Guild Wars. I love being able to go first person to see things up high and then pan around a raging battle.

    Third, and this is why you want the PoV -- THE GRAPHICS ARE INCREDIBLE!!! The rendering isn't all that sophisticated from what I've read, but they use software anti-aliasing (???) to really add a "fantasy" look/feel to the game. The environments, although not limitless, are terrifically rendered. I probably spent my first 10 hours looking around at stuff. Waterfalls, leaves, etc. are all nice touches to the gaming world.

    Fourth -- when you play online with folks, you cand do it 2 ways -- in a questing mode OR in a PvP mode. I haven't touched the PvP mode, but you always know it's going on. There are constant updates in the chat area of the screen indicating a win for Europe or a win for America. It's intriguing, but not really enough to interest me in trying it out yet.

    Finally, when you online with folks, you don't have to "share" an entire world/area like you do with World of Warcraft (correct me if that's wrong). You instance out an area of the world and take you and your designated party with you. Basically, they've negated the chances of you entering, as in Diablo2, the world, stepping out of town, and having some high level player go hostile on you and kill you for your stuff. I think this also helps them keep server/hosting costs down -- and this means you DO NOT PAY MONTHLY FOR ACCESS TO THE GAME!

    BIG DIFFERENCES FROM DIABLO2

    The BIGGEST aspect of this game that is different from me, since I've only played Diablo2 pretty religiously before, is the whole crafting of armor/weapons aspect.

    Basically, if you had crap in Diablo2 that got dropped, you could sell it for armor and weapons.

    In Guild Wars, you gotta salvage stuff you can't wear/use, make raw materials, and then you go to crafters who make stuff from the raw materials. Armor is crafted by default, I think -- you can't pick it up and use it normally on the battlefield.

    Weapons can be crafted, but you have a better chance of getting weapons in battle -- I have only crafted like 1 weapon since I started playing.

    What does this mean in terms of gameplay? You have to customize EVERYTHING you use. You can't sell armor (at all) and customized weapons. They only work for you.

    I do like that they have RUNES in Guild Wars, and you can buy these when you advance to the REAL storyline after the intro quests. Unlike the runes in Diablo2, however, you can only insert runes you buy or find (from salvaged enemy armor) into your own customized armor. And the runes are specific to your primary character class. Thankfully, you can salvage runes you've used in armor whenever you go to upgrade -- as opposed to losing them in Diablo if you want to sell a weapon that's been "runed."

    Character class, by the way, is a duality in Guild Wars. You pick from the standard classes and then choose a secondary profession (if you want) that gives you all the additional powers of the secondary class except th
    • You forgot the most important part! THE TALKING FROG!
    • DS1 is a Diablo-style game with focus on PvE, GW is a tactical semi-MMORPG with split focus on PvE and PvP. They aren't too similar really. You really have to like PvP in tournaments to some extent, and preferrably get into a guild too, to get most out of the game, which are aspects that are basically missing in DS2. But I agree GW is a greater game than DS1 as in "having more fun with it". We're talking evolution there, as opposed as with DS2, which is more in the cash cow milking department.
    • I've been playing GW for a long time now, and if I may, I would like to add a few things. First off, about not having anything to do once you reach level 20: This (usually) is not at all true. Most people reach level 20 well before they reach the end of the game, and for some before they are even half way through. Also, after you've beaten the "final" mission of the story, there are still more missions off the beaten path, as well as a couple of areas specifically designed for the highest level of player
  • An intriguing contradiction struck me:

    "Combat and mechanics are all well and good, but roleplaying games should be about storytelling." Fair enough. A matter of taste and not objective assessment, but it's your review.

    But then you end with, "Even though the game hews very close to the genre standard, the entertaining and visceral combat gameplay can make this a worthwhile addition to your library." (Emphasis mine)

    So what kind of game is this? Is an action RPG, against which you are, respectfully, biased? Or

  • Here's a better, shorter review: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dragoon412 ( 648209 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:25PM (#13465858)
    They took the original Dungeon Siege, absolutely ruined the pathing and AI, neutered the spell system, added an extremely shallow and uninteresting skill tree, and a handful of special attacks that can be triggered when you've dealt enough damage. Of course, the graphics have been dolled up. The game looks good; the environments are positively lush, and Jeremy Soule (Morrowind, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege) did the soundtrack, but it's probably the most bland and forgettable score he's ever done.

    DS2 focuses more on story than its predecessor, but has the usual array of predictable plot twists and subpar voice acting, all implimented by dialogue boxes, similar to Neverwinter Nights.

    The crippling multiplayer problem that prevents just about anyone with a firewall (regardless of port forwarding) from playing online that was around in the original still exists, and although multiplayer has been improved, it's still impossibly shallow.

    DS2 would be great... if it was an expansion pack. It's entirely unworthy of being a standalone game though. For Dungeon Crawler fans, I'd recommend picking it up, but only after it hits the $15 dollar bin.

  • DSII Problems and bugs (Score:2, Informative)

    by Alyred ( 667815 )
    Well, one of the things the review DIDN'T mention is that the netcode is terrible. You can't just connect to a friend's machine over the internet anymore (LAN you can, though), you are FORCED to "meet up" in the Gamespy/close variant chatrooms.

    The problems arise, however, that at least with Linksys routers, the stupid game inserts a forwarding rule through uPNP that makes no sense. MS refuses to acknowledge the problem, but when you try to start the game and the rule is there, all you get is a black scr
  • I played about half of DS1. It was ok. I really liked the fact that there were no loading screens, just one long continuous environment. Eventually the pure hack'n'slash and spell/arrow slinging just got boring. It could have used more of a plot and could definatly have used some puzzles to break up the monotany. The closest I came to a puzzle was having to put some kind of bottle on an altar (it's been a while since I played it. It's possible I was told to put it there and just don't remember.). Different

  • magic users (Score:3, Funny)

    by Red Flayer ( 890720 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:33PM (#13465930) Journal
    "Magic users in particular fare badly, as the monsters all known the "geek the mage first" addage. "

    Slashdot editors in particular fare badly, as the posters all pwn the "badmouth the editor first" subtractage.

    Seriously, I do have to say that this is important for Hack n Slash games. If your magic-user is a tank, what fun is that? Without the risk of dying, hack n slash loses my interest very easily...

  • DS1 was *boring* (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DamienMcKenna ( 181101 ) <{moc.annek-cm} {ta} {neimad}> on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:34PM (#13465932)
    My wife and I simply loved the cooperative multi-play in Diablo 1 and especially 2. DS1 was hailed as a Diablo heir so we tried it. The first day it seemed great, some really cool graphics and atmopherics, definitely a step up for us as we'd not bought a game in two years. After a few days of on-and-off play we realized it was boring! The action took care of itself so you were left to do the directing... the land was extremely sprawling and at times difficult to work out or remember directions, so even that was out. And the story wasn't exactly Oscar material. Boring! If they haven't fixed the action aspect then I really don't think this is going to be any great shakes.

    Now, what's this about Diablo 3 on the drawing board?

    Damien

  • Sounds like a flawed interface to me (Score:4, Funny)

    by ReverendLoki ( 663861 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @03:40PM (#13465972)
    From the review:

    Holding down the mouse button on an opponent tells your main character to go to town.

    No no no no no.... clicking the mouse button on an opponent should tell your character to kick the opponent's ass. If I want to go to town, then I'll click on the town...

    </whistles innocently>

  • Dungeon Keeper III (Score:3, Informative)

    by fdiskne1 ( 219834 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @04:04PM (#13466128)
    Slightly off-topic.

    I'm just waiting for Dungeon Keeper III. Yes, a completely different game from Dungeon Siege II, DKII was much better than DSI, in my opinion. For those not familiar, in Dungeon Keeper, you are in SimCity-like control of an underground area with a few imps to serve you. You tag rock for the imps to dig out. Relatively early, you find a gateway where creatures enter your dungeon. You build a lair, hatchery (chickens to feed your creatures), training room, library for your spellcasters etc to keep your creatures happy and trained. You then send them out to take over other Keepers' dungeons or protect your dungeon from do-gooders from the top-side. If you don't keep your creatures happy, they can rebel, damaging your dungeon, or just leaving. Fun game. The DKII disc had a preview movie for DKIII. I just hope they actually make it someday.
  • I just beat the game this morning, it was pretty fun, IMHO. I love the 'powers' you trigger, cause they make things easy when things get really hard. heh I just wish I had an option to reset my guy's skill trees.

  • Where have all the indies gone? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by voice of unreason ( 231784 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @04:19PM (#13466250)
    I like big budget games as much as the next guy. And I'm sure that DS2 is a nice hack'nslash game. But does anyone wonder why slashdot's game coverage is pretty much oriented towards the big studios instead of the small indies that are acutally doing creative and new things? Slashdot's editors are the sort that bemoan the lack of creativity in gaming, but when that creativity shows up, they don't give it any press. What about great old school RPG's like Spiderweb software's Geneforge series, with real plots and dialog? What about great physics-based platformers like Gish? Instead, we get the same EA Games/Microsoft/Vivendi stuff that all the big publishers cover. When is Slashdot going to move beyond asking for creativity to rewarding that creativity with reviews and coverage? I just wish that Slashdot would put their money where their mouth is regarding coverage beyond the shovelware studio system.

  • laid down the rules? not hardly (Score:3, Insightful)

    by photon317 ( 208409 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @04:38PM (#13466406)
    the original Diablo laid down many of the rules for the hack and slash adventure genre


    Diablo, and every other game remotely similar to it, really drew their inspiration in terms of computer game heritage from the rogue-like text adventures, of which Nethack is the most shining example. While they've tacked on nifty stuff like shiny graphics and networked multiplayer, they have still completely and utterly failed to capture even 5% of the depth and complexity of gameplay that Nethack has enjoyed for years.

  • Wow, no mention of the best feature of the game (Score:3, Interesting)

    by koreth ( 409849 ) * on Friday September 02, 2005 @05:12PM (#13466632)
    I'm surprised the review and the comments I've seen so far don't mention the single thing that makes this game (and its predecessor) absolutely rock: you can walk from one end of the game world to the other and never see a "Loading..." screen. There are few things that pull me out of a game experience more than stepping through a doorway and having to wait thirty seconds to see what's on the other side. Granted, in DS2 you still have to wait a few seconds when you use a teleporter, but that's under your control and is much more bearable.

    It's 2005. Computers are fast enough to load the surrounding landscape's data in the background when you get near the edge of an area. If you want to know what good those up-and-coming dual-core CPUs will be for games, well, there's one answer.

    Game developers: My gaming money will go to a game with a lower frame rate and no annoying interruptions in gameplay before it'll go to a silky-smooth game that makes me twiddle my thumbs on a regular basis. I bought DS2 specifically to show my support for no-loading-screen games -- and (I hope) it won't be the last game I buy for that reason.

  • I got it when it was released... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BulletMagnet ( 600525 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @06:17PM (#13466984)
    My RPG background came from the Pen-N-Paper group up to BGII and NWN when computers became the deal, and having never played DS1, I have to say "It's OK" ... My one true complaint about the game is, as previously posted, is feeling like you're being led around the nose about where you need to go, and how to get there. In NWN, you'd take the FedEx Quests, and get the "general location" of where you needed to be to get part XYZ to finish the quest, but in DS2, you simply follow the arrow. The massive clickfest does get old and my party of 2 ranged, 1 Nature Mage, and my melee dire wolf pet are all level 27 or 28 at about halfway through Chapter 2 (of 3) Act 1 (of 3). Zonk nailed the "Geek The Mage" since my wussy magic wench is always getting jacked 1st, even though she's supposed to be a healer who hides in the background. When getting mobbed by a goonsqud of level 25 Vai'kesh zealots does bring about the pseudo-death (unconciousness) to both my mage and my 2nd Ranger (the pregenerated chick from the beginning who I must say sounds way too "Valley Girl" to be any bit beliveable when we have to stop and listen to her babble on or bitch at the Mage)and when they both get wacked, the wolf and I need to run for cover until they wake up and rejoin the fight. Only once so far as anyone actually gotten tombstoned (real death) but that's as simple as burning a Resurect scroll.

    Zonk never did mention the pet owning, which might be in DS1 (again, never played it) and I thought it was facinating to actually have to FEED your pet. Granted my wolf must have an iron gut because I fed his ass armor, swords, spears, magic crap, and now fully grown, is a rather badass beast and very useful. I haven't had too much complaint of another user's post of "collecting my 200th cloak of protection +1" and the loot I pick up actually makes you think about what to equip. Does this ring which raises armor X points over what I have now beset the ring that has some armor upgrade but also some secondary or tertiary benefits. Choices, Choices... in NWN, everything was more absolute that This Ring Is Better Than This Other Ring.

    I have yet to play it online and am happy to hear that one copy will suffice for LAN'ing since that's about as Multiplayer as I'd get with it(if I want to play against people, BF2 does the job)

    For what I paid for the game, I feel I'm getting my money's worth, however I do trully miss "HERE COMES HALFLING DEATH and NO ONE WALKS AWAY"

    Here's to waiting for NWN2.

  • Finished it. Don't recommend. Play BG2 instead.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by guidryp ( 702488 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @08:54PM (#13467693)
    I have been playing CRPGs since Bards tale on the C64.

    Here is my take on Dungeon Siege 2: They tried to figure out what worked in Diablo and failed. It has all the mechanics copied to the point of annoyance. Three play throughs (same story monsters have more HP each time), town portal, teleport locations, skill trees, saves now only save your state, not where you are. Done because I think they can't figure out what actually made Diablo fun. It doesn't work. Throw in some side quests on the linear road to try to inject more Roll play and that does work either. Candy coat it so it is so warm and fuzzy that you 5 year old will be comfy. Pablum RPG.

    Action RPG fans of Diablo: No comparison. Diablo 2 is a much better action oriented RPG. This is boring and slow.

    Story or hard core RPG: Nothing here. A few pointless sidequest departer from the strict linear game that you couldn't not make it to the end if you tried to get lost. Has nothing on Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Planescape Torment or any good single player games.

    It feels like a comitee sat down and picked some elements from succesful RPGs. The result is nothing but a monster/treasure treadmill. For those folks who just want to level up and find more elite weapons endlessly. It is the "spinal tap" of RPG games, with the treasure output cranked to "11". If some treasure is good, heaping piles of it must be great. Somehow the concept of less is more never registers. If you always have tons of crap, it just plain doesn't matter. The value of something is in direct relation to it's scarcity. The best PnP games I played, you might find one magic item during a days play. But when you did find it, it was amazing.

    Graphics look pretty much identical, to DS1, which is fine by me, heck they are better than Neverwinter Nights, but NWN is actually a fun game.

    Bottom line, there is just a hollow shell again. They just dont' grok action RPG and they don't grok story RPG.

    I think you can still buy Neverwinter Nights, or Diablo Gold if action is more your thing. Both cheaper and better.

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