Dungeon Siege 3

I bought this game a few days ago because it was so cheap, I never played the previous games in the Dungeon Siege franchise although I’ve been a long-time PC gamer and know some of Obsidian’s older titles well. I checked out the demo first on Steam however to make sure I wouldn’t instantly uninstall the game after playing for a few minutes and had read a few of the negative comments about this game, mainly centered on two major complaints: 1) being a console port and 2) not really a Dungeon Siege title.

What I found much to my surprise was a beautifully crafted, fun little RPG/hack n’ slash/beat-em up hybrid that takes the best of what we’ve seen in recent years on both the PC and console and combines them. The result is somewhat watered down sum of its parts, but that doesn’t make Dungeon Siege 3 any less enjoyable. In fact, the game is quite fun overall, especially once you plug in a 360 controller.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I have a vast background as a PC gamer and don’t understand all the hatred and contempt people have for “console ports”. The makers of this game clearly made every effort to make the PC experience an excellent one and superior to that of the consoles. Yes, the game design does take some cues from console games, especially with the streamlined character progression, but is this such a bad thing?

1) Level Design: Its not wide open like Skyrim, or even Diablo or Titans Quest. You are funneled along with some backtracking but you never feel like you have to explore every bit of terrain or you might miss something. It feels more like Dragon Age in some respects, but still not as much free movement to explore.

2) Inventory/Loot: Very streamlined, you don’t have tons of junk to lug around and bring to town. Inventory management is minimal as well as you don’t have to manage size-based inventory. Its more like an MMO in that sense. You also don’t have pots or anything like that to bog down your gaming experience. Item rewards are also balanced and continue to keep me interested, whether its chest/boss drops or loot I can buy at vendors. I generally find loot I can use and loot that’s better than the stuff that I’m already wearing, which is sometimes a problem in games like this. The legendary items are also a nice touch, with “named” weapons or armor that have a story behind them. Adds to that “epic” feeling even though the story and characters themselves don’t always feel so epic.

3) Story-telling/Choices: Obsidian may have taken some cues here from Bioware with the “decision wheel” style of story-telling, although its obvious most of the dialogue choices lead to the same conclusions. I actually got more of a Witcher vibe from the story decision and consequences. Either way, the story isn’t great but its certainly not bad either.

4) Production values/graphics/sound: The graphics, animations, particle effects, itemization, art direction are all fantastic, I’m also playing in 3D which makes it even more amazing. Definitely check this game out in 3D if you get a chance! The music was a weaker spot imo, just seems out of place sometimes, but I think this game has a lot of that overall and is just confused at what kind of fantasy era or secular culture it wants to adopt.

5) Gameplay/Combat/Skill Trees: The game is just fun overall. Boss fights are generally challenging, getting there usually less so. Combat can seem repetitive until you get some more abilities to use, as you only have a single default attack/combo. If they could’ve done things differently here, they could’ve made combat more varied imo. The skill tree progression is very familiar if you play console games of this sort and reminds me a lot of games like Darksiders, but its really not that different from skill tree progressions found in older games of this genre like Titans Quest or Diablo, just presented differently. All things said, this area could probably use the most work but its still fun and lets you cater your character to your playstyle.

So, in summary, I’m really enjoying this game and think its a treat for anyone who likes RPG, hack n’ slash, or beat-em up platformers. Its not a perfect game by any means, but it clearly takes bits and pieces of the best features in a lot of games, doesn’t necessarily improve on them or even go into as much depth, but the game will feel familiar in a lot of ways. Just play the game for what it is instead of what you think it should be based on the title or the fact its on the PC, and I think you’ll enjoy this game more.

I have only just started playing this game its different from the 1st & 2nd Dungeon Siege games the graphics are better, at the moment my only negative is that the camera angle is rather awkward. You can only have it very high looking down on your character or zoom in closer you can never see that far ahead before being attacked.