Four Fat Chicks -- Dungeon Siege Review

Dungeon Siege

Review by Skinny Minnie
May 2002

Do you desire to delve into a role-playing game but feel unanimated about anime or blasé about turn-based battling? Have you been dealt a deathblow by the Dexterity Department of the action gaming world? Do you also demand to see full screen-sized, three-dimensional characters instead of one-inch high sprites in an RPG sometime before your demise? Well, flail that mouse-clicking index finger of yours into the air, flip it flagrantly at the gaming gods, and consider yourself officially flung into the RPG fray, okay?

Yes, you are solely one mouse-clicking finger away from having an invigorating, addicting, real-time fighting RPG experience, and you don't even have to dress up for it. You are first deposited into the gorgeously three-dimensional Kingdom of Ehb as a lone, lowly farmer. Dungeon Siege's single-player game actually houses many sumptuous geological locations, including lilting forests, spooky crypts, medieval towns, dusty mines, swampy bogs, opalescent ice caves, boiling lava pits and imposing fortresses. All you'll have to worry about straightaway is your home on the farm, though, after you choose your gender, facial features, hair and skin tones, and garb in the Start New Game menu. You can also shut the gore off and set the game play to Easy (but tell everyone you played it on Normal or Hard). You can adjust graphics and difficulty settings as you're playing along, too.

The Siren Wails

My poor peasant girl, dubbed the Siren, had nary a chance to toil over her crops before a dying friend hobbled over a nearby bridge to impart most of the game's plot in a few sentences. The local fauna had mysteriously been prodded into attacking the farming community, and the Siren was commanded to head for town and seek help in battling whatever was ultimately behind this uproar. The Siren could then be seen wielding only a small knife, and I wiggled my mouse around in a panic as "krug" (bearish, troll-like creatures) slowly began to charge at her. The first thing I noticed was the whole beautiful farmland rolling ever so gently in response to my edge-of-screen cursor movement, a compass in the upper right corner changing to reflect the direction of my current view. What a great camera system! Quickly noting an unoccupied area of the Siren's homestead, I swerved my mouse cursor to it and clicked once. The Siren obediently galloped there, happy to take a breather and get her bearings. I only did it for her.

Glancing to the upper left of my screen, I saw an icon of the Siren's face followed by four slots. The first slot held the knife; the others were empty. At the bottom right was a little command center with various icons. Did I want the Siren to hold back, attacking only when attacked? Did I want her to roam freely in offensive pursuit of all enemies, perhaps targeting the strongest one first? Did I need to access my automatic notebook of quests, or the mega-map? Did I want to exit the game, or just save it every two minutes? It was all there, each icon and command only one mouse-click away. I also noticed that by rolling the scroll wheel of my mouse up or down, I could zoom in on the scene to see the exciting and gorgeous details or zoom out for the Siren's safety, providing maximum area viewing. (If you are scroll button-impaired, you may program both zoom in and zoom out to keys on your keyboard.) The entire world was also seamless, with no load times except for the initial one when entering the game from the Start menu.

Bug the Krug

Finally, I focused on the matters at hand. (Here come the krug, here come the krug.) What is that sparkly thing on the ground? Click on it—now! (Here come the krug, here come the krug.) Where did it go, and what is that strip with the arrows on it attached to the Siren's face icon? (Run from the krug, run from the krug!) Oh, that strip opens my inventory! The gold book inside is a spell book, that sparkly thing I picked up is a spell, and if I left-click on the spell it flies right into the book and shows up in one of those weapon slots—woo hoo! (Come and get it, krug! Come and get it, krug!) I clicked on the slot with the Fireshot combat magic now housed in it, and the Siren went to town fighting on her very own. If I wanted her to target an especially crabby krug, I just left-clicked on him and she obediently flung her Fireshot in his direction. I was hooked! It was both an intuitive and exhilarating experience, this Dungeon Siege battling! Krug dropped like flies, as did gold, more spells, and archer's bows and close-combat melee weapons like axes, swords and hammers (which needed only to be dragged into weapons slots in inventory to equip). Unfortunately, likewise dropped the red life bar and blue mana bar near the Siren's face icon, although they quickly rose back up again on their own.

Combat, in a Mana of Speaking

Acquiring a new nature magic electrical spell called Zap, I added it to my spell book, and it showed up in another weapons slot. Like combat magic, nature magic drained the Siren's blue mana bar down with use. Certain felled krug did drop blue vials of mana replacements, though, as well as red health-increasing vials. Like everything else in this game, I only had to click on them to add them to inventory and to use them. I finally noticed actual health and mana icons at the lower left of my screen, which, when clicked on (you knew that was coming), topped off the Siren if she was under 50% full of either one (and later could be used to simultaneously rejuvenate all ailing party members).

Spell casting was visually impressive but sadly slow in delivery. I came across some fast-attack melee weapons and archer's bows as I made my way through Dungeon Siege, but not so with the combat and nature magic. The use of spells did not build up the strength or health points of the Siren at anywhere near the rate that melee weapons did, either, rendering her too weak to wear the heavier armor or wield the more powerful melee weapons as the game progressed. Of the two, combat magic packed a greater punch than nature magic from the get-go. Both types of spells facilitated an increase in intelligence points, however. This allowed the Siren to wield slower attack weapons like staffs, which frequently bore magical properties that would increase her health and mana points when put in the melee weapon slot. I only swapped melee weapons when finding something intriguing, magical and useable at the Siren's strength level, like the melee Hammer of Coldness. That baby claimed a 10% chance of turning baddies into ice cubes with every swipe, and I never got tired of watching that event! Even though the Siren did not actually use ranged weapons like bows or the quite rare guns, I did come upon a magical bow here or there that I left in her ranged weapon slot so she could take advantage of its health or mana-increasing properties as well.

A real strength of this game is that whatever attack specialties you choose for your characters will cause certain of their personal attributes to increase to higher levels in response. Melee weapon characters, axing through the front lines of battle, will quickly gain strength and increased health. Archers will increase in dexterity. Spell casters will gain intelligence and increased mana. You will find, though, that strength and health come more slowly to archers and most slowly to spell casters, unless you branch out their attack skills to include quite a bit of melee as well.

A Tale of Woe

The Siren blazingly battled bright blue, behemoth bugs, barreling boars, and even a bear. She also passed through much lush greenery, and then later cleared a path right through hordes of skeletons and gargoyles underground via some stony crypts. Along the way she talked to and took on quests from certain nonplayable characters (via rolling text only for the most part). "Clean my basement of krug" ranked only slightly higher than "Clean my basement of mold and mildew" on the popularity chart, but that particular bloke allowed my heroine to raid his place for goodies afterwards, so whatever. The lack of truly compelling side quests, back story, and cutscenes were this game's weakest aspects, barring it from a Skinny Minnie all-star rating. A to-do list like "Please find and return my trilogy of spell books that various people in town have borrowed," or "Let's help Merik retrieve his magical staff so he will join our party" get the vanilla award. There was some light puzzle solving here and there, involving collected inventory items being used to trigger new pathways or to right magical wrongs of the past. Even so, I wish they had tied more compelling quests into the "Mysterious Force of Evil Behind All These Attacks" back story much better.

There was a weak plot and kingdom history in Dungeon Siege, but it was mainly revealed through the finding of various books that, although well-written and poetic, had no influence on the game's outcome. They did describe landmark people, places, events, and even critters of Ehb down through the ages, but some mention of these facts by the various NPCs I met throughout the game would have given them a stronger tie-in. I came across these books in dungeons, crypts, caverns and the like, but I subsequently wound up selling them for gold to free up precious inventory space. The game manual also added some poetic background information for each area, but I still would have preferred more gaming interaction to glean the story from.

Party Time

The Siren did come upon a compatriot named Ulora in the wilderness, who offered to fight alongside the Siren. I equipped Ulora with an archer's bow, and her dexterity (and to a much lesser extent her strength and intelligence) rose quickly, enabling the use of new and better bows as they were dropped by fallen foes or found in goodie stashes. Ulora, much like the Siren, was not strong enough to wear the heavier armor by game's end, though. An older gent named Gyorn, whom the Siren was supposed to contact in the town of Stonebridge due to another quest, actually joined the party for free as well and promptly became my main melee fighter.

Each character came with intrinsic and differing capabilities, but I was able to mold them to my liking naturally by just equipping certain weapons and subsequently leaving them to fight on autopilot. I mainly clicked solely on the Siren to designate her leader of the party, clicked on where I wanted her to go within the landscape, then all other party members just followed along behind her. As the story went on and the party size (which could go up to eight total) and the action increased, I did actually break down and program one hot key (gasp!) defining the Siren and two melee characters as cooperative leaders to the rest of the party. That way, those three would dash in first, programmed to attack the strongest character. The weaker party members would then fall in behind, using bows and arrows and nature magic spells against the weaker enemies from a distance. I could also set some of them to fight only in their own defense at times, using the simple icons at the bottom right of the screen.

Many more keyboard-programmable commands were available, but I made it through the game without them. I preferred to fight on the fly in real-time, although there was an option to pause the action with a keyboard key. It was then possible to issue commands to the characters while in pause mode, then unpause the game and watch the resultant havoc. Should that sound too much like work, rest assured that you can leave all members to their own devices and just pump the health and mana icons in the heat of battle, possibly having spell casters switch gears to heal party members (or resurrect dead ones) here and there.

One last point about human party members: I did not need to pay for any of them. I'm not saying I didn't bribe a prospective party member with gold to join us, I'm merely saying that I shouldn't have. I got plenty of fine coconspirators who merely volunteered their services, shaping up into great warriors as the thrilling battles ensued.

Let it be said that Zed, the nature magic sorcerer hanging out in Stonebridge, was a conniving, greedy liar. His claim to fame was nature magic healing, but Zed the weakling baby was the one who constantly required healing or downright raising from the dead. A woman's work is never done; he was just another drain on the Siren's mana, I'll tell you. He also wouldn't listen to commands to save his life—literally! I tried all kinds of things in a hopeless attempt to hold him in the back of the line or to keep him out of the fray of frontline battle. I dragged his little face icon all the way to the bottom of the list. I even tried putting my pack mules (who are described further below) in front of him. I made sure the attacks he used were long-range so he wouldn't need to come up front. I commanded him to hold back and only to fight in his own defense. Still, every stinking time the Siren turned around in the front lines, she was tripping over Zed. I nicknamed him Zed the Dead. He would actually barrel right up behind her even when there were no enemies present! I think he had the hots for my Siren. I could actually have chosen to force Zed to break from the group and get left behind with one mouse click on the correct icon, but I couldn't quite bring myself to abandon him to the wilds of fate, either.

Bad to the Bone

The baddies in this game were quite varied in appearances and attacks. Some bore many of the same types of bows and magical melee weapons that my party did or cast spells full of special effects. Others had their own intrinsic biting, snapping, swatting or flying attacks instead. All manner of wild animals, crustaceans, bugs, spiders and fish both foreign and familiar attacked from the forests, mines and swamps. The crypts, dungeons and fortresses bore witness to gargoyles, skeletons, trolls, zombies, demons, and bloodied corpses. Frozen caverns offered scores of icy, translucent creatures who flew like bugs or appeared as Ice Archers, attacking with frozen, see-through bows and arrows (those Ice Archers were visually my favorite villains of the whole game). Mushroom-spawning caves contained large, vividly colored crystals that hid crystal-impersonating, green electrical bolt-throwing enemies.

Baddies did not spawn again once killed (except for one with about 8,000 hit points to begin with that needed demolishing, ahem), so I could usually backtrack for goodie pickups without fear once an area was cleared. As the game progressed, enemies had higher and higher hit points, which means that they took more and more of my party's attack hits without succumbing. I felt fearless, though, because my party was building in experience and strength all the time too, and I could shop 'til I dropped in the sparsely located towns for better armor and weapons. Throughout their travels, my party also found many barrels and crates to break open, as well as hidden treasure chests that contained additional armor, gold, weapons and spells that I could pick through and equip them with in between towns.

Painting the Town Red

Besides being able to buy upgraded armor and weapons, which the characters needed varying experience points build-up to use, I could also purchase different spells if I didn't acquire them out yonder. This option for commerce was presented by vendors in the towns and outdoor caravans scattered about. Those pit stops were too few for my liking, though, especially toward the end of the game when I really needed them. Transport spells were not available in Dungeon Siege as a quick means to travel back and forth to the vendors, either. This meant either a lot of ground hoofing to return to them, or much discarding of loot out in the field for lack of carrying space. There was an almost unending wealth of weapons, spells and armor that could be earned through the adrenaline-surging battles of this game, but what to do with it all? In desperation I bought two of Dungeon Siege's infamous pack mules (who comically sport useless mana bars) for their extra carrying capacity, but even at that I left many items behind as I went along. As much as I loved the critters, I got a little tired of chasing my skittish donkeys as they fled during the livelier confrontations. I also became weary of trying to pile them on to small lifts and elevators so they didn't get broken off from the rest of the party in certain medieval buildings and underground locales.

A Few Points

At first, Dungeon Siege seemed to have too much a lack of control over what spells could be used, compared to a game like Diablo where your character earned experience points and you applied them to whatever categories (like fire spells or lightning spells) you wanted. I was relying upon picking up whatever spells came along and hoping I had enough required experience to put them to use. However, once I came upon the spell vendors, my attitude changed drastically. Yes, I could buy spells that the Siren wasn't able to use until she had more experience, but I could also sell back spells that I tried or found along the way and didn't like. There was also quite a plethora of exciting spells available, ranging from combat categories with nice special effects to healing for your character, another party member, or even a whole party at once. I also got the same money back when selling spells (or armor or weaponry for that matter) as what they would normally cost! Bad choices did not wind up being costly like in dear Diablo, where you got ripped off royally when you sold things or lost valuable experience points forever because you made unwitting initial choices in where to invest them.

Sounds Like a Hit

Despite a party strangely devoid of any vocalizations whatsoever, their weapon and spell sound effects were varied and sometimes even unique. Most enemies, on the other hand, emitted war cries of one sort or another, which gave the main clues of an impending ambush. Sparse were background noises, with hardly more than a footfall to disturb the stunning scenery. The new-age musical orchestrations, however, were absolutely top-notch. They soared, they swelled, they rumbled warnings, and they did it all with much elegance and variance throughout the game.

It's a Wrap

When the game was finally over (albeit sans a satisfying ending, although the final battle was a lulu), I could have moved on to the multiplayer battles had I so desired. Even without the multiplayer option, Dungeon Siege is definitely an exciting and addicting medieval romp, especially for those uninitiated to or overwhelmed by the more detail-oriented RPGs available today. It may not have nearly the character classes or stat options that many micromanaging RPG gamers are accustomed to, but more armor, weapon and spell choices do open up as the game progresses.

Dungeon Siege ran without a hitch under Windows XP on my 1.6 gig Athlon XP PC with 1 gig of DDR RAM and a Radeon AIW 8500 128 video card, although I have heard complaints from other players about slight hesitations or occasional frame rate jerkiness with their own PCs during certain scenes.

Dungeon Siege could have used a deeper plot, more vocalizations and some good cutscenes, but like its predecessor-type RPG Diablo, it eschewed deeper storylines and kept the gamer busy with high-intensity fighting against rushes of unique enemies instead. It only broke from the Diablo mold to better it for the most part. The addition of fabulous graphics (and the ability to actually zoom in enough to appreciate them!), an easy and intuitive interface, more natural character development, and less punishing trading all combined for a fine game play experience. Microsoft has an astounding winner in Dungeon Siege, which was very far indeed from a solely dungeon-based RPG.