Game Overview

Developer: Gas Powered Games
Publisher: Microsoft
Dungeon Siege official home page: http://www.microsoft.com/games/DungeonSiege/

It’s always fun to see a big name developer leave a well-established company, one he or she usually founded, to start a new company. Some of them make big aspirations, while the smart ones don’t say a damn thing and just make games. Some try to “make you their bitch,” but end up falling flat on their ass.

Introduction

Our intrepid hero

5 seconds into the game

Chris Taylor is the latest game developer to walk this gauntlet. After founding and making Cavedog quite successful with the Total Annihilation franchise, he up and left to start Gas Powered Games. There are probably a million reasons why he left, but most gamers don’t really care (besides the fact that a few very promising games will never see the light of day with Cavedog gone). Dungeon Siege is a different direction than Total Annihilation - can Chris Taylor and his new team at Gas Powered Games pull it off their first time out of the chute?

No loading, no caring

One of the big pitches to Dungeon Siege was the ability to play the game with stopping to load levels. Now, you do wait through a load screen the first time you boot up the engine, but you never see it after that. You can literally play from the beginning of the game to the end with no load screens. After you beat the last boss you can even walk all the way back to your farm (I think, I don’t remember any paths closing, but I haven’t tried this). Personally, I don’t think this is such a big deal. Loading screens are a fact of life in gaming. Unless they’re really long, like 30 seconds (which is a lifetime when you’re waiting to play a game), I completely gloss over load screens. No load screens definitely doesn’t take away from the game, but I don’t think it ads a whole lot either.

A healing shrine

Finally, civilization

Elevator

Dungeon Story

The story doesn’t just take a back seat to the action, it’s in the back of the double-wide being towed by the action. The gist of it is that you’re a simple farmer who will end up saving the world from the ultimate evil – nothing new. I appreciate the effort in lightly dusting the game with a hint of story, since even the best games need a bit of purpose. The few cut scenes move things along, complete with a melodramatic narration.

Dungeon Siege falls directly in the “Action RPG” category. This isn’t like Planescape: Torment, one of the best RPGs ever (due in large to the heavily story-driven gameplay). I certainly hope this isn’t a trend in RPGs. A really good story can drive a game, and brings in a lot of depth. When you start caring about a game’s characters you know you have a winner. Good books and movies are the same way – if you don’t care then there’s less of a reason to pay attention.