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General Information

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 407 / 513
Date: June 08, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Game scheduled for release Q3 of 2001

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Dungeon Siege pushes the envelope of role-playing games with fully animated 3D characters, over-the-top battles, intense special effects and awe-inspiring vertical landscapes. With true 3D environments, an advanced particle system for spells and dungeons that can extend in three dimensions, Dungeon Siege keeps the player focused on the action by providing tools that simplify party combat and management with a broad array of familiar game controls such as drag select, way points and formations.

Players can customize their party to include up to eight characters. There are no rules or restrictions, and the player can have any combination of fighters, archers and magic users. Characters join your party as they journey throughout the world - some are hired, others are rescued, and some are brought back from beyond the grave. Lead your party into epic battles against a range of enemies - from marauding hordes to monsters of a scale never before seen in a fantasy role-playing game.

Dungeon Siege is engaging yet easy to understand, action-packed yet easy to control, deep and involving yet quick to learn. The skill-based character system plunges you almost immediately into the action, where your skills develop real-time. If treasure is more your focus, grab a pack mule or two. Never again worry about passing on that armor you found because you didn't have enough space.

Dungeon Siege will support up to eight players via a local area network (LAN) or through the built-in matchmaking server available inside the game. You can take part in both "short game" multiplayer experiences such as 'capture the castle' and the more traditional "campaign" style of play.

The setting of Dungeon Siege is one gigantic, continuous world where you can seamlessly journey from the highest mountain to the deepest dungeon without ever having to see a loading screen. Discovering fantastic locations to explore - strange and mysterious dungeons, enormous castles and secret underground lairs - you become immersed in the fantasy of the surrounding world.

The proprietary Siege Editor in Dungeon Siege gives you the freedom to rework nearly every aspect of the game, making Dungeon Siege not only a game, but also a role-playing platform for those who want to create their own characters, spells, dungeons and even entire worlds. You can post these user-created files to the Web, making them available for anyone to download and explore, or play as a multiplayer game.

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General Information

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 407 / 513
Date: June 08, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Game scheduled for release Q3 of 2001

----------------------------------------

Dungeon Siege pushes the envelope of role-playing games with fully animated 3D characters, over-the-top battles, intense special effects and awe-inspiring vertical landscapes. With true 3D environments, an advanced particle system for spells and dungeons that can extend in three dimensions, Dungeon Siege keeps the player focused on the action by providing tools that simplify party combat and management with a broad array of familiar game controls such as drag select, way points and formations.

Players can customize their party to include up to eight characters. There are no rules or restrictions, and the player can have any combination of fighters, archers and magic users. Characters join your party as they journey throughout the world - some are hired, others are rescued, and some are brought back from beyond the grave. Lead your party into epic battles against a range of enemies - from marauding hordes to monsters of a scale never before seen in a fantasy role-playing game.

Dungeon Siege is engaging yet easy to understand, action-packed yet easy to control, deep and involving yet quick to learn. The skill-based character system plunges you almost immediately into the action, where your skills develop real-time. If treasure is more your focus, grab a pack mule or two. Never again worry about passing on that armor you found because you didn't have enough space.

Dungeon Siege will support up to eight players via a local area network (LAN) or through the built-in matchmaking server available inside the game. You can take part in both "short game" multiplayer experiences such as 'capture the castle' and the more traditional "campaign" style of play.

The setting of Dungeon Siege is one gigantic, continuous world where you can seamlessly journey from the highest mountain to the deepest dungeon without ever having to see a loading screen. Discovering fantastic locations to explore - strange and mysterious dungeons, enormous castles and secret underground lairs - you become immersed in the fantasy of the surrounding world.

The proprietary Siege Editor in Dungeon Siege gives you the freedom to rework nearly every aspect of the game, making Dungeon Siege not only a game, but also a role-playing platform for those who want to create their own characters, spells, dungeons and even entire worlds. You can post these user-created files to the Web, making them available for anyone to download and explore, or play as a multiplayer game.

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Put Together Perfectly

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 73 / 78
Date: August 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

It's nice to have a life; it really is. Wife, kids, golf, tennis; even writing these things is an enjoyable part of it. It all comes to an end though, when a game like Dungeon Siege comes around. Life? Sunshine? Forget it. I don't want it any more. Give me a computer, a dark room, a shut door, and EVERYBODY GET OUT. Indeed, I fear I begin to resemble the little monsters I so relentlessly slaughter while playing this game.

It is a RPG, or role-playing game, which essentially means that you take the part of the primary character during it. In Dungeon Siege the scenario is this: you are a simple farmer, and one morning you wake up and find that a spell has been put on the community, and all kinds of demons and monsters have risen up and are murdering humanity. You have about ten seconds to digest this before they come after you.

Unlike other computer games I have played, such as Age of Empires and Pharaoh, there is no redeeming intellectual value to this one. In those games, there is some history to learn or an ancient historical battle to be refought, but in this one, all those considerations are gone. Your job is to kill monsters, hundreds and hundreds of diverse and different kinds of monsters, over and over again. You want to learn something? Read a book, Einstein.

And what monsters! Abominable snowmen, screeching forest trolls, sword-wielding skeletons, resurrected corpses, flying gargoyles, goblins, giant worms, skeleton dogs, white wolves, boars, swamp witches, cyclopses; my goodness, if there is a horrible beast mentioned in myth or fiction, chances are you'll run into it here, usually in an unexpected and deadly fashion. And they all have something they can get you with: massive clubs, gas, electrical bolts, fire-breathing, swords, bows and arrows; some of the little beasties even surround you and throw rocks at you: believe me, there are a zillion ways to die in this game. (And I'm here to tell you, I experienced them all.)

You start off with your dying neighbor telling you that you must get to town. All you have is a knife. This is pretty much how the game goes. You get to one place, you are given another mission, (or missions), then you go merrily on your way to the next. Each time it gets a little more interesting, and a little more difficult. But you are getting stronger too, depending on which skills you use; and also richer, with the gold you pick up off the enemies' dead bodies or find in hidden treasure chests. This allows you to purchase better and more dangerous weapons; stronger armor, including helmets, gloves, boots, and shields; and spells, if that's what you choose to do. To me, the "shopping" was as fun as anything: picking and choosing cool-looking armor, or weapons such as hammers, axes, bows, swords or clubs. You can't wait to get out there again and hit something with them!

You can also increase your skill as a mage, or magician, by using spells and that sort of thing, and although these types of characters play an important role in the game, I found that playing this kind of character just wasn't as fun. They're weaker, for one thing, and easier to kill; for another, it just doesn't give you the same thrill as bashing some poor, ignorant zombie into the ground.

The sound and the visual effects are really wonderful, spectacular even. Right off the bat, in fact, you're in a forest, confused and uncertain as to what to do next, and what do you know: it starts to rain, with big drops falling everywhere and making that foreboding pitter-patter. During the course of the game you will experience deserts, forest, swamps, snowy mountains, towns and in the end, a magnificently detailed, huge, colorful castle. And of course there are the underground places: mines, crypts, tunnels, dungeons, caves . . . all spectacularly rendered and beautiful to look at. There were many times I simply had to pause the game to drink it all in. It is stunning.

And the sounds: the hum of machinery in the goblin cave, wind blowing, rain falling. I actually turned down the sound while in the swamp a couple of times to be sure the night sounds--crickets, bullfrogs, etc.--weren't coming from outside my window!

The playing of it is a dream. You won't have to practice anything here. All you really need is the left clicker on your mouse. To view what's to the left, move the cursor to the left side of the screen. To get a birds-eye view, move the cursor to the top. To get a more level view, move it to the bottom. Very simple. It'll take you a minute to be playing this.

I am just overwhelmed by this game. In fact, it is so perfectly done in all respects that at various times during the day the remembrance of it comes back like some odd, vivid, intense dream. And the playing of it, of course, literally transfers you to a different world. A world in which you become utterly immersed, and in which real life is forgotten. This is what you want when you play a computer game. It is really a superb creation, and a joy to play.

What Dungeon Siege Really is

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 46 / 47
Date: April 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I normally don't post reviews but some of these people I'm seeing dropping 1 star grades on this game are just nuts. They complain that Dungeon Siege is linear and not really an rpg. Guess what - it wasn't designed to be. Dungoen Seige is a hack-n-slash. It's designers wanted everyone who played the game to finish it. They wanted to take the guess work out of rpg's and make a product all could enjoy. And they did this quite nicely. This game could best be described as a diablo II - very linear, combat heavy game with team based combat and fighting system ala Baldur's Gate. The story is thin, very thin - by design. If these guys who flame a 1 star on this game would have done 30 minutes worth of reading, they would have known this wasn't an epic Baldur's Gate style game. This game is fighting, item collecting, killing and it's pure fun.
So if you want to kill in mass quantites w/ great graphics and a new twist on character creation, buy it. If you want a rich rpg with a gigantic plot and a world to wander about at your whim, don't. And if you don't want the latter, don't slam the game for failing to be that - b/c Dungeon Siege never tried.

Loving it!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 35 / 39
Date: April 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

First of all, I'm a girl. Let's just make that perfectly clear. I'm a stereotypical girl, too. Which means I don't like blood and violence. Deathmatch games make me cry. I get my feelings hurt when someone shoots me with a chain gun. I don't know how to follow a target. I'm a camper. And so on, and so on.

This game, like Diablo II before it, I really do love. As a magic-user specializing in Nature Magic, and working primarily in multi-player games on our local house LAN with my four other friends, I'm an integral part of a cooperative party of ranged and melee characters. They can't survive without me, and I can't survive without them. The sophistication and complexity involved in the cooperative, supportive team-play is very satisfying.

I have a Very Fast Computer [tm], so I can run in high resolutions with lots of colors and suffer no framerate problems. (My god, is this game gorgeous.) My friends who have less impressive computers enjoy themselves in Single Player mode, but occasionally experience the "slide show" effect when there's five of us and 20 monsters on the screen at once, you know? We go slowly into new levels, sometimes, to make sure everyone has a chance to load before combat begins, otherwise we have melee people shouting, "WHERE AM I? HAVE I LEFT THE DOORWAY? DO I NEED TO TAKE A POTION?" until their screen updates 5 seconds later. So, my recommendation: Your system must exceed the requirements listed for this software.

This game is beautiful. The weather, ambient sound, natural environment, and so forth are so beautifully designed I have walked my character into a forest just to enjoy the background noise while I do other things with my time. The user interface is intuitive, beautifully wrought, the transparency effects are fabulous, the "camera" has few glitches... although be aware that the level-designers KNOW how the camera works, and incorporate its limitations into the difficulty rating of an area. For example, in very high levels you will be given an extremely narrow passage to navigate, or you'll have to walk through a stone tunnel to reach the monsters. This hinders the camera, makes it difficult to retreat (the clickable space is as narrow as the hall) or makes it difficult to see (the camera "auto-zooms" to right above your head). I believe this is deliberate. The camera works very well 95% of the time.

I can't recommend this game highly enough. My friends who love gore get their gore. And I get my cooperation and healing magic. It's ALL GOOD. :)

Great graphics, a bit too canned to be 5 star

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 24 / 25
Date: April 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

When I first heard that Dungeon Siege was coming out, I, like many, was very excited. I love playing RPG games. After playing about half the game, I am a bit underwhelmed. It is not a bad game, but there is not a whole lot beyond hack and slash.

First off, the graphics in this game are incredible. If you want to be stunned by graphics, you may well want the game strictly for the graphics. If it were not so graphically stunning, however, I doubt it would be receiving such high kudos. At times, I am playing the game more to see what the next creature looks like than trying to solve the game.

There is basically one path through this game, at least in single player. If you start again, you follow the same path. Unlike games like Baldur's Gate, where you can go in any direction you wish (with consequences, of course), you do not have choices. You are pretty much a "rat in a maze", trying to get the cheese. Your only real decision is whether to explore every side path, which is a good idea in most instances, as you get stronger. The positive point of this canned approach is you do not have to wait for a new section of the world to be created (ala Baldur's Gate) when you enter a new chapter in the story.

The interface takes a bit of getting used to. You have a freeform third person camera angle. If you move your mouse to any edge of the monitor you can watch the battle from a variety of angles. This feature is both extremely cool and extremely irritating, depending on what is going on. In the heat of a particularly dangerous battle, changing angles can change the outcome of the battle for some of your characters. My advice is to practice with the mouse before you get into hot water.

Unlike some, I am also fascinated by the new methodology to advancement. In Dungeon Siege, you do not pick a type of character. Instead, your actions create your character. If you fight with melee weapons, you will get a strong fighter. If you focus on magic, you will become a better magician, as well as increase your intelligence. This allows you to easily create a character that can use both weapons and magic.

The main strategic point of the gameplay, and a strong point for hands on gamers, is the ability to set different characters to attack differently and quickly change formations. Choosing the proper formation and orders will dramatically alter the game. This point makes the hack and slash nature far more palatable to me, as I do actually have a bit of thought in gameplay.

The multi-player game is more fun than the single player, as I get to interact with others on a variety of quests. I also have more choices of where to start (provided my level is high enough), as well as a completely different world (although there are choices here, as well).

Summary:
Overall average game with excellent graphics and unique interface.

Pluses - great graphics, seemless play, flexible character advancement, ability to micro-manage the game
Minuses - forced game path a bit too obvious

Great Game, Lots of Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 45 / 60
Date: October 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is a great RPG with lots of fun. It has some better things in it than Diablo 2. In Diablo 2 you only have one player and he/she has only one skill. In Dungeon Siege you get up to 8 players and pick the gender of your character and how he/she looks. On top of that you get to pick what skill you use. Whether you favor sword, bow, battleaxe, or one of the two different types of magic (nature and combat magic), you'll become an expert at the one you use most.

Another thing is it has an exellent story. "From birth, you've toiled in the fields, poor yet proud. But the evil Krugs destroyed it all: your farm, your family, your friends. As something inside you dies, something else awakens-a warrior with a burning need for revenge. As you battle your way through a vast world of mountains, deserts, ice caverns, and dungeons, you'll forge a fearsome party to fight the forces of evil. But beware: as your power increases, so does the intensity of combat." As you fight the Krugs and other monsters and kill the Krug leader, a new evil awakens far away in the Castle Ehb. An evil so powerful and mighty, it could kill the king himself, and rule the world....

Solid game with (overly) simplistic gameplay

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 21 / 23
Date: October 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I remember waiting with baited breath for the release of Dungeon Siege. Next to Freedom Force, this game is the only PC game in the first half of the year that really got me excited. So was I disappointed or did the game meet my standards? Well, this game has actually confused me as the awe inspiring graphics and sound keep me playing while the gameplay is so mindless that I'm not really playing anything. In order to add a bit of structure and explain my feelings, I'll explain my raves and rants in the following areas; Gameplay, Story, Graphics, and Sound.

Gameplay (6/10): Of all the areas of Dungeon Siege the gameplay contains the most rants. Firstly, the game has all the complexity of Solitaire. Everything, and I do mean everything, is automated to the point where user interaction is minimal. Seriously, you click to attack, you click to move, you click to open items. That's about it. One click does it all. The automated battle stances and pursuing options are nice, but really, do I need the computer to do everything for me? The only time the player really puts a whole lot of effort into the game is when you are on the item screens.

Things change slightly once you add characters to your party, but nonetheless you still don't have much more to do than macro management of your party. Keeping everyone in a group and such, which can be a pain at times. The donkey is a blessing and a curse all at once as they tend to stay incredibly far away from the party. If you are ever ambushed from behind then prepare to run a ways back to save your donkey, literally.

The only other rant I have is about leveling. Whoever created this idea of leveling should be shot, dragged into a busy intersection, and then shot some more. The idea is pretty basic, you level up in one area and your stats go up accordingly. If you are a melee fighter then your strength will go higher quicker than other abilities. The downside to this is that if you want a balanced character, or you want to "Multi-class" then you are screwed as your skills go up but your stats hardly budge.

While the gameplay is somewhat ridiculous, there are some shining spots. The item screens are nice and not cumbersome. The organize inventory button is ingenious and saves a lot of time. The potions are a life saver as when you drink them you don't consume the whole potion and as such you will rarely ever run out of them even on hard level. The nearly complete automation does have one upside, it allows you to sit and stare at the beautiful graphics. Probably the best part about the engine used in the game is that there are no transitions. Everything is seamless. Going from surface to dungeon just means you walk down some stairs, no loading times, no waiting, just walk down steps and the surface disappears and the dungeon appears.

Story (4/10): Okay, am I the only one who went through this game and noticed that the story is so thin that its almost non-existent? If it weren't for the narrator and a few of the quests, I would have never even known that the game had a plot. I mean bad games have bad plots, good games have good plots- but this game barely has a plot much less a cohesive story. I give the 4 points largely because as there is almost no plot you can create your own in your mind as you go along.

Graphics (10/10): From all the screenshots I saw before the game was released, I knew the graphics were going to be great. However, I was still blown away by the majestic views in most of the areas. While you spend a great deal of time underground running through dank and dark dungeons, the highlight of the games engine is when you step outside. Nothing is more extraordinary as being on a bring and seeing off into the distance and seeing the lands below. The scenery is really remarkable.

The people, monsters, and even animals are all nicely done, but to me they are nothing remarkable. Yes, this game actually has animals running around through the woods and such. The people are fully detailed and the skins change depending on what items you are wearing. The effects on weapons (such as ice and fire) are top notch and amazing. Water effects leave a little to be desired, but overall are nicely done.

Sound (8/10): Sound is another category where this game shines. The bass is balanced and not overpowering and the voices, ambient sounds, and monster screams are great. My only desire for sound is that the game needs a bit more diversity with monster sounds as they tend to make the same two or three sounds. When fighting the same enemies for several hours straight, this gets tedious. Also, some more sounds for characters while fighting and maybe some idle chit chat like that found in BG and BG II would have been nice and lead to a little more depth in character for NPCS.

In the end Dungeon Siege is an engrossing game that is a bit too simplistic at times. The complete automation of tasks allows the player to look at the surroundings and revel in their beauty, but overall detracts from the game as the player doesn't feel like he is playing anything. I highly recommend this game if you are a graphics nut, if you enjoyed either Diablo or Diablo II, or you want to check out the multiplayer portion of the game. Otherwise, I can't fully recommend Dungeon Siege. If you are an RPG lover, beware, the story may have you hating this game from the very start, but the graphics will have you pushing onward to see what the designers have created.

Fantasy Team Management

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 20
Date: April 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

First all of it has excellent graphics. It also has little plotline. Only hack-n-slash immersion. The gameplay is reminiscent of the old Ultimas yet with better graphics. There isn't any hand-to-hand combat determined by hitting a button or a key quickly. The attacks are guided by more or a less an Ultima attack. This is: pick your victim and then the character goes out and attacks on his own with your intervention. This also
reminds me of warcraft/starcraft attacks or even the final Fantasy series.

The Game has a couple of clipping issues. Doors which seem to let arrows pass thru and so on. Graphically, it is beautiful. Trees and shadows bring you into the fantasy world.

This is not a "rpg", anyone that states that it is a rpg hasn't got a clue what one is. This is a acquire, deploy, sit back enjoy kind of game. This is not Baldor's Gate. If you are looking for a quick game to play in which you manage a "fellowship" then it is the game for you. If you are waiting for a rpg , wait for Neverwinter Nights.

I like it. I dont consider it a rpg. I love the interface and also the camera movement. I love the speed of the game (e.g. load times). And so on.

Beautiful, stable and a very good interface

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 16
Date: June 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I'll say this upfront - I'm a huge, *huge* fan of RPG games, especially the single-player versions. I wasn't sure what to expect from Dungeon Siege, but I was completely blown away. The first time through, it gave me about 40 hours of game play (excluding times when I went back to a previously-saved game because I did something stupid that killed me,) and during the *entire* time I played this game, IT NEVER CRASHED! Not once! Not ever! This in itself was simply amazing to me.

The game is totally customizable, from a character's appearance to his or her skills. There is an abundance of spells, weapons, armors, and sundry other stuffs to pick up, wear, and sell - perhaps even too many!

The sets are astounding in color and design - everything is gorgeous, and the details have been meticulously crafted. There are indigenous wildlife in most areas that add a particularly nice touch, and the ambient sounds are very nice, too. The monsters throughout are fairly varied, and some are damned tough, depending on your party's skill levels. The packmules are a particularly nice touch - they can carry several times the amount of inventory a regular character can, but take up valuable slots in the team (one may only have 8 team members.)

Throughout the game, one has the opportunity to add members to the party, and to disband others. Each new member brings different and perhaps valuable skills. One also has the ability to set the party's and each individual's attack and movement modes to several different settings.

The voice work for the narrator and the NPCs one bumps into is outstanding, and adds a great touch - so often, game producers will throw together a bunch of really bad voice "talent" and just hope it flies. Here, though, the deep, melodic voices don't jolt one out of gameplay to smack one's forehead. Additionally, the musical score is lovely - not distracting, but not boring and redundant. Perfect, really.

The game employs relatively intelligent ghosting logic, but sometimes gets a little wonky when the team is near a wall, and changes the camera's view to a suboptimal angle.

One beef I do have with the game is the magic system - it's not terribly well-explained in the manual, and takes some bumbling about to figure out how it works. Further, each magician can only equip two spells at a time, and swapping others back and forth into the slots is tedious and time-consuming, usually requiring pausing the game. That really drove me nuts, and caused me not to use most of the spells that came my way. Further, the pop-up "tool tips" for each item pop up instantly, and often get in the way when trying to simply look through a spell book. The game would be nearly perfect with a better magic system. One other minor gripe is that the characters will often just stand there under a ranged attack, even with the "attack freely" and "move freely" options selected.

Another excellent feature is that there are no map loads during the game as one switches regions - it's all pre-loaded, and once game play begins, everything is seamless. Even the cutscenes begin and end without any delays or loading time. Neat!

As compared to some other RPG games, such as Summoner, there is no time-consuming, boring, tedious running back and forth between distant locations - the game mostly requires traveling in one direction, toward a distant goal. Only rarely does one have to backtrack to complete a quest, or to sell something. Outstanding.

The game uses an autofight system, which is just dandy with me - with a team-based game, it'd be too difficult to individually control a character *and* keep track of what's going on around him or her.
There is a mega-map showing a larger portion of the region, which comes in very handy, and can also be zoomed in and out to certain levels.

Each time I completed a quest, I wondered if the game was coming to an end, and was pleasantly surprised each time a new chapter was added to the game. When it finally did come to an end, I was a little surprised, because the build-up was lacking - one is fighting, and fighting, and runs into a major boss, and suddenly the game is over. Rats! However, the game does offer the option of "continuing to play," which is pretty much just running around the empty dungeon, and finding an occasional monster that got away the first time.

The other option, after defeating the final boss, is to import the characters into a multiplayer game; however, one can't import the neato items gained from defeating the final boss! ARRRGH! Instead, the game goes back to the last saved game before that boss and uses the characters and their possessions at that point. *Very* disappointing and frustrating!! Even going back, switching things around, saving and defeating the final boss again doesn't change things - it will always be that same inventory from your first runthrough. Grrrr.

But other than that, I really loved this game. It's not terribly cerebral - it's mostly just a kill/maim/rescue kind of thing that doesn't require much thought beyond battle strategy. I'll probably wait awhile before playing it again, but I'm sure I'll find myself back in the Kingdom of Ehb someday.

I think anyone who generally likes computer-based RPGs will really enjoy Dungeon Siege - it's quite a treat. There will also be a sequel coming out, which I'll be anxious to try. Next is Morrowind - woohoo!

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