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Great graphics, great RPG fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 112 / 130
Date: August 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Dungeon Siege II is finally out!! This is computer RPG gaming at its finest. The graphics are great, the gameplay is addictive, and there's even a storyline!

First, you create your character. You can be a human, an elf, a dryad (wood / nature spirit) or a half giant (large, brawny type). Each race of course has its strengths and weaknesses. There is some basic customization of how you look - light / medium / dark skin, hair style and color - but really, your character on the screen is about 1/2" tall on good resolutions. It's not worth obsessing much over how those teeny pixels look :)

Off you are launched into your world. You don't choose class or profession or anything like that. In a style that I really love, what you do determines what you progress in. If you do a ton of archery, your archery skills increase. If you do a ton of combat magic, your combat magic skills increase. It makes sense.

You start off as a mercenary assaulting a village area. I have to admit that I didn't like this beginning. First off, it says you and your blue-haired elf friend have been mercenaries for many years, yet they have you hitting training dummies. I realize this is necessary for helping newbies learn the combat system, but really, they could have had a pre-assault training area, instead of landing you on a beach and then saying "Oh wait we have some training dummies here for you to play with" :). Also, having the instructors call you "maggot" and "worm" incessantly got a bit much. Someone was watching a few too many old boot-camp movies.

However, soon enough you are free of the mercs and off on your adventure. The characters you interact with seem real, they have their motivations, secrets and goals. It's up to you which people you want to help out. I really would have loved more options in the dialogue - sometimes they only give you one option and I really don't agree with it. It made me feel like my personality was cemented in a style I did not enjoy.

The combat is great, of course, and as you build up party members, you really get into some massively fun fights with spells flaring, arrows flying and swords swinging. You have to learn what area the large creatures are weak in, and exploit those weaknesses to win. You can't just hack and slash your way through if you want to do well. By customizing your party members, along with pets, you can really have the combat experience match your individual style.

Add in the armor / weapon enhancements, the ability to resurrect or to have corpses brought back to safety (for a small fee), and general teleportation fun, and the game really does address many of the annoying issues that make other, similar RPGs a bit cumbersome. For example, if you leave a corpse in a field of battle, it still of course has your "stuff" on it. You can choose to try to wade back into battle with a "fresh you" to retrieve your stuff, or you can pay to have the corpse brought back into town magically.

Once you finish the main game on all 3 difficulty levels, there is endless fun in online multiplayer action!

Highly recommended!

Better than the first

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 22
Date: August 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This review is based on my impressions from about 4 hours of gameplay. From the start, I think this is a better game than the first one (and I loved the first game). The first game was pretty straight forward: see enemy, click to attack enemy, kill enemy, gather loot, repeat all the way through the game. Dungeon Siege 2 improves upon all the aspects of the first game and adds some twists. The game plays more like a roleplaying game than a hack-and-slash. Think of it as a Neverwinter Nights (not Baldur's Gate) game without the swing-and-a-miss attacks. You still click on enemies, but this time, there are bonus attacks, skill trees to improve your character, new items that can be enchanted, and places to add temporary points to your stats. Overall, the game world is more convincing - there are more enemy types and each now have a different mode of attacking, offering a bit more strategy during combat. The game is now a bit harder because you only have two character to start the game until you buy more spots for others. On easy, you are only allowed 4 characters (more open as you beat the game). The enemies exhibit better AI and do more damage, so you are constantly attacking, healing, and moving around to getter better attacks on the stronger enemies. Also, you can no longer "creep and save" through the game. Loading a game takes you back to the closest town, which means you have to adventure out to get back to where you were (and killing more enemies along the way). The graphics in the game are fantastic, and you can zoom all the way in to see every detail on the character. There is more terrain to walk over and more natural effects to keep you glued to your screen. So far, the game is fun to play - there are more items to discover, quests to fullfill, characters to interact with and a feeling of strategy in each battle. I found myself thinking much more about what I was doing in Dugneon Siege 2 than I did in the first game. Dungeon Siege 2 feels more like a roleplaying game than the first, but maintains the same amount of "fun" by making you want to keep clicking on enemies and killing them to find out what happens next. I think it appeals to both kinds of gamers - those who want a roleplaying experience and those who want a dungeon crawler. I highly recommend it!

Great Fun!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: October 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have really enjoyed this game. The game designers have come up with a few hits and misses over the preceding versions of Dungeon Siege and DS: Legends of Aranna.

HITS:
--Better story, interesting side quests (I have no problems with [and in fact prefer] a linear storyline!)
--Great graphics: the armor, monsters, landscapes, etc., are all beautifully rendered.
--The Lore books are fun, adding depth and history, and the handling of quest items is much improved (they no longer clutter up your inventory).
--The henchmen have personalities! Yes, the voice acting is a bit hokey and over-the-top, but it does give each character a personality of his or her own.
--Landscapes: Beautiful and detailed.
--Combat: Great spell effects! Well-placed monsters. Some tough battles, but nothing too, too overwhelming.
--Teleportation: You can get straight back to town whenever you want to. Handy!
--Buff spells: Very nice, including creature summons. Having autocast spells is also a big, BIG plus. I never bothered with summons in the earlier DS games because they were such a pain to keep recasting. But now there's autocast! Woot!
--Pets: Awesome! Fun! The addition of pets was a great idea. I'm considering carrying a character through the primary quests with just pets to see how that would play out (or if it's even doable). Pets are great, simple to maintain, and hold their own in combat.

MISSES:
--Enchantments: What were the developers thinking? Enchantments are a total waste of time and inventory space. Found items are far better than anything you can enchant, as far as I can tell.
--Incantations: Again, a waste of space and coding in my opinion. The only one I've used has been "Speak with the Dead" and only because it's necessary to complete a quest. If I were a game designer, I would have scrapped the incantations in favor of a few buff spells that are either learned or earned as quest rewards.
--Landscapes: Both a hit (see above) but also a miss, as they are way too overcluttered. It's very hard to see what is coming at you.
--Stuff: Way, way, WAY too much stuff drops during combat. It's a pain to wade through it all, looking for something useful.
--Combat: A bit muddled and confused. It looks great but it's hard to see what is actually happening or to select and/or position your party members.
--Party size: Having a limited party size (only four your first time through the game, then five, and finally six on your third time through the game) is a drag, especially since you need different party members to complete certain side quests. My solution to this was to skip a number of the side quests (with Amren, Taar, Sartan, Finala, and Deru) and just keep the henchmen I liked in my party (Lothar, Vix, and Eva) for round 1. The size restriction may contribute to the replayability of this game, since you could play through once or twice with a different player character and different NPCs in your party.
--Saves and Death: For some reason, though you can save your game at any point, you cannot return to your save point. For example, if you save before a Big Boss battle and you all die, you cannot return to that point and try it again. Death and restarting the game always, ALWAYS, takes you back to the nearest town. Also, if your party wipes out, you are returned to town with none of your gear. Irritating. To get around this problem, I usually quit and then restart the game at this point. For some reason, this brings back my party with all of their gear in place. Perhaps this is a game glitch? Anyway, the developers should have devised a better save game system--or offered a "revert to saved game" so that you could get back to your last save point.
--Minimap: Maybe it was just me, but I found the "overhead minimap" confusing to use and somewhat disorienting. That said, it was helpful that it indicated hidden levers and nearby enemies and quest-related characters and whatnot that you might otherwise have missed.

All in all, however, Dungeon Siege II is a very fine game: simple and fun to play, beautiful to look at, with an interesting story to tell. I highly recommend it--all the marginal and negative reviews here at Amazon notwithstanding. I even emphasized the negatives in my own review here but I *still* think the game overall is very well done and an enjoyable adventure.

People looking for a "fine wine" RPG will not find it here; Dungeon Siege II is a "chips and beer" kind of RPG and great fun to play.

Made my people who really understand RPGs

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: August 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

To begin with, this is not the most expansive or open-ended RPG out there. Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights far surpass Dungeon Siege II.

Having said that, I highly recommend this game. It is extremely addictive and very fun. Aside from the story itself, I believe it's all the little details that make this game something special. For example:

- No need for arrows (this does away with having to carry around stacks of arrows in your inventory, which is a trivial thing to have to do)

- Auto health and mana regeneration (personally, this makes the experience more enjoyable because you don't have to worry so much about running back somewhere to get healed or constantly casting healing spells; characters also regain health upon death, unless they lose too much...this prevents the need for resurrection)

- Auto-cast spells (you can set two spells to be automatically cast when necessary, such as healing or summon creature or buffing spells...you would constantly cast these spells anyway, so DS2 just does it for you)

- No load times (not so important, but it definitely adds to the feel of a continuous gameplay experience)

- Beautiful journal layout (quest entries, maps, books, quest items, etc. are all organized wonderfully in the journal)

- Nice skill system (for specializing not only in one of four classes, but also in certain aspects of each class, such as fire magic for a mage, or dual-wielding for a fighter)

- Health and mana potions use only as much as you need each time

- You can sell back items for their real price (as opposed to buying something for 1000 gold and selling it when you don't need it for 50 gold!)

Basically, my point is that this game was designed to take care of so many little details that other RPGs for some reason don't deal with. It makes the experience so much smoother and enjoyable. I have a lot of respect for the design that went into this game.

The much improved sequel to the original Dungeon Siege

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: September 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Those who played the original Dungeon Siege, will greatly be impressed by this sequel. It has more of what made the original great and it has also been imroved and enhanced considirably with lot of good stuff.

new:
-you can choose from more than one race; human, dryad, elf, half giant.
-lot of pets; packmule, scorpion, ice golem, fire golem, pet dragon, etc.
-pets evolve and become better and grow up.
-enhanced graphics. way better looking than dungeon siege. although the player characters could use a little more work, but still look great.
-secondary skills with levels for each character class.
-lots of new veriety of animals.
-if your video card is 64mb you can play it at good speed with high resolution and full detail. no slowdowns.
-high replayibility.
-cool soundtrack.
-amazing AI.
-exceptional visuals.
-highly adictive.

Move Over Diablo 2

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: September 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Dungeon Siege 2 takes the best elements from Dungeon Siege and blends them with the best elements of Diablo 2 to come up with the best action/RPG to come out since Diablo 2. Gas Powered Games has built in much more depth of gameplay in this iteration of the series, and has eliminated some of the more frustrating and tedious aspects of the first game.

Some new features for the series:
Town Portal Spell - works a lot like portal scrolls in Diablo 2, you can instantly teleport back to town in order to sell loot or pick up some more health potions or whatever, then teleport right back where you left off.
Skill Tree - this works a lot like Diablo 2's skill tree, where you have different branches so you can concentrate your character on different skills. For example, in melee you can opt to go with a dual-wield type melee build, or maybe you prefer two-handed weapons, or maybe you prefer one-handed with shield, the skill tree lets you concentrate on what you want and adds more variety to the classes.
Powers - Each of the four "classes" (melee, ranged, combat magic, nature magic) has certain special powers that get unlocked depending on which combination of skills you pick on the skill tree. Using the powers is a lot of fun, it gives you that extra "umph" needed to get past the more difficult combats.
Chants - You find certain shrines along the way where you can cast 'chants' that give you a temporary bonus to all your party members.
Pets - greatly expanded the idea of the pack mule from DS1, now your pets take a more active role in the exploring and combat.
Spell Casting - now you get 2 auto-cast slots where you can put in certain spells, like healing, or buffing, so that your caster will automatically cast these spells as they are needed.

All in all, Dungeon Siege 2 adds a lot more story and a lot more fun to the series, and puts it up there on the same shelf as Diablo 2, if not quite that great, but definitely better than the first in the series.

An RPG that FPS gamers will like

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: September 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's VERY rare that I will give a game a 5/5. I also don't have any love lost for Microsoft and Co. But I've got to admit, they make a heck of a game. I haven't played the multi-player, so I'll stick to the single player.

I usually prefer playing first person shooters (FPS). However, this game gives you the satisfaction of shooting up (or more accurately hacking or zapping) a lot of bad guys while following an EPIC story over three chapters. There is plenty of play and replay time. The only thing that becomes tricky is trying to keep track of the various characters' names you're helping. You have around 10 major tasks to complete in each chapter and another 10 or so secondary tasks you can take on if you choose to earn more money or other items. Sometimes items you win in one will help you in another. There are a few puzzles, but they're not difficult.

You also get to design your character by sex and species: elf, half-giant, human, etc. Changing armor/weapons also changes their appearance. You can be a fighter, wizard or archer. It depends on which skills you use as to what you become. Be careful not to spread out your skills too much or you may become master of nothing. You can also hire on a "pet" which can be more than a just the donkey of the first Dungeon Siege. A pet can be a scorpion, ice wolf or other creature with their own skill set. The pet grows in skills depending on what you give it to carry. It also helps to attack your enemy.

The only stop in action is having to sell off items you've collected, buying new item and spending skill points. That's the RPG part of the game.

I've got to say that on the single-player, it's virtually impossible to play without using cheat codes unless you like getting killed off a lot. There is one save slot for your particular character. And while you can save at any point in the game, if killed, you cannot simply exit the game without saving and start over. The only recourse is to pay the necromancer at the teleporter 25% of your gold to get your character and/or team back. Then you have to go back to where you were to get back your previous equipment. The problem with the single player is you can only control one character at a time so it's easy for one of the others to run over and get themselves killed in hand to hand combat when as a team you might chose to fight them from a distance with magic or arrows.

I know there are some purists who refuse to use cheat codes, but personally, I want to get through the story, not slog it out over and over again.

My only cravat is some of the cheat codes added in by the programmers are blatantly political which I don't appreciate no matter which side you're on. To them I say: Just shut up and program!

Best PC platform RPG I've ever played

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: April 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My brother showed me a demo of this game, and I played it over and over again, even though the demo ended with the fourth primary quest.
It's like a mix of World of Warcraft and Diablo II...and, not including multiplayer mode, it's like having a personal MMORPG, minus the online part.

There are three difficulty modes, and you have to clear each one before you can advance to the other. You can have up to three additional party members in the first mode, four in the second, and five in the third (excluding your main character).

The quests are similar to World of Warcraft and Diablo II, hence why I said it was like a mix of them. There are puzzles that require thought in a couple secondary quests, and many areas to explore...and bad guys to defeat. There are also cut-scene video parts, which can be amazing to watch.
There are also races, and you can customize how your character looks. You can play as a Half-giant, Elf, Dryad, or Human.

The other people you get for your party even have their own distinct personalities. Putting two of them in the same group with clashing personalities results in humorous conversations that occur randomly, after the first part in a multi-part main task, or when nearing a goal.
Deru the dryad (I think she's a dryad...either that or elf) and Lothar the half-giant that you can pick up during the second/third major quest, have quite humorous jibes that they make at each other.

Not just the characters, but the plot seems to always be twisting in a new direction. I'm about halfway through the game now, and my brother has completed it...and he won't tell me anything on the ending or suspicious people/items you pick up in the storyline because of the impact they seem to have.

With the plot continually twisting, and you finding out extraordinary things about your character and what's happening along the way (and trying to figure it out, yourself), even if you're half expecting a piece of information, it still comes as a shock.

Only thing I don't particularly care for in this game is the graphical violence. Yes, it's rated 17+ for a reason, folks. It's more then just hacking at an enemy and then the enemy dies and drops gold and items...it's, well, chunks and blood. And some are during the cut-scenes.

Definitely recommended. It's a very addicting game, too. Don't start playing it if you have to go somewhere soon. Though you can create town portals whenever you want and save the game at any time, it's hard to stop playing once you've started.

As for the system requirements...my computer is about 4 years old (seriously), as is my graphics/video card. I work in Photoshop frequently, too. And so far, the game runs perfectly fine. It takes a little while to get to the main screen, and exiting out...and it lags occasionally, but otherwise, no problem.
My brother, who has a much better and newer computer, can run the game with no lag or waiting time. So, it's still compatable with older computers. Try it out! ^__^

3D Diablo is addictive

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: August 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I am hooked on this game. It is very similar to diablo but in 3D. If you like dungeon exploration with monsters that can sneak up behind you etc., you are going to love this game. I think it is much better than the original dungeon siege series. You can enchant weapons, armor etc. with magical powers. I really love this game and you will need disipline to stop playing it at times. Play it hard for a couple of hours (takes time to get into it) and you will be hooked for sure.

Solid Title

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Being a huge roguelike fan, cut and dried hack and slash is what I'm all about. Killing hundreds of enemies with overpowered spells and weaponry is what gaming is all about. Dungeon Siege 2 doesn't fail to provide, and provide in a gorgeous setting with nice modeling and animations. While the game does have flaws, it is far superior to Diablo 2, which it is compared to repeatedly. Far more gear choices, far more item powers and status effects. Much better designed world, better laid character developement and design(all assassins are women? Really?). All in all, an amazing game, and eyecandy to boot. For some truely spectacular screenshots, run off with 4 mages into the fray, hit pause, and pan around the action. Spells are fully rendered in 3d space, arrows captured in mid flight, or burrowed into the hide of a foe. The sound effects are rather straight forward, and the voice acting is lacking, but hey, its a hack and slash, not an epic RPG. I got precisely what I paid for, mindless fun and gobs of violence. If you don't mind a rather cliche'd storyline, and rather linear gameplay, and have a fondness for disgustingly overpowered heroes battling hoardes of near mindless moblings, grab this game. If not, grab it anyway.

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