Dungeon Siege

by Microsoft

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005KBRD
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: April 4, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (293 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,984 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PC | Edition: Standard

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Chris Taylor, the man behind the smash-hit, 3-D, real-time strategy game Total Annihilation, designed Dungeon Siege to be as gamer-friendly as possible. Taylor's philosophy focuses on fun, and he aims to eliminate the annoyances found in most role-playing games.

For example, when you pick up an object in Dungeon Siege, your inventory rearranges itself to fit the item efficiently--you don't have to move your stuff around manually. If you are wounded and drink a healing potion, you only drink as much as it takes to get you back to full health--not the entire potion. If you buy an item from a shopkeeper only to discover that you can't use it, the shopkeeper will take it back and give you a full refund--not merely half. Other player-friendly features include a skill-based character system that lets you develop however you want (as opposed to locking you into a single character class), a pack mule to haul gear, and useful non-playing-character party members.

Even the gorgeous graphics are player-friendly: the game transitions smoothly from huge outdoor environments to claustrophobic indoor dungeons in real time. There are no loading screens, no pauses in the action.

Take away inventory wrangling, lame shopkeepers, limited storage space, hunting for dropped loot, and loading screens, and what's left? Pure RPG goodness. Relieved of the baggage found in most RPGs, the player can focus on exploring, fighting, working with party members, character advancement, and experiencing the classic tale of a farm kid's quest for glory. --Mike Fehlauer

Product Description

Plunges players into a gigantic, continuous 3D fantasy world where they adventure to discover what evil has befallen the land. Start with a single character, then travel through the world, gathering a party of up to 10 different characters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What Dungeon Siege Really is, April 16, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Dungeon Siege (CD-ROM)

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.

79 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Put Together Perfectly, August 15, 2002

By 

Paul McGrath (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dungeon Siege (CD-ROM)

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.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great graphics, a bit too canned to be 5 star, April 25, 2002

By 

[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dungeon Siege (CD-ROM)

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

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