Quarter Circle Forward Review: Dungeon Siege 3

 “ALL THE SPIDERS!!!!”

Dungeon Siege has been a staple series on the PC for more than a decade. Although some would consider this series a “poor man’s Diablo”, the series -- for the most part -- has been a solid loot whoring experience with gratifying combat and hours of goodness packed into each installment. The series was always a dependable way to scratch that loot whoring itch between Diablo releases. The third entry keeps the streak going but falls short of greatness.

Dungeon Siege 3 begins in the Kingdom of Ehb (the setting for all Dungeon Siege titles), 30 years after a rebellion was started by a woman named Jeyne Kassynder, and after the king was killed. You can select from four stock characters of your basic fantasy troupes: warrior, mage, rogue, and a kind of warrior/mage hybrid. You are tasked with meeting your fellow members of the Tenth Legion to combat this great threat to the kingdom, but when you arrive you find the meeting house ablaze, thus begins your grand fantasy adventure, where you must rebuild the legion and defeat the obviously very angry Ms Kassynder.

Now the plot is pretty throwaway, and nothing too original happens. Though there are, however, a couple interesting characters, like an automaton NPC that has a strong disliking of cats; this will give a couple of laughs along the way. But overall, this is all nothing we haven’t seen before. The “I don’t give a shit” mood toward the narrative is compounded by the horrific voice acting and terrible dialog, with such gems as “I’ve been shot, by that man over there with the gun.” You also interact with major events via conversation wheel (similar to Mass Effect), but the details were so uninteresting that halfway through the 12-hour campaign, I began to not care and just picked the option that would move the game along.

Visually, the game is not the best looking game on either console, but the visuals do impress with richly detailed levels like the Causeway and the Swamp Area, and the colorfully explosive spell effects really shine when the action heats up. However, because of this you will immediately notice the terrible facial animations during the conversation segments. The shiny and poorly textured faces make you feel like you’re talking to doll people, unless the Kingdom of Ehb has discovered a razor sharp enough to give you a porcelain-like smoothness. The enemies have a decent variety, though the standard mercenaries and skeletons do repeat frequently. Oh, and if you don’t like spiders, you can kill them in almost every environment; swamp spiders, cave spiders, and ice spiders are all included.

Now let’s get to the meat and potatoes of any good loot whoring game: the combat. Your four stock characters each have two combat styles, which include one for dealing with a mob and one for single combat. You can change between these styles during combat with a quick button press, and the styles also determine what spells you can use: three for single, three for mob, and three while blocking. So basically, each character only has access to nine abilities, which does feel a little bit limiting. Switching back and forth between styles and using spells and abilities is fun, and makes it a snap to wade through the thousands of enemies you face. A standard combat session for my mage would entail laying down an area-of-effect (AOE) spell, and then using my ranged attack style to refill my focus/magic gauge, switch styles and focus my single spells on the more powerful enemies then finally, I would pick off the stragglers with my single combat style. With another AI-controlled stock character by your side, and throughout 90% of the campaign, you will easily lay waste to Jeyne’s evil minions.

This game also has some welcomed co-op features online and offline. I got some mileage out of the two-player local co-op, though the same issues that plague other games of this ilk show up here. The camera is the biggest issue; in both online and local, the camera follows player one; this is understandable (though annoying) in the two-player local mode, but for online it‘s enough to make you chuck your controller. Four players occupying the same play space make some hectic boss battles near unplayable, not to mention how off-screen attacks in a large fight will kill you. The fact that each player in online co-op doesn’t give each player their own screen just seems like a poor solution.

Aside from the technical aspects of the game, there are a few things that bother me and hold this game back. Having only nine spells available to you doesn’t seem like that much, and the healing system artificially increases the challenge by not giving you potions. All healing is done through spells, so all characters have a mandatory heal spell that heals over time instead of one big chunk. So death may come frequently if you don’t pay attention, though you AI partner will make a point to revive you ASAP if they’re still alive. Also, the loot is rather boring for a “loot whoring“ game. With marginal increase, the best stuff is at the shops, so you’ll barely get that “This new *insert item here* is the shit!!” feeling that games like Diablo and Torchlight are so good at providing. Another pet peeve of mine; if you’re going to give me this loot, please have it change the look of my character. Making my character look like the spider-slaying badass he has become is one of the biggest draws for me in games like this.

The Bottom Line

Albeit Dungeon Siege 3 has its fair share of problems, the combat gave me tons of entertainment. Regardless, I can’t help but get the feeling that this game was rushed out to avoid the huge fall release schedule we have coming this year. I can’t suggest it over Torchlight, which just got released on XBLA a few months ago. As a full retail release, I can only suggest it to people who desperately need to scratch that loot itch until Diablo 3 steals sleep from us within the year. I would, however, highly recommend this game once it hits the bargain bin. I think another six months in the cooker would have really made this game amazing, but as it sits now, only true loot whores need apply.

This installment of Quarter Circle Forward has been brought to you by James Wells, a big supporter of the show and a recent college graduate. James can be found on PSN at DroidsURlookin4 as well as on Xbox Live at Supa G33k.