by Gas Powered Games

Member Reviews: Review Dungeon Siege Yourself!

Pros
•  little innovations to the genre like the pack mule
•  very little loading ever
•  excellent graphics
•  comes with an editor
•  siegelet community is gathering steam
•  can be played online at zone.com
•  character trading

Cons
•  lacks Diablo's spirit
•  futuristic weapons give the game a "kitchen sink" feel
•  online play never came close to equaling Diablo's
•  maintaining a large group can be a pain

The Bottom Line - A solid attempt at knocking Diablo off its throne atop the hack and slash genre, but ultimately falls short. 

Link: Official Site

Review

As the old saying goes, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". This holds true with the Diablo series because of all the games that this classic franchise has inspired. Without a doubt, you can tell that Dungeon Siege draws a great deal of inspiration from Diablo. Yes, Dungeon Siege looks significantly better than both Diablo games combined, incorporates a party system, and its load times are substantially better, but underneath all that is a hack and slash game. 

That said, I will still have to hand it to Dungeon Siege for using a similar formula to Diablo and then trying to improve it. Besides the aforementioned graphics and lack of in-game loading, this game also provided a nice innovation with the pack mule. Since the games offers tons of loot for your entire party, the pack mule is a great way to logically boost your storage capacity. Now, keeping the mule alive sometimes can offer a real challenge, but they are still a great addition to the game. 

Besides those innovations, however, the game becomes just average rather quickly. Simply put, the game's combat system lacks the excitement of the Diablo games. The party system just does not lend itself well to hack and slash games.  Furthermore, Dungeon Siege has been a definite dud in the online arena. While Battle.net continues to thrive worldwide, there are currently a total of 8 people playing Dungeon Siege on zone.com as I write this review. Wasn't Dungeon Siege a huge hit in 2002? Obviously, this game lacks the staying power of the game that it tried to emulate. Still, Dungeon Siege deserves to be tried by any fan of the genre who wants a temporary diversion from the Diablo series.