This review was written for my website: www.aunonline.com
http://aunonline.com/?p=2407
Love getting tons of loot? And wish there was a next gen successor to Dungeon Siege II? If you answered yes to either of those questions Dungeon Siege III is something you should look at.
Dungeon Siege III was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and by god have they have done a good job. I had been looking for a next gen version of my favorite hack and slash games, Champions of Norrath back on the PlayStation 2. But no game has scratched that itch. Will Dungeon Siege III scratch that itch?
http://aunonline.com/?p=2407
Love getting tons of loot? And wish there was a next gen successor to Dungeon Siege II? If you answered yes to either of those questions Dungeon Siege III is something you should look at.
Dungeon Siege III was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and by god have they have done a good job. I had been looking for a next gen version of my favorite hack and slash games, Champions of Norrath back on the PlayStation 2. But no game has scratched that itch. Will Dungeon Siege III scratch that itch?
- Co-op. Whether you’re playing on the couch with one of your buddies or playing with 3 of your friends online this game is all about the co-op, and it’s perfect. You will notice when you pause the game at any point you can choose to activate the multiplayer by making your game private (which the game defaults to) which lets you decide who joins your game. Or public which allows anyone searching for a game to join. This system worked very well on Xbox Live, I had no problems whatsoever getting people to join my game.
- Co-op continued. The game works very well with co-op so well in fact, that I was looking for its shortcomings, but came up empty handed. My first thought was for the dialogue options; there are many choices to make and they couldn’t possibly make that co-op. Well they’ve got that covered. The leader of the game (whoever started it) makes all of the decisions, but the co-op partners aren’t left out, they can use the left stick to choose an option and it lets the leader know what the party wants.
- Phat Loots. Loot is addicting, I know. In some games you grind on for an extra hour just to see if you can get an upgrade, and then you are left feeling devastated after those new gloves didn’t drop because you are still wearing those ratty old gloves you got back when you were level 5, but not in Dungeon Siege III. Armor, gold, and weapons are coming out of the woodwork. The standard treasure chests, and enemies of course, but the not so normal weapon and armor racks which usually are in games for the looks, you might even find some sweet items off old dead bodies from battles past. And maybe some old family heirlooms? The cool thing about the loot is, you know exactly what item is for what character. Buying items at the vendor can be a confusing process if you aren’t paying attention, but you’re a hardcore gamer so you wouldn’t be buying the wrong items…right? Alright, well let’s save you some time and money here. At the vendor each item has a picture of what it is, a sword, spear, pants, and amulets among other things will have a face of a certain character behind it, and the character’s face will be lit up if either you or someone in your party can use it. And dimmed if nobody can, so you aren’t spending your hard earned gold on items your party cannot use.
- Level up. Leveling up, it still gives you that warm feeling inside knowing that your attacks are doing to do more and more damage or a well timed health boost. But instead of just throwing points into strength, dexterity, and health you choose abilities, proficiencies, and talents. Let’s break it down, every character has nine abilities to unlock, choosing an ability here allows you to use it in battle. But we aren’t finished. Proficiencies lets you choose what you want that ability to do, each ability has two very different ways to improve itself, using proficiency ranks a maximum of 5 proficiency ranks can be used within a single ability so you can mix and match or just choose one. Thought we were done? Not yet, now we have talents these give your character passive bonuses which in combination with proficiencies can make one bad ass dude.
- Great Visuals. The graphics of Dungeon Siege III definitely stood out, and yes that’s a good thing. The first Dungeon Siege on next generation consoles definitely wasn’t going to let us down. The graphics have gotten a drastic upgrade and it’s just beautiful. Very crisp and detailed character models and awesome lighting effects like the shadows casted by sunlight through tree branches and leaves and just amazing visuals in the scenery especially large cities. This is a very pretty game and you’ll be interested to see all of the areas and all the abilities of all the classes.(Anjali’s AOE fire)
- MORE. After playing for hours and hours I just didn’t want this game to end and I’m not saying that because it’s too short, it’s not, but because this game is easily one of my favorite games in recent memory. There is an empty menu for DLC and as soon as they release some, I’ll be the first to download it.
- More Abilities. Each character has nine abilities to unlock and I just don’t think that’s enough. We need more, it would be nice to have more of a tree to go down and really be what you want to be, like going all the way down the damage tree to be the ultimate bad ass with a 2h sword, or going the other route and being the heavily armored healer. Nine is good, but more is better.
- More banter. Throughout the game you hear some banter, mostly Anjali saying “Be gone” and “I think I’ve been here before” This game has a ton of dialogue, but adding some witty banter between you and your partner would be nice.
- Controller Delay. On several occasions navigating throughout the menus I experienced a 2 or 3 second delay after exiting any menu and going back to gameplay, it’s a very minor thing but it is frustrating to be holding a direction to walk and having your character stand just stand there.
- Better blocking and dodging. To block you simply hold left trigger or L2, and to dodge/roll you push a direction on the left stick, now when you are quickly going from attacking to blocking and then back to attacking you end up rolling around a lot. It should be said that you cannot change the direction you are blocking, you block the direction you are facing and it cannot be moved. One way to remedy this would be to change the controls a little, keep left trigger/L2 as block but be able to use the left stick to change what direction you are blocking, then change the right stick from moving the camera to dodge because it is not necessary to change the camera view when blocking.
- Random values attached to items. Multiple times during my playthrough I noticed the game has assigned items a gold value which means nothing because it’s not even close to what you would get to vendor the item. Is this your way of telling us the item level?
Need. Dungeon Siege III is easily one of my favorite games in recent memory, not just my favorite hack and slash dungeon crawler, favorite GAME. I’ve been waiting years for a good replacement for CoN and this game is it. If you have some friends who also love dungeon crawlers $60 for this game is a no brainer.
85/100
As good as this looter is I can't wait to see Snowblind's successor to Con: Lord of the Rings: War in the North.