Those of you who do know Chris for his previous work, or with an attention span that lasts more than just a couple of paragraphs, will have noted that this is the second Chris Taylor game to bear the naming format of ‘Something Siege’ and that’s with good reason. Though Space Siege isn’t a true sequel to Dungeon Siege in any way, shape or form, it is kind of a follow-up. A spiritual successor, if you will.

The differences are many. Dungeon Siege was a colourful medieval romp with a hit and miss approach to gameplay. Space Siege is a generic hallway grindfest with a sci-fi theme plopped on top like a glaze of week-old ketchup – which is to say, no matter how much you like ketchup, you’ll probably find this mostly bland and tiresome.

Still, the ingredient of this particular ketchup are; the Earth has been mostly destroyed by an alien race and you are an engineer on the last ship left, which also happens to get a small infestation of the aliens stowing-away on board. Oh, and tomato puree.

Actually, the plot does thicken beyond that point as time goes on, much like the crust of dried tomato ketchup around the lid of an opened bottle. Though the game starts off with you fighting the alien Kerrak – and we’ll talk more about how awfully that’s handled on the next page – the game doesn’t stay that way for long.​