Review IGN butchers DS2: Broken Dreams

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Dungeon Siege II: Broken Worlds; Gas Powered Games

The media is slow to review <a href=http://brokenworld.gaspowered.com/>DS2: Broken World</a>. The only logical conclusion is the game is to painful to play for free. Without publishers' payola, game reviewers quickly show that they are not complete morons and that they can see the faults of the game as well as we do. Without further ado, the 6.3 (sounds about right for any Dungeon Siege game) <a href=http://pc.ign.com/articles/725/725101p1.html>DS2: Broken World IGN review</a>:
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<blockquote>Unfortunately, the story is a little thin, more suitable for a side quest than a complete expansion. Sure there's a bit of new content here but it doesn't carry the same weight as the events from the core game. The story is typical fantasy fare...</blockquote>Like the DS2 story wasn't.
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<blockquote>When you're facing up against a 60,000 hit point monster that craps death, you'll be glad to have more than just an entry-level hero.</blockquote>Those #0,000 hit point monsters were one of the worst design decisions. When a designer has nothing to offer other than tougher = more HPs...
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<blockquote>Unfortunately, <u>all the strategy and tactics are based on preparations you make before each battle</u>. There are cool abilities and moves that you'll need to activate during the actual fighting but, once the action starts, the game devolves back into hyperactive button mashing. It's equally disappointing that the reagent system is nearly as unnecessary in the expansion as it was in the original game.</blockquote>And so on. It's interesting to note that while both GameSpot and IGN gave the game 6.3, the dumb readers gave it 8.3 and 7.5 respectively.
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[Saint_Proverbius]

Those #0,000 hit point monsters were one of the worst design decisions. When a designer has nothing to offer other than tougher = more HPs...

I'd say the problem lies more with the fact that they don't have anything else to offer. If the character system of the game is as weak as it is, imagine the monster creation the designers get to work with. I've never played with the editors of either game, don't even have DS2, but I can't imagine them giving a huge amount of options for critter making.

 

[obediah]

Those #0,000 hit point monsters were one of the worst design decisions. When a designer has nothing to offer other than tougher = more HPs...

I have to agree with Saint, that big hp alone isn't necessarily a red flag. Well actually, I guess it's when those big hp are the lone difficulty slider that they are necessarily a red flag. Of course if you go the other way, you get a Games Workshop clusterfuck where everything has 1-2 hp, but you can't put two fingers anywhere in the rulebook without them touching poorly worded, and conflicted special rules for creatures (That's why we don't have a good GW game - it would be fucking impossible to code any of their rulesets).

A buttload of hp can make for a nice endurance test. Most of the best moments in jrpgs are from the older games with 45 minute boss battles that were actually challenging, in that attack, attack, attack, attack, attack ... was doomed to failue. Of course since the difficulty of diablo clones is running in circles and timing potion quaffs, any endurance test is a nightmare.

 

[Direwolf]

It's interesting to note that while both GameSpot and IGN gave the game 6.3, the dumb readers gave it 8.3 and 7.5 respectively.

You mean Microsoft PR staff, don't you?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Well, actually, I'm saying it's a smaller part of a much larger problem in that the game has very, very little depth all around. When you make a campaign for higher level characters when there's not a lot to make things more challenging other than hit point, of course it's not going to be terribly interesting.

For games to stay interesting for super duper high levels, you need a great deal of depth.