Review Dungeon Siege 2 mixed bag at Game Revolution

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Dungeon Siege 2

There a <A href="http://gr.bolt.com/games/pc/rpg/dungeon_siege_2.htm">a review</A> of <A href="http://www.gaspowered.com/ds2">Dungeon Siege 2</a> at <A href="http://gr.bolt.com/">Game Revolution</a>. The score is a whopping <b>C+</b> and there's a fair list of complaints like this one on balance:
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<blockquote>Did I say almost? Because a fully grown pet is basically 'game over' for any enemy. Pets can be bought and then added to the party like henchmen, but instead of gaining experience and levels, they advance based on the items you feed them. When a pet reaches maturity, regardless of species, it will emanate a powerful aura. My dire wolf, for example, puts a 60% melee damage reflection buff on every party member. That's outrageously powerful...but that's just half of it. The items you feed a pet affect its growth - if you feed a pet nothing but weapons and healing potions, it will gain lots of strength and health. That's what I did, and my mature dire wolf wound up with a whopping 1400 hit points and 170 strength. The damn thing has the same armor score as my plate-mail clad half-giant (650 hit points, by the way), making him far and away the most powerful member of the party. Plus, he has the backing of a giant warrior, a healer (he never takes damage, but what they hey), and a sorceress. Roll credits.</blockquote>
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Wow. Pets are better than I thought!
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It's kind of interesting that the reviews seem to be a little lower for this game than they were for the first one, which was barely a game at all.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</A>

 

[bryce777]

Maybe some ofthe reviewers are getting the idea there is comething called 'credibility'

 

[Kratos]

Maybe some ofthe reviewers are getting the idea there is comething called 'credibility'

They sure are selective about what they try to gain credibility with. The same site gave NWN an A


All of the reviews so far have said the game is way too easy, but none that I remember have mentioned much about how the higher difficulty levels are. I assumed normal would be kind of a breeze like it was in D2 (though it shouldn't have to be).

 

[Digit]

I was actually a little concerned with Pets in the demo. They are great fun sure, but even in the demo my baby Ice Elemental puts the beatdown on anything it encounters, and it's skills are better than my level 10 character. Now there are possibly reasons for this, and the thing I am banking on is that the higher difficult levels really change the way the game gets played. In a similar style to Diablo 2. The things that rocked your world on Normal difficulty probably aren't going to be the same things that cut it in Nightmare/Hell. Especially in Hardcore mode, Nightmare is actually very scary and Hell is more so.

Anyhow, I didn't really read that review but did the guy finish the game? You can level up your pets pretty fastish I think and since so far things are fairly well balanced with a few weird spells which don't seem worth it, I find it weird that they would overlook such an obvious imbalance.

Digit
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Forum fly...

 

[corvax]

Maybe some ofthe reviewers are getting the idea there is comething called 'credibility'

They sure are selective about what they try to gain credibility with. The same site gave NWN an A

They also gave the original DS an A- What a difference few years make.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Actually, my pet baby ice elemental was everyone's bitch when I was playing. Then again, that was when I was playing melee, so I wasn't really paying much attention to it other than noticing it was dying a lot.

I think with melee as a primary character, the NPCs follow you a little too close in to combat when they should be staying farther away if they're ranged. That's just a guess.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I think people are retarded or something. Dungeon Siege 2 is as good a game as Diablo 2 was for me when it first came out. I have absolutely no idea how anyone can sing the praises of Dungeon Siege (which was a lacklustre title) while panning Dungeon Siege 2 as a horrible experience or whatever.

If I had to rate each game, Dungeon Siege would be a C, and DSII an A- (the minus is for the graphics which could have been better).

As for pets, they're meant to be good at what they do, but they're not good for much else. Take the Mythrilhorn for example: It offers a ton of defense, but it's not much good for any offensive capability. Likewise, the Dark Naiad's a damn good healer, but it's not like she can dish out the kind of damage that a Nature Mage is capable of doing.

Concerning the supposed 'imbalance' in the game, what does he expect? MMORPG-style difficulty? Fuck that. I rather relish the idea of having my party slaughter thousands upon thousands of monsters, similar to how parties in Baldur's Gate and Diablo 2 were capable of doing. That's why it's an action RPG and not some boring MMORPG treadmill/grindfest.

After all, if your single, solitary high level Paladin in Diablo 2 can resist 85% of all the damage he encounters, and singlehandedly slaughter Baal's forces, and Baal himself, why can't a party of characters in Dungeon Siege 2 do just the same? I see no point in making the game 'difficult'. This is, of course, in Normal mode. In Hell mode, it's a different story.

I assume the same to be the case in Dungeon Siege 2. The first difficulty's easy enough to get through, but as you progress further, you're going to encounter monsters with abilities and damage far surpassing that of the previous difficulty.

The game reviewer is a fuckwit. I have doubts if he even bothered to complete the game, much less play it on higher difficulty levels.

 

[chaedwards]

Surprised nobody picked up on this quote:

The original Dungeon Siege was a study in gameplay refinement, introducing a multitude of simple concepts that really changed PC role-playing for the better.

 

[Sol Invictus]

The guy is a fuckwit. If anything, Dungeon Siege was 1 step forward (3d), 2 steps backward (trite gameplay).

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

The original Dungeon Siege was a study in gameplay refinement, introducing a multitude of simple concepts that really changed PC role-playing for the better.

[/quote]

That's what you get when you're hired to do a review and your gaming background hasn't left the Pacman era or something.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Surprised nobody picked up on this quote:

The original Dungeon Siege was a study in gameplay refinement, introducing a multitude of simple concepts that really changed PC role-playing for the better.

I'd like to see a list of those, because I can't name one thing Dungeon Siege did first that changed any other CRPG. In fact, the only new thing in Dungeon Siege I can name are the way they did all the lifts and platform trains, which I'd never seen in a CRPG. I haven't seen those things in any other CRPG since then, either.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Besides the usual stuff Dungeon Siege 2 has a lot of nice new innovations with the terrain and weapon physics. Some spells actually bounce around and ricochet off things, so they're pretty neat to use. I've never seen that in any other game.

There's actual 3d/heights in the game, too, so it's not just a 2d game rendered in 3d. Ranged weaponry does exist as actual projectiles, and as such you can dodge slow moving ones just by moving aside.

 

[Shagnak]

Some spells actually bounce around and ricochet off things, so they're pretty neat to use. I've never seen that in any other game.

Well, I think they had that in Legend (and its sequel), but only Fez and I seem to harp on about that game.
I think you had that in Nox as well (?). Possibly other games too...but whatever, its a nice effect.

As for my Ice Elemental pet, I found it kicked arse. It never died once. I made it grow pretty fast though - it was never wanting of a feed :wink:

Actually, come to think of it, I never died either. Got knocked unconscious a few times, but the other party member always managed to extricate me from the situation.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Some spells actually bounce around and ricochet off things, so they're pretty neat to use. I've never seen that in any other game.

Lightning Bolt, Baldur's Gate.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Well, nox was 2D, so some spells and that Ogreball thing only ricocheted off walls (and people), but never in the depth of 3d. I've never heard of Legend so I don't know what that is.

Regardless, yeah, it's a good feature.

I've had a couple of party members die to a boss before. He came up close to my Combat and Nature mages and bashed them while I was busy killing his minions with my two melee guys. Rangers survive a lot longer than Mages, because they can dodge and evade.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Some spells actually bounce around and ricochet off things, so they're pretty neat to use. I've never seen that in any other game.

Lightning Bolt, Baldur's Gate.

2d, and also it was very random. It didn't have any actual 3d physics.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

You only specified you were talking of 3D in your second point; no reference in your first one had me believe your point was as indefinite as it was presented.

While I can't remember any RPG or derivatives that did the first point, I seem to recall the possibility of dodging slow moving projectiles in Morrowind. I would mention Vampire: Redemption and Neverwinter Nights but I don't remember them well enough to that point.

 

[Shagnak]

Well, nox was 2D, so some spells and that Ogreball thing only ricocheted off walls (and people), but never in the depth of 3d. I've never heard of Legend so I don't know what that is.

Legend is an old 2D CRPG that came out on the Amiga (and a slightly graphically inferior version on IBM compats). It had a rather good spell construction system.
Anyway, thought you were talking about richocheting etc in general...

I must admit, other than having an Ice Elemental pet, I concentrated on missile weapons and twin weapon combat for my two chars so missed a lot of the kewl spells no doubt. Had a few levels in combat magic for one of them though so I could open them shrine thingies. The Ice Elemental did nature magic so I had all the possible shrine doors covered.

 

[crufty]

Spells actually bounce around and ricochet off things, so they're pretty neat to use. I've never seen that in any other game.

Nethack has ricocheting spells. Nothing like blasting yourself with a lightening bolt to drive the point home.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Well, nox was 2D, so some spells and that Ogreball thing only ricocheted off walls (and people), but never in the depth of 3d. I've never heard of Legend so I don't know what that is.

Well, you couldn't aim in Dungeon Siege, so that whole "3D aspect" versus Nox is fairly moot. Even then, 3D bouncing ball spells isn't exactly a mind blowing feature that's made the genre better because other games have adopted it.

What the article is saying is that DS innovated a number of areas which made it in to other games and made them better. I honestly can't name a single case where that is true.

 

[Halenthal]

What the article is saying is that DS innovated a number of areas which made it in to other games and made them better. I honestly can't name a single case where that is true.

Taking into account that other devs saw or played DS1 and then said "No way in hell is my game going to be an interactive screensaver, we've got to let the player do SOMETHING," then I would say that DS1 has improved every single game created since its release, with the possible exception of DS2, if only in 'features' that are not included or just to serve as a bad example.