Dungeon Siege was largely criticized for taking a hands-off approach to character development and being little more than an arena for monster battles - not to mention a lack of actual dungeons to explore. With so many options for automatic control of your party, the game almost played itself. An anemic story and little reason to proceed except to obtain more loot left players like myself wanting more. Thankfully, Gas Powered Games (GPG) has eliminated most of these shortcomings in Dungeon Siege II, creating a highly playable action RPG that comes the closest to duplicating - if not outright supplanting - Diablo II's successful formula. Though the roleplaying part is still sadly relegated to being the first letter in the genre's acronym. But I'll get to that.

While playing Diablo II was fun, I felt that there was something inherently wrong with being given a number of points every time you earn a level to spend on abilities like strength and dexterity. Warriors should be good at fighting, and mages at spellcasting. With the proper balances in place, players should be able to beat the game without any need to modify this structure. In Diablo II it would be pointless to start pumping points into strength on your low level mage, and likewise into energy for the Barbarian. But that didn't mean you couldn't do it. As such, I was impressed with Dungeon Siege's inclusion of a levelling system that based your character's abilities on actual usage of the skills, be it melee, magic or ranged weapons.

Getting into the Game

Dungeon Siege II's character creation screen is almost identical to its predecessor. Aside from token changes to a character's skin color or clothing in Black Isle's D&D games, Dungeon Siege was the first single player RPG I remember allowing me to have control over how my character actually looked. The game offers some new races such as the Dryad and Half-Giant, and the associated bonuses they provide may cause you to think ahead about what skills you're going to be focusing on.

After a sweeping opening cinematic, I learned that the fate of the world hinged on recovering the pieces of an ancient shield which must be wielded against the dread lord Valdis, who is in possession of an equally ancient sword that casts its evil shadow over the land. I then found myself on a beach fighting alongside the Morden, who clearly look and sound like the bad guys. But I was a mercenary for hire, which leaves some room for my character to wiggle out of this obligation and continue through the game as the do-good hero. Looking at games like the Temple of Elemental Evil, and Knights of the Old Republic: Sith Lords where alignment actually has some bearing on the gameplay, it would have been interesting to give my character the ability to choose whether he wants to fight the evil overlord Valdis, or steal the ancient artifacts for myself and plunge the world into eternal darkness.

The original Dungeon Siege had a highly simplified story for a game of its genre. The world was in turmoil, and your character was a farmer that saw his uncle ruthlessly cut down, ultimately deciding to take up arms against the evil sweeping through the land. Starting with no skills, you gained experience as you used weapons or magic, blossoming into a fearless adventurer as you made your way through the game world. The story was only meant to be a shell that enclosed the killing and looting, and we were better off for it being downplayed, because the portions we were exposed to through NPC exposition were merely obstacles in the way of the action. Unfortunately, Dungeon Siege II insists that we follow along, pulling out all the stops in one of the most convoluted and cliched plotlines in the history of RPGs. I loved at the beginning where an elf doesn't shoot you because "there's something about this one". The voice acting is similarly awful, with production values seeming to dip to new lows when I listened to character dialogue.


The first quest involves destroying some Morden outposts, to prove your worth as a good guy. As I moved deeper into the Greilyn Jungle, the ambient sounds, music and visuals resembled an updated version of Diablo II's jungles of Kurast. Complete with the tiny Hak'u, long lost cousins to the imps of Kurast we all loved to hate. The dense foliage of the Greilyn jungle creates the illusion that you might actually get lost wandering through it, even though the game silently nudges you along the path to your next objective. There are a number of branches leading to mini-areas or caves that simply serve as receptacles for more experience and magic items.

Both Diablo II and Dungeon Siege prided themselves on being completely seamless worlds, free of the loading screens that are all too familiar immersion-breakers. Where Diablo II provided fairly expansive, randomly generated areas to explore, Dungeon Siege was more linear in its approach. Instead of having a "home" town for you to go back to, the towns you did encounter were simply stopovers to buy the most expensive gear, perhaps pick up a new companion, before moving on to the next area. Dungeon Siege II thankfully changes this approach, and provides central towns where most of the quests are picked up and where your party returns when all of the characters die. It even has teleporter shrines (a.k.a. waypoints) to allow you to travel back to town to unload or to continue. Like Diablo II, saving the game only saves character states, and not your actual progress. Dungeon Siege II felt more like an explorable world this time around, though it still fails to capture the seemingly free-flowing areas of Diablo II by cluttering the environments with foliage and obstacles that are obviously placed to lead you to your destination.

Graphics are only a minor improvement, and after a while the shades of browns and greys screamed of the id software school of level design. I think what impressed me most about the visuals were the little things in each area: flames dancing off the walls of caves, birds flying through the forest canopy, or flakes of ash raining down on the incinerated town of Aman-lu (though why there are buildings standing at all remains a mystery). The sound is more convincing at creating atmosphere. Whether you're strolling through the Azunite desert or raiding one of the many Hak'u caves in the Greilyn jungle, the game goes out of its way to sound like it. A similarly heroic soundtrack is layered within each environment.

The game's controls and interface should be instantly familiar to players of Dungeon Siege, but if there is one thing I would change it's how the party's movement is controlled. I was constantly clicking to move, to attack, and to retreat from battle, and there was something distinctly RTS about this control scheme. You can still pause the game and command characters to perform specific tasks or rearrange inventories, but the addition of "Rampage" and "Mirror" party attack modes all but eliminate the need for this. I found that mirror attack mode solved most of my adversarial problems - the party simply attacks whatever creature the party leader is attacking. Placing a few healing spells and buffs in your mage's auto-cast spell slots takes care of any micromanagement that is required.

Dungeon Siege II actually has a better sense of scale than Diablo II in the variety of monsters that you'll be fighting. Specifically, the first boss battle at the end of Act I pits you against a gigantic three headed snake, and seeing its menacing form in relation to your party was very similar to the climactic boss battles in Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. And the fact that brute force tactics were impossible to execute in this particular battle rewards the careful player that coordinates their attack.

Character Building

Dungeon Siege was frustratingly limited in the way you could customize your characters. The thrill of playing with your paper dolls and adorning them in fancy new garments or weapons only lasts so long. In Dungeon Siege II, levelling in the four basic skills now earns you skill points that can be spent on specialties, which are passive abilities that give bonuses to your character's spells and attacks. While not an overt replication of Diablo II's skill tree, it offers branches of specialization for your characters. For example, a combat mage can focus on fire, lightning or necromancy magic. Or a mix of all three, though you run into the same dilution problems as having a character level in melee as well as magic skills. The game is generous enough with the skill points that you can afford to mis-spend on a few skills, but still create solid characters.

Powers are probably my favorite addition, because they're an instant burst of offensive magic that doesn't require mana to cast. Powers depend on character level, as well as what skill tree you've decided to spend points in. While the recharge rates for each power can vary, they aren't limiting enough that you have to hoard them for boss battles - many times I used them as a form of crowd control, such as my melee character's whirlwind attack (think of the Barbarian in Diablo II), and my combat mage's chain lightning.

Overall I was quite pleased with the way this system turned out, because it allows enough flexibility that I could develop a band of adventurers that is adapted to my playing style, but not too complex that I was mired in trying to optimize my party through tactical spending of points instead of playing the actual game.


Gang of Four

As with the original game, there is no way you can solo adventure in Dungeon Siege II - it can get pretty hard at some points. I find that there are more mobs this time around, as there were some battles when my party was simply overwhelmed and my healer could barely keep up with the wounded. Corpse runs are similarly harrowing, because monsters will re-spawn within the same game session, often blocking your path. What makes it even more difficult is the four character limit to your adventuring party. After having six characters plus the item-carrying donkey in the original game, this came as a genuine surprise.

With the amount of options available to players to build the characters in their party, it's unfortunate that the decision was made to have a four-member limit. There are at least two to three different paths through each skill, but Nature Magic proves to be the biggest loss. You could easily create a healing battery with the amount of healing spells and buffs available, as well as an offensive Nature mage that specializes in binding or ice magic. A ranged character could be optional, but you don't want to leave out a combat mage, because the spells generally get more powerful a lot faster. Both Nature Mages and Combat mages have summoning spells available, with a separate skill tree dedicated to improving their abilities that can make up for the small party, but it's nowhere near a solution. A tank specializing in melee is essential for gathering aggro from mobs, but I found that he got outnumbered extremely easily, even with the most powerful armour for their level. A second melee character or a ranged character that doesn't have to depend on mana would be useful, then, to attack from afar and manage some of the creatures attacking the melee character. By then I'm up to at least five characters.

And then there are pets.

As someone who refuses to leave any item behind whether I actually need it or not, the addition of a pack mule in Dungeon Siege proved to be a unique and valuable feature. I quickly learned that this was more of a curse than a blessing; on top of managing my party's inventory, I had to make sure the mule was loaded out appropriately. Never mind the fact that the mule was as useful as Ashley in Resident Evil 4: ready for a beating in any engagement. Dungeon Siege II introduces pets that might actually be worth having; aside from the regular duties of carrying loot, they can now defend themselves with unique attacks.

With the sheer amount of stuff the game throws at you, it's a real wonder why the developers opted to make Pets take up a party slot. It's obvious that players will opt to have an actual character filling a slot that can do more than kick its hind legs. So what's the point of having pets at all?

The game's three increasing difficulty levels lets you play through the game with your higher level characters, which is similar to what Diablo II allows once you finish the game. Playing through Dungeon Siege II a second time lets you to increase the size of your party, but this is a pretty weak gesture.

Gold Against the Soul

Like Diablo II, gold becomes irrelevant after a while. Though it happens a lot faster in Dungeon Siege II, because instead of having to spend money to repair equipment all the time, you're simply replacing your entire inventory with the game's many magic item drops.

Shopping for items at the town vendors is completely pointless, because you'll always find something better dropped by a monster. The only time I purchased equipment was at the beginning of the game, after reaching a full complement of four characters. Spending money to enchant items are simply drops in the bucket after three-quarters of the way through the first act.

Multiplayer?

Multiplayer Dungeon Siege II is limited to a party of four adventurers. I think this was probably the most offensive part of the game for me. When I think back about the community that sprung up around Diablo II on Battle.Net - a free service - and how much it's extended the product's shelf life after five years, I find it extremely difficult to accept the justification for this. Indeed, Dungeon Siege II is primarily a single-player game, but adding a robust multiplayer mode is an easy way to extend the game's life. Four players just don't cut it anymore, despite what the creators of Doom 3 might tell you.

This social aspect is where Dungeon Siege II will suffer the most, because aside from LAN parties I don't see why people would be playing this game instead of logging in to Guild Wars or World of Warcraft for a similar brand of gameplay. Despite its 60+ hours of content, Dungeon Siege II can be a lonely place. That's why there needs to be a shift back to compelling gameworlds in single-player RPGs. Morrowind was the only game that really managed to execute this properly - I remember interfacing with NPCs as much as I raided dungeons. Last year's Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines took this approach as well, and on a much smaller scale it allowed a better execution of character interaction with NPCs. Call Dungeon Siege II the last great single player clickfest and let's be done with it; RPGs need more story and convincing NPCs to keep players interested. In fact, computer RPGs need more role playing, not just stats and weapon upgrades.

And so...

Dungeon Siege II is the closest anyone's come to duplicating the expansive single-player experience of Diablo II. While my first impressions of the story soured the experience somewhat, I have to admit that the absurdity of it all grew on me - I mean how much worse could it get? I didn't even care that my journal informed me that I was now in possession of the final artifact for opening some ancient gate. I simply followed the path set before me, leaving bodies and empty potion containers piled high in my party's wake, my cadre of adventurers outfitted in the latest warrior fashions. And it was good.