Dungeon Siege Preview

Dungeon Siege Preview:

Dungeon Siege is one of the many RPG games in development this year. So what makes Dungeon Siege better then the rest? One of the things that brought me to Dungeon Siege is its designer Chris Taylor. Some of you might remember Chris from his blockbuster RTS hit Total Annihilation. As a big fan of Total Annihilation and of Chris, I wanted to see what he was up to and lets just say I was pleasantly surprised. After leaving Cave Dog Studios and starting his own company Gas Powered Games (GPG), Chris has set out to create new limits on the RPG gender just as he did with the RTS gender just a few years earlier with Total Annihilation. In Dungeon Siege you start out by picking either a male or female character and then you're thrown into action. The story begins with your character as a simple farm boy (or girl) chopping wood and out of no where a group of raiders attack the farm, burning your house and killing everything. But don't worry, you have your trusty axe in hand and you will easily slice and dice the raiders. But they have already destroyed your farm so you now go out into the world to seek vengeance. A time saving feature in Dungeon Siege is that you'll have the ability to pause or save the game at any time during play.

Dungeon Siege has a great number of features that really make the game unique. One is the fact that the game is played through one gigantic continuous world that you explore seamlessly without loading screens. Yes, without those annoying load screens that are standard with most RPGs, this mean the action is almost non-stop. The games simple learning curve makes the Dungeon Siege enjoyable to everyone from the hardcore RGPers to the first time gamers. The spectacular 3D graphics make your journey even more enjoyable and realistic.

Throughout your journey your character will have the choice of bringing more members to your party. If you choose you will be able to go threw the game solo, or if you get lonely you may add up to 10 members to your party as you meet people threw the game. The pack mule is one of my favorite party members, the pack mule is a party member that carries all of your items for you. No more going back to town to collect your items from some sort of bank or having a limit on items you can fit in your pocket. Just place your items on the pack mule and let him do all the work for you. In Dungeon Siege your party may consist of helpers. Helpers will do those things that as a hero you would not want to do and basically help you out. For example once you kill a group of monsters, would you want to go and collect all of the monster's items by yourself? Of course not! That's what the helpers are for. Not only will they collect the items for you but they will load the items on the pack mule for you as well. But I wouldn't send these little guys into battle, when they don't carry much more than a knife. As you travel along your journey, you will meet up with at least 80 different monsters in Dungeon Siege.

From his work on Total Annihilation, Chris Taylor brings some great Real Time Strategy aspects into Dungeon Siege. For example, you will be able to use many strategy tactics when engaged in a battle, you will have to command your party through battle with the ability to focus the attack, decide when and where to advance, or call for retreat. The strategy and tactics will have a big part on how well you play the game.

Dungeon Siege has a lot of little things that make it unique, some small details that no one has ever thought of before in a RPG game. One of them that I thought was a great idea was its "potion-sipping technology". Chris Taylor explains it best in this quote

"Dungeon Siege has a much-needed