Review: Dungeon Siege II

Like most of the games that Blizzard has produced, the original Diablo laid down many of the rules for the hack and slash adventure genre. Followers of the Diablo design have been numerous, but few have been as well received as 2002's Dungeon Siege. The sequel, imaginatively named Dungeon Siege II, follows faithfully in the footsteps of the original fantasy RPG from Gas Powered Games. Solid, satisfying combat and a worthwhile storyline mark this solid genre title. Read on for my impressions of this medieval slasher.

• Title: Dungeon Siege II
• Developer: Gas Powered Games
• Publisher: Microsoft Games
• System: PC
• Reviewer: Zonk
• Score: 7/10

If you've ever played a fantasy hack and slash game, you've played Dungeon Siege II. This double edged sword swings heavily. On the one hand, you'll be familiar with the tropes, the controls, and the expectations. On the other, if you know you don't like hack and slashers you can safely avoid DSII without missing out on content you might have otherwise appreciated. That said, if you do enjoy the genre there is a lot to like here.

The first Dungeon Siege was widely hailed for its combination of strategy elements and party based combat. Dungeon Siege II doesn't mess with a good thing. As a mercenary far from home, you begin the game working for a powerful evil force that is just starting to work its way across the land. As with the original title, characters develop abilities by using them. If you want your main character to be a melee fighter, you equip him with a sword and start him swinging. If you want him to be a combat mage you put a spellbook in his hands and let him blast away. During the course of the adventure, you can recruit other hearty travelers to round out other roles in your party. As with your main character, you control their inventory and can thus guide their ability development. Though this may initially seem like a system with possibilities to exploit you quickly realize the "multiclassing" capabilities are limited. While you can give a spellcaster a sword to swing around, you're going to want to focus each character on a particular set of abilities in order to maximize their power. Unlockable critical powers are revealed with higher levels of specialization as well, giving you very little incentive to have jacks-of-all-trades.

Those critical powers are used when your characters enter combat. Combat is a major focus of the game, and while there isn't a lot of innovation here the hacking and slashing is very satisfying. Holding down the mouse button on an opponent tells your main character to go to town. NPC allies can be given instructions to focus their attacks on your target, or put into a spree mode where they'll cut down anything that moves. Combat moves for both melee fighters and spellcasters have a lot of crunch to them. Opponents are dispatched with zeal, explosions of blood and body parts accompanying your victory. While the makers of the Dungeon Siege series have a background in RTS games, there isn't really a whole lot of strategy involved once the axes start falling. As long as you've got all the characters equipped with the best weapons and spells you could find or purchase, the chaos of battle will mostly run itself. The downside to this is that it's very hard to protect your weaker NPC allies. Magic users in particular fare badly, as the monsters all known the "geek the mage first" addage. In large combats you'll almost certainly be waiting on your spellcaster to regenerate from the large holes that have been ripped in his thinking parts. Additionally, while the entertainment value of new critters to kill is high, the combat mechanic never really changes and thus can get old in a hurry.

Combatting creatures, as always, nets you experience which eventually allows your party to level up. Depending on what they use in combat, you are given several options in a skill tree for ways to focus their advancement. While multi-classing is again not the best idea, each character has available all the different skill trees. Using the weapon type appropriate to each tree nets you skill points for that tree. For example, using a bow nets you a skill point for the Ranged Tree after a sufficient time spent in the field. Within the trees you are given several options to customize your adventurer's attacks. Melee fighters can specialize in one handed weapons with a shield, or can go the path of the strongman and wield a two handed weapon. Combat mages can focus on different elements (fire, electricity, etc.), while ranged combatants can focus on crossbows or throwing axes. Given the limited number of allies you can have, this ability to focus their abilities is crucial to ensuring that you have party roles fulfilled to your satisfaction.

Combat and mechanics are all well and good, but roleplaying games should be about storytelling. Questing and story are always important elements to a roleplaying game (though in this case I use the term lightly), and in this respect Dungeon Siege II manages to break a little ways out of the cookie cutter mold much of the rest of the game adheres to. Starting your career as an adventurer in a Dryad prison is hardly an auspicious start, but from there you are swept up into fight against your former employer, a wielder of a deadly dangerous artifact from an older era. Aside from the main quest pushing you ever outward into the world at large, folks you meet along the way have a series of errands and personal vendettas to settle up. While they're the usual "i can't be bothered to go five minutes down the road" type of RPG sidequests, the writing and voice acting are usually fairly well done. This adds a level of personality and polish to the experience that many other games can't touch. Additionally, the game isn't shy about giving you quests some time before you can complete them, giving you time to consider you objectives and watch out for the opportunity before you can actually fulfill the request. The only real frustration with the game's theming is the vanilla nature of your NPC allies. They occasionally stop to have prescripted interactions between themselves, and those are well done and usually amusing to listen to. You'll never grow that attached to your companions because they simply don't have a lot in the way of soul. The blank faces of DS II can't hold a candle to the likes of Minsc or HK-47.

The game is somewhat lacking in personality when it comes to visual presentation as well. Up close, characters and monsters have a likeable roughness, with interesting details and personality coming to the fore. Pul back to keep track of the action, however, and the somewhat dated graphical look of Dungeon Siege II is readily apparent. There are some blocky elements to characters which stand out at a distance, and environmental textures can become somewhat repetitive. On the positive side effects for special attacks and magical combat add the same visceral quality to the game that the melee combat movements do, with sparks of light and fire limning the field of battle during most engagements. The auditory experience has the same quality, grunts and cries adding a first person experience to what could otherwise be dry hacking and slashing. The musical accompaniment is as successful in augmenting the gaming experience without overwhelming the player with its presence. The music itself has a similarity to the musical experience from the first game, but somehow didn't come off as repetition. The orchestrations are different enough that the feeling evoked is one of remembrance rather than ripoff, and works well within the gameworld.

Dungeon Siege II, then, is a competent hack and slash RPG. Built on the Diablo 2 model and paying close attention to the lessons learned from the original title, the sequel to the 2002 hit is a satisfying gaming experience if you're a fan of spilling orc blood. Combat, story, and questing are all well executed, with an eye towards presentation and visceral feel. Even though the game hews very close to the genre standard, the entertaining and visceral combat gameplay can make this a worthwhile addition to your library. If you're looking for some mindless fantasy fun, Dungeon Siege II will provide.

Comments

Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[Bryan Ischo]

The review doesn't describe *any* differences between DS2 and DS1. Which I guess is OK since DS1 was fun already.

DS1 was a very easy game. You don't have to aim or exercise much skill, you just have to follow along as the game more or less plays itself. As long as you don't stray too far outside of the realm that you are supposed to be in at any given point in your character's development, the creatures around you will be easy to kill and will provide more than enough experience to quickly level up and move on to harder creatures (which aren't really harder at all since your character is now more capable). It's repetitive but satisfying.

By far the most fun I had with DS1 was when playing multiplayer with my friend, when we would purposefully move early out into harder areas and try to figure out how to, using cooperation, kill creatures that would be far too difficult for either one of us to kill on our own. Usually the strategy involved having one character be chased around while the other laid into the creature, and then switching roles, until the creature was dead. Sometimes we could lure creatures into spots where they couldn't hit us but we could hit them (like from a ledge above them), which was fun too.

I personally much prefer games where you have to aim and dodge to games where you don't, but the DS series is still fun. I just wish these games didn't cost $50, or take so long (years) to drop down to lower prices.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[phpWebber]

I played the original hoping it would fill in the blanks of Diablo 2. I found it extremely boring. The character develop as a consequence of what action they happen to be ordered to repeat. Shoot a bow, become better at shooting a bow. Swing a sword, etc.

Well I downloaded the demo and found the game really hasn't changed much. You walk down a predetermined path fighting, casting, and drinking potions over and over again. The leveling doesn't feel special. Just a ++ to your weapon or skills. And speaking of skills, the new trees don't seem that interesting (unlike D2, WoW, CoH, etc.)

I think you summed it up pretty well when you said "the game plays itself". You kind of just sit back and jam the drink potion keys.

Again, I only played the demo so I am not in a position to speak on the final product. I would highly recommend anyone thinking of buying this to download the huge demo first or wait until the price goes down.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[merreborn]

I didn't like DS1's multiplayer at all. I loved DS1 because you could control a party; but in multiplayer you only control a single character!

And when it came to playing a single character, DS1 felt like a crappy, feature limited version of Diablo. I don't remember exactly what it was that made it feel like that, but I remember feeling like there was very little to do in combat compared to D2.

I hope they've done something interesting with DS2's multiplayer.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[fitten]

My friends and I thought it was fun until we realized early on that the winning solution was to buy as many health/mana potions as you could carry and use them instead of anyone actually developing any support roles. We soon were able to get so much money in the game that we all had godlike equipment. After that, it wasn't so interesting.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[schon]

The problem I had with DS1 was that playing it involved the following steps:

1. move forward a little bit along the predefined path until the hiding monsters run out at you.
2. kill the monsters.
3. goto 1.

If you strayed from this (say by moving forward too fast) you activate too many hiding monsters, and they kill you.

Why does *every* monster have to be hiding [in the bushes|behind a boulder|in a crevasse] waiting to ambush you?

The only reason I played DS1 to the end was because I couldn't believe that they'd actually make a game *that* boring - exactly the same pattern over and over, and I was hoping that things would change. I got to the final boss (a dragon, IIRC) I couldn't believe that the game was over.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[Skynyrd]

I personally much prefer games where you have to aim and dodge to games where you don't, but the DS series is still fun. I just wish these games didn't cost $50, or take so long (years) to drop down to lower prices.

I got a copy at Fry's for $35 - within a week of it hitting the shelves. I saw one other ad for a $35 copy.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[0xABADC0DA]

The review is totally bogus. The voice acting is completely absurd... it appears to have been aimed at 10-year-olds. For a 1.5 gb game demo I expect some decent graphics, but they were basically crap. I think the graphics are even worse than the original; they certainly have had no improvement at all except for a few pixel shaders that look out of place with the 100-polygon models. Games from 2001 (like Giants Citizen Kabuto) had more detailed character models! Another annoying thing from the first game is not being able to pan the camera past 30-degrees (you can't ever look into the distance). This is ridiculously irritating, but it's a limitation imposed so you won't see that there is no 3rd world, just a 3d path.

What is really annoying about this game is that there is exactly one story. You participate in countless dialog, but you only have one thing to say. Sometimes you can say it two ways, or have choices that have zero bearing on anything (contrast to Neverwinter Nights where lots of your dialog choices have consequences later on). Then there's the one path you can take through the entire game (there's no exploring).

Also, of course they want you to specialize your party by class; then later in the game they have an 'ambush' where the dudes attack your weak mage, and that's basically the entire challenge of the game. This game blows, I wouldn't even recommend playing the demo because it's pretty sad.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[marktoml]

DSII multiplayer does allow control of multiple 'parties' up to 3 players per party (or so it seems). However, I have had a number of problems getting the multiplayer (LAN) to work correctly on a regular basis. The issue seems to be that there is no effective error reporting when attempting to host a game, so you end up in black-screen mode when an error does occur with no idea why.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[badmammajamma]

I agree with the "plays itself" notion. I used the same exact tactic for every fight and it worked every time in their linear world. D2 kicked the shit out of DS1 because the mobs had varied behavior and what worked on one type of mobs may fail miserably on another type. The Gas Powered Games people just can't seem to get that an action adventure game shouldn't "play itself". Once again, D2, as old as it is, still kicks the competition's ass. How sad is that?

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[snuf23]

When me and my friend started playing DS 1 we were pretty excited. It seemed really cool at first. Shortly after that the boring-ness set in.
DS 1 is one of a handful of games I have actually fallen asleep while playing.
I really WANTED to enjoy the game as I am a big fan of the genre, having spent countless hours with games such as Sword of Fargoal, Rogue, Diablo and Neverwinter Nights.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[SpryGuy]

I'm with you. I've played through Diablo 2 (and its expansion pack) numerous times. I love that game. It's very satisfying.

I bought Dungeon Siege 1, and found it to be tedious and dull beyond believe. I never finished it. I doubt I even made it half-way. I've never had any desire to pick it up again.

Quite unlike Diablo 2, which I still play from time to time.

I doubt I'll be giving Dungeon Siege 2 much of a look, given this review.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[CommandoB]

I remember in Diablo II, even though the baddies would hide as you just described in DS1, you could actually run straight through a level as the Barbarian, jumping over the hordes of monsters in your path. Pretty comical, actually. Does DS2 offer this?

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[Anonymous Coward]

The dragon is a dead end side quest.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[UpnAtom]

Spot on. I was beginning to think I was the only one who'd actually played it.

At least DS II sounds like the battles will be quicker. Just play on easy and you might get to the end before falling asleep.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[schon]

I don't think that's Diablo2 you're talking about.

Diablo2 never really had anywhere for them to hide - except for being able to see you before you could see them (off screen) - which wasn't always the case.

In DS, the monsters would be *hiding* in the bushes. As you walked along, you would get close to them, then they'd just "appear", along with some bushes rustling.

Diablo2 was a lot less linear than DS1 (if you can believe that!) and at least offered something to the "Monte Haul" type players.. in DS1 there was no way to get to a town to sell your loot - you had to wait until the end of the chapter. Which took away any of the fun that might have been there for item collecting.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[NoMoreFood]

I'm about three quarters of the way through this game. I'm still wondering where the dungeons are; I don't think I'm going to find them anytime soon -- much less siege them.

That and I'd really like to know why my 'Pack Mule' pet has 156 intelligence and I only have 154.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[Sylver Dragon]

A few friends and I picked up DS1 specifically to play in a LAN. We actually spent the whole weekend playing it, but really wish we had something else.
First off, the game didn't scale well to 6 players. It seems that the only thing which changes is the Hit Points of the enemies. e.g. Every enemy had a zillion HP. This was fine for the fighter types, as they could just put their character in attack mode and wait while they chopped down the enemy. For those of us who went the magic user route, it was an utter pain. We would blast off high level spell after high level spell, and not even dent an enemy. As one of the magic users, I tended to leave a town with my inventory full of mana potions, and I would burn through them like a fire in a straw field.
Second problem, for the fighter types, they game got boring fast. In the middle of battles, we'd usually have one or two players just set their characters in a follow mode, and go get sodas or food, or just relax for a while. If someone was going to be out of the room for a while, they had the person next to them hit the health potion key if needed.
From the sound of it DS2 is about the same. In other words, not worth buying.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[CommandoB]

In DS, the monsters would be *hiding* in the bushes. As you walked along, you would get close to them, then they'd just "appear", along with some bushes rustling.

Oh dear. I didn't know it could be so bad. At least have my zombie adversaries spawn off-screen...

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[techno-vampire]

The character develop as a consequence of what action they happen to be ordered to repeat. Shoot a bow, become better at shooting a bow. Swing a sword, etc.

That's one of the things I liked about DS1. Shooting a bow should increase your ability to shoot, rather than giving you a point to spend on anything you want. Much more realistic. One thing I like to do is have spell-casters use their spell to open chests and so on because even that helps them level up in that type of spell.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[Blakey Rat]

The dragon isn't the end boss, it's a side quest. The end boss is so guy in some castle who's so generic and boring that you don't even realize he's the end boss until he's dead and the Game Over screen appears. The dragon would have actually been a decent end boss. Seriously, the game is that lame. Dungeon Siege sucked ass, that's all there is to it... and when Zonk said that it was hailed for strategy elements, he must have been drunk.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[GafferFish]

And in DS1 falling asleep isn't much of a handicap at all. At a LAN party once, a guy fell asleep in his chair while we were playing multiplayer. He had gained about 4 levels by the time he woke up, as the character just followed everyone else and attacked automatically. Talk about the game playing itself!

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[Bryan Ischo]

Thanks for the tip. At that price I'll probably bite. I was in Fry's and the copies on the shelves were $49.99 but I didn't look at any of their flyers to see if there was one of Fry's "instant rebate" dealies on it.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[pugugly]

They *weren't* spawned on screen - with care you could sneak in, figure out where they were, and attack first with bows or magic.

I was never terribly impressed with Dungeon Siege - the graphics were good and hit "frackin' gorgeous" on occasion, but it is *the* most linear game I ever saw. There was no particular need to ever talk to an NPC twice - gone through section, sell loot, go forward . . . oh look, a side quest, kill monsters, back to main quest . . .

And btw, any kitten a thousand miles from home will easily rape a dragon that was near the house in the home village. No particular reason, 'cept they were 'Desert Kittens' or 'Winter Puppies', or some such.

Now, having played Morrowind, that's a good RPG. Waiting on Oblivion!

Pug

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[garylian]

DS1 had one simple strategy to follow to win the whole deal, and it didn't involve skill in the slightest. It was purely a matter of carrying enough healing potions with you. That's it. Not a lot of imagination went into it. Just some pretty graphics for it's time.

A monkey can beat it. All it have to do is hit the H key whenever a character's portrait flashes yellow. If they can learn sign language, beating DS1 is a piece of cake.

DS1 was interesting for a few hours, and everyone was stoked at first. Then, it went from Dungeon Seige to Potion Mule, and the game got boring fast. I'm sure half the reviews came in from players before they got half through the game, and started to claw their eyes out.

I've talked to a friend that actually bought it, and he said DS2 is the same. I wouldn't spend the $$$ on it, but it was good to know it was just as lame.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[indiechild]

I don't know why some people say the graphics are crap... to me, they look brilliant, and the engine is keeping up with other games in 2005. It certainly looks no worse than games like WoW.

Do you have all the graphics options turned up to max? Are you playing at 1280x1024 or higher, with FSAA and AF?

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[Skynyrd]

Thanks for the tip. At that price I'll probably bite. I was in Fry's and the copies on the shelves were $49.99 but I didn't look at any of their flyers to see if there was one of Fry's "instant rebate" dealies on it.

The flyer said $35, and there was no mention of a sale price anywhere in the store. I figured I'd have to fight for it, but I was wrong.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[Kris_J]

It certainly looks no worse than games like WoW.

You're mistaken. Quick example: When a character in WoW talks, their mouth moves. This does not happen in DS2. This is not the only example, just the first one I noticed.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[Targon]

The quest system has been greatly improved over the original game, with a quest log, and you have the option of rejecting many of the quests. Some quests are restricted to having the proper NPC in your party to activate it as well, so party composition changes help for replayability, though I havn't found enough "different" quests that require the different party members to unlock to make it a huge deal. Perhaps I missed a few.

The party members also talk to each other a bit here and there as you progress through the three act story similar to Baldur's Gate 2, but not as detailed or well implemented. It was still nice to see that your party members have a bit more life to them.

The journal provides useful information in addition to the quest log. Chants(which have a number of effects), are learned during the course of play. A map with a location list of places visited helps players remember where those hard to find locations are.

On the map(which you can "blow up"), you also get silver and gold stars to show where quest related items and NPCs are, in addition to an arrow to help you find your way through the main quest.

In each act there is a central city area for buying and selling items, similar to the first game having areas to buy and sell from along the course of the game. You can choose to teleport back to earlier cities to finish up quests. In some cases, quests force you to go to the next chapter to complete as well.

The graphics may be dated, but the improvements make the game worth the price, and it's a fun game. Like the Diablo games, you have three difficulty levels that you can play the game in, though it requires finishing the game at the lower difficulty levels in order to unlock it. The first level is Mercenary, which runs levels 0-39, and most people seem to get to level 44 or so at the end of the game. Veteran starts at level 40, meaning everything is level 40 and up. In the first few chapters of playing on Vet difficulty, I found it generally a little easier, though the battles took a bit longer as well.

A nice thing is that you keep your entire party when you start the next game after winning, so you can get some extra dialog from party members at the start of the game.

Another piece of useful information is the limits on how many people you can have in your party. Pets take up one slot, so you have to sacrifice on getting a new party member if you have pets, or you need to drop a pet to add the party member. In Mercenary mode you are allowed a maximum of four party members including your main character. Each difficulty mode after that adds 1 more, so at Veteran you can have 5 party members(or 4+1 pet), maxing out at 6 party members.

Pets have maturity levels, and you need to feed them items in order to have them grow up. Based on the type of items you feed them, they get ability bonuses with each age category. This also can become a strategy since you arn't limited to a donkey. There are a good number of possible pets you can add, and they all will fight for you to an extent. The more expensive ones will obviously be more useful.

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[BobTheLawyer]

Damn right.

You get better acting in the average high school play. The script is embarassing. The game requires no skill at all to play.

How can anyone over 12 possibly like this thing?

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[Some_Llama]

Waht I found frustrating about spellcasters is that if I used them for anything other than offensive spells (like healing wind or other "helpful spells") then they wouldn't level up much if at all...

What's the point of having spell casters if they don't get any exp for helping their party (which is their most basic function)?

Re:Sounds just like Dungeon Siege I

[Onewheel]

I totally aggree. It was so boring that I finished with god-mode just to see what was the end. I just remember there was more and more monsters. But can't remember the epilogue video, must have been crappy.

Anyway, one day someone said on /. DS1 was a barely clickable screensaver. I doubt DS2 is better than this...

What a terrible review.

[ivan256]

I'm not trying to troll here, so let's forget for a moment that the
article clearly wasn't spellchecked, that the grammar and
capitilzation are terrible, and that the poor punctuation makes many
of the sentences mean things that were clearly not intended (or at
least not correct).

The big problem here is that this review doesn't tell us anything
about the game! Sure, combat and graphics. Nice. What about the menus?
The story? It only had one word about the story. Items, and item
creation? Is the UI frustrating? Does the game crash? Does it have
multi-player? Co-op?

Please, Zonk, if you're reading these comments (seems dubious, but
if..), tell us what it's like to play this game!

Re:What a terrible review.

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

the article clearly wasn't spellchecked, that the grammar and capitilzation are terrible

The first rule of being a spell check NAZI is spell check your own post.

Re:What a terrible review.

[Anonymous Coward]

OMFGBBQHITLER!!!

Re:What a terrible review.

[sammy baby]

Incorrect. That's a paraphrasing of the second rule of being a spell check Nazi: "If you are a spell check nazi, you will spell check your own post."

The first rule is, of course, "Do not talk about spell check nazis."

Re:What a terrible review.

[Onymous Hero]

Don't forget to check back in a few days for the dupe^W update to this review...

Re:What a terrible review.

[ShecoDu]

Well, I havent played the game, but I have read it has a multiplayer mode, in which up to four players can play together and control one or two characters (maybe more?), it doesnt have a multiplayer campaign, but instead the multiplayer mode is played inside the single player world, so they could focus on developing a huge world instead of two separate worlds.

In the single player mode, you can play up to 6 characters, but that's not available until you finish the game twice (first run, you can only have 4)

Re:What a terrible review.

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

The first rule is, of course, "Do not talk about spell check nazis."

Using your framework (a pop quote from a movie/book), the second rule of spell check NAZIs is "DO NOT talk about spell check NAZIs."

Re:What a terrible review.

[ivan256]

The difference between me and Zonk: He got paid to post his article, and I spent 45 seconds typing in my response between compiles at my real job. He has time to spell check, and he posts for a living, so he should.

But like I said.. I wouldn't even care about the spelling if it was a good review. If you're going to do a half assed job at getting paid to review though... Spell check it. If you're going to write a review with quality content, I'll let the spelling slide.

Why isn't there spell checking in these damned forms anyway?

Re:What a terrible review.

[ivan256]

Actually it's capitalization. He's right. I fucked up.

It's inevitable that I'll spell something incorrectly in a post that mentions somebody else's spelling.

Re:What a terrible review.

[Boogaroo]

The problem wasn't with the "z" in the word. It was the fact that it's completely misspelled.

What you guys want to use is capitalization. The original poster left out the I between L and Z and both you and he replaced the A with an I. Being European has nothing to do with it as you'll notice nobody said anything about an S.

It's interesting to watch people correct the correction of the correcting post and still get it wrong. Heh.

Re:What a terrible review.

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

dumb european fuck. it's capitilization in the US moron, not your pompous capitilisation. read first, then understand. Then react, not the other way round.

Read the word again, Einstein.

capitilzation

Re:What a terrible review.

[Anonymous Coward]

What a lozer.

Re:What a terrible review.

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

The difference between me and Zonk: He got paid to post his article, and I spent 45 seconds typing in my response between compiles at my real job. He has time to spell check, and he posts for a living, so he should.

But like I said.. I wouldn't even care about the spelling if it was a good review. If you're going to do a half assed job at getting paid to review though... Spell check it. If you're going to write a review with quality content, I'll let the spelling slide.

Understandable - but when you leave a hanging curveball right over the plate, I gotta take a swing at it.

Why isn't there spell checking in these damned forms anyway?

Suggestion - type it in Outlook (or any other mail program), use spell check and paste it back into the form. There is an added benefit of it appears that you're working.

Re:What a terrible review.

[Russellkhan]

Wrong. Look it up.

Re:What a terrible review.

[smidget2k4]

oh this post made me laugh for a good five minutes.

thank you for that, AC, my day has been brightened.

Re:What a terrible review.

[bynary]

Install the Google toolbar for either IE or Firefox. It has a spell-checking feature for web forms.

Re:What a terrible review.

[general_re]

Here's a pocket review. Two of the cheats for DS II are reportedly the following:

Teleport ... +bushsux-oluaowr
Silver ring ... +iraqsux-eszaryz

Some folks may decide this sort of thing is worth rewarding, some may decide it's worth avoiding, and some may decide it's not important either way. I merely report for the edification of potential purchasers.

Re:What a terrible review.

[aTMsA]

Argh, a little gem of a genuine good joke here on slashdot and it's all full of funectomized answers, that to add insult over injury try to patronize the grandparent!

Grumble. I suggest you go outside and take note on what people say just before all laugh, then you can build a bayes predictor with that data and use it to check a post before replying to it and showing you're not from this planet.

Re:What a terrible review.

[Anonymous Coward]

For someone who complains about grammar, you seem to like using long run-on sentences...

Re:What a terrible review.

[BB101]

The multiplayer is good, but you follow the single player story, which I think is a little poor. Your "party" consists of 6 people, and you can play with 1 to 6 people in one game, all sharing the 6 original party count.

Re:What a terrible review.

[The_Honkey]

[sarcasm] What's that? You accuse Zonk of submitting a poorly written review of a game? Stop all this Zonk bashing, he is totally the best editor on Slashdot! His stories are always great, even the second time around. [/sarcasm]

Re:What a terrible review.

[Blakey Rat]

It's all wrong anyway. The first game was prized for its strategy? Uh, did you PLAY the first game, Zonk? The first game was 25 hours of clicking on the screen with the mouse. It didn't really matter where you clicked, you just clicked. The game was dull as hell, and after enduring its boringness, there's no way I'd buy the sequel.

Re:What a terrible review.

[ivan256]

Let me guess, if it doesn't have a period after 10 words or so, you consider a sentence to be a run on sentence.

There's nothing wrong with long sentences when they don't jump from topic to topic.

Re:What a terrible review.

[Swift(void)]

Heres your answers:

The big problem here is that this review doesn't tell us anything about the game! Sure, combat and graphics. Nice. What about the menus? The story? It only had one word about the story. Items, and item creation? Is the UI frustrating? Does the game crash? Does it have multi-player? Co-op?

1. I loaded the game and thought "Why is this menu so dark and why is there some pixelation?". Rest of the game looks fine, so i dont know.

2. What story? Oh, you mean the shockingly voiced dialogue between the mountain of boring hack n slash that says the same thing a dozen times? Yeah, it was ok, i guess.

3. Items. There are tons. Youll find alot of set items, and alot that you already have. Youll even find multiple uniques that are the same item. Item creation is enchanting, but the fact is, anything you can enchant sucks some major ass compared to just about everything else in the game

4. UI is actually fairly decent, except there is no button to distribute mana/health potions evenly between party members like in DS1.

5. Yes, it has multiplayer, it is co-op, but after realising how boring the game is, it matters little.

Seriously, go spend your 35-50 bucks on drugs or something. They will be more enjoyable :)

multiplayer?

[khallow]

One of the key things about Diablo II was the ability to play it online. Can you do that with this game?

Re:multiplayer?

[superpulpsicle]

Speaking of Diablo II, I want to replay that game again on extremely Hi-Resolution. Is there a hack to make that happen?

Re:multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the key things about Diablo II was the ability to play it online. Can you do that with this game?

Yes. And anyone can host. That feature was in the first DS too.

Re:multiplayer?

[DashEvil]

Not in the way you can with Diablo II. You are limited to three modes:

2 Player, where you can have 3 party members.
3 Player, where you can have 2 party members.
and 6 player, where you can have 1 party member, your main hero.

The multiplayer experience is almost identical to the single player experience, it's just that you all share quests and quest items. Lots of fun at LANs, but I doubt it'd be very entertaining online with people you don't know.

Re:multiplayer?

[glassjaw rocks]

no.

Re:multiplayer?

[DigitalWar]

The internet option of DS2 is terrible, difficult to get working and certainly not for novices. Linksys routers are particularly troublesome for this game. I haven't been able to get it to play online through my USR router yet.

Re:multiplayer?

[chrisnewbie]

is this a real question?

The question today is: Is there a game you cant play on-line ?

probably 90% of games are made to play on-line (unfortunately).

Re:multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's so hard about pressing "Internet", picking a server from the list, creating a game name/password and waiting for your friends to join?

I've had no issues playing with friends and we are all behind various incarnations of Linksys routers. Perhaps your router/connection sucks?

Re:multiplayer?

[networkBoy]

What kills me are games you can not play locally (i.e. some Xbox games have system link disabled, but allow live).

Blizzard games that will not allow more than one instance from a single IP (starcraft).
-nB

Re:multiplayer?

[snuf23]

Diablo 2 is based on pre-rendered bitmap graphics and sprites. Only some of the special effects take advantage of 3D cards. What this means is that the low res graphics would not scale up well to a different resolution.

Re:multiplayer?

[Laser_47]

But it can't cross a subnet without using GameSpy...

Re:multiplayer?

[techno-vampire]

One of the key things about Diablo II was the ability to play it online.

To be more accurate, Diablo II is an online game with a rather grudging single-player mode. As I like to play it alone, that means that it's almost impossible for me to get more than one item from a set. I've only once had a character get two from the same set in all the time I've played. Not only that, many of the Horadric cube recipies need things you're only likely to get together in a multi-player game. This is no accident, and Blizzard has no intention of changing it. It's their game, of course, and they've got the right to set things up however they want, but I do wish they'd take those of us who prefer single-player into account a bit more.

Re:multiplayer?

[khallow]

is this a real question?

Well, the main story didn't mention it at all. Turns out there is, but that on-line play is severely restricted.

Re:multiplayer?

[Quinn]

Someone please mod this UP UP UP!

Diablo II would not be as popular as it still is today without Battle.net play. Persistent centrally-stored characters were the sore point in DS1, and (AFAIK) it's still lacking in DS2.

Until there's a central official player vault, with some POINT in building your character, DS2 is (like DS1) nothing but a poor single-player game.

Re:multiplayer?

[afidel]

One of the cool things about Diablo 2 is how hackable it is. There are some REALLY impressive third party total conversions out there for it. If you want to play D2 single player I would highly recomend looking into them.

Nethack and Slash?

[ackthpt]

has anyone done a full 3d treatment of nethack?

Re:Nethack and Slash?

[ZosX]

What would be the point? The only audience that would be interested would lambast the use of 3d on their sacred ASCII game. There have been some 2d updates, but I really don't see the point. I never liked an RPG without a story.

Re:Nethack and Slash?

[pdbogen]

Nethack has a story... just turn off 'nolegacy'.

Re:Nethack and Slash?

[Chyeld]

Not a full 3d, but isometric. I'm at work so I can't give you the link but look up Falcon's Eye. It's nethack's engine rendered in iso.

Re:Nethack and Slash?

[Tofino]

No story! It's an epic tale of gawd-appeasement, bravery in the face of impossible odds, and the art of taking a 5-ton corpse and converting it into [x] blessed can of black dragon meat.

There are NPCs! The Oracle! Like in Matrix! Bizarre dream sequences (the Rogue level)! Moral choices! (You don the helmet! You feel changed! Hey, that Incubus is hot!)

Re:Nethack and Slash?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite, but there's falcon's eye:
http://falconseye.sourceforge.net/

enjoy.

Re:Nethack and Slash?

[Anonymous Coward]

Falcon's Eye is abandoned, you're better off trying Vulture's Eye, which is a fork: http://www.darkarks.co.za/projects/vultures/

Re:Nethack and Slash?

[egoots]

Your link is dead... but the following seems to work: http://www.linuxgames.co.za/projects/vultures/

Re:Nethack and Slash?

[Deadguy2322]

Is it just me, or does that sound more like a lifestyle choice?

Whoa

[ciroknight]

Screenshots? Zonk, you shouldn't have.. when did slashdot get the bandwidth for that!?

Re:Whoa

[Hack Jandy]

The day Microsoft paid $5,000 per Slashdot review. You can quote me on that too.

HJ

I'm tired

[Prophetic_Truth]

Maybe im getting old, but nothing excites me anymore. Seems like every game coming out these days are rehashes of old gameplay with updated graphics. FPS/RPG/MMORPG/Racing/Sports/RTS and thats pretty much it. I don't know what I want either..Something dazzling, something different, something creative. I'm bored of games and I don't know what to do! HELP!

Re:I'm tired

[ivan256]

Start playing games that are fun for the story...

Just don't expect too much because you'll find one where you like the story, and the gameplay isn't too annoying, and you'll be happy again... Then they'll go and make the gameplay more obnoxious (usually by "improving" combat) when they come out with a new story.

Games with in-depth story lines are few and far between these days, but it sounds exactly like what you're looking for. That, or a book...

Re:I'm tired

[Hinhule]

I miss the good old adventure games. Monkey island etc. :(

Re:I'm tired

[Quirk]

"Seems like every game coming out these days are rehashes of old gameplay with updated graphics. FPS/RPG/MMORPG/Racing/Sports/RTS and thats pretty much it. I don't know what I want either..Something dazzling, something different,..."

Given your ennui, I suggest Russian Roullet. Some suggest, if you loose, you move to another level, up or down.

enjoy

Re:I'm tired

[Radres]

I agree that getting older means that it is much harder to be impressed. I have to say that the only thing that really appeals to me anymore is when the game involves such a high level of thinking that it is more or less like chess. If you want to see a good example of such a game, check out Laser Squad Nemesis. It's a turn-based strategy game that involves positioning units and issuing orders in order to properly assault an intelligent enemy, namely another living, breathing human.

Re:I'm tired

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're bored of games, why not try real life? There are loads of organisations who could use your time if you wanted to donate it.

Re:I'm tired

[mav[LAG]]

Try this game. No two games are ever the same, it's fiendishly difficult yet incredibly rewarding, doesn't requre the reflexes of a 13-year old and the visuals beat anything you could ever see on a screen (mainly because they take place mostly in your mind).

I've been playing for 15 years or so and am still not tired of it.

Re:I'm tired

[DrEldarion]

I feel the same way. The only game that's actually felt "fresh" to me in a long time has been Psychonauts.

Reviews are great. Definitely check it out.

Re:I'm tired

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had a lot of fun with Avernum and Geneforge, see http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/. Quite retro, but very addictive, heavy on the story, and witty. Example, when you go into the Arena to watch Gladiator battle, the Ogre stamps your hand for reentry. :)

Cheers,
AC

Re:I'm tired

[locke_00]

There are innovative games on the market; they're just not usually in the top 10 best-sellers. Katamari Damacy is quite original - you'll love it or hate it. It's definitely creative. I find myself humming that goofy song at random times ("Naaah, nah nah nah, Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah naah nah, nah nah nah nah"). Animal Crossing, Rez, Mr. Mosquito, Mad Maestro - all unique ideas and/or presentation. I've heard the same about Psychonauts (Yay Tim Schafer!), but I haven't yet seen it personally.

Re:I'm tired

[jim_v2000]

Dear God, I know...everything seems to be the same as the last game that came out. The last game I played that I really enjoyed was HL2...and that was cuz of the nifty new physics/graphics. Aside from that though, it seems like every "new" game looks about hte same, plays about hte same, has a dry storyline that couldn't get lint caught up in it, and in general is a bore. I'm getting tired of it...I want something captivating to play...something with a decent plot, and decent voice acting...and decent graphics. Of course, that's just me though.

Re:I'm tired

[StarvingSE]

Its true. I want to know when RPG became synonymous with orcs/swords/mages/etc. I love the old fashioned Tolkienesqe fantasy, but it is played out in the video game department. When fallout came out, I was very excited and it was a great experience.

The game making process has gone very far away from innovative concepts. It basically goes in this cycle now:

1) New graphical technology comes out
2) Everyone oohs and aahs, and buys up hardware to support it.
3) Every game that came out a year or two ago gets a sequal or rehash using said graphical improvements
4) repeat

Its getting very boring.

Re:I'm tired

[Mondoz]

*rubs eyes*

Is this review about a WoW patch or update or something?

*drools incoherently from lack of sleep*

Must not be.

*Goes back to using PC for what it was intended: a WoW terminal*

Re:I'm tired

[Anonymous Coward]

I got the same way for a while and then played "Beyond Good and Evil" which was a lot of fun and also (I know this sounds dorky) *moving*. It's cartoony and sentimental and cheesey but the formula just worked for a lot of people, including me. Can probably pick it up for $10.

And now, unfortunately, I'm totally hooked on World of Warcraft. Pathetic, I know, but I'm having fun.

Anyway, my real point: the disillusionment with games does get worse as you age I think, but it's also cyclical. Just enjoy the break, read some books, watch some classic movies, and sooner or later a game will catch your eye again.

Re:I'm tired

[Kergan]

doh... so *that* is why nerds eventually find themselves a girl friend.

Re:I'm tired

[RGTAsheron]

Well you should like DS2 then! Its a tired rehash of DS1 but with even worse graphics! I tried the demo but quite frankly couldn't stand the graphics and since I'm not a fan of hack and slash, pretty quickly uninstalled it.

Re:I'm tired

[Baddas]

http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=scummvm

http://www.scummvm.org/downloads.php

Re:I'm tired

[Anonymous Coward]

The game you are looking for is called "Katamari Damacy," for the Playstation 2. Try it. It's different. Very different.

Re:I'm tired

[gbjbaanb]

Obviously, LSN isn't the only one (it is good though).

Previous games (you can buy on ebay for $1 for example) include:

Incubation
Jagged Alliance 2
X-Com: UFO
X-Com: Terror from the Deep
X-Com: Apocalypse (my favourite)

Re:I'm tired

[gbjbaanb]

How about Worms Armageddon?

silly animated worms with bazookas firing grenades and the like at each other in a game that has its roots in the very very old artillery game (where you have 2 guns either side of a mountain and you take turns to lob shells at each other with realistic physics - this was in the days of text-based graphics BTW).

Worms is a silly, fun game you should play with your mates around, and beers.

Re:I'm tired

[pugugly]

I haven't tried the games leading up to it (Daggerfall et al), but Morrowind is one of the two or three best RPG's I've seen on the computer. Incredibly hackable, you can design magical items to fit your needs, design spells, create potions . . . and it takes place on a 'continent' about the size of Greenland.

It has weaknesses - Graphics could be better, not bad by any means, and sometimes beautiful, but certain things look way to similar after awhile (and there are some sweet hacks to improve exactly that). Melee combat is weak, no other way of putting it, and I don't really think that's fixable with how the game is designed. And the sheer size of the game combined with some weak interactions and the graphics means that many NPC's start feeling 'generic' after awhile - you have the same conversations over and over.

I really don't care that much about the graphics, and I'd love for melee to improve, but I'm willing to forgive that for the storytelling, but the blandness of the NPC's detracts from it's best strength which is the storyline. I would really love to see the next chapter give the NPC's more distinct personalities and dialogue, and in an ideal world something that could create sentences that varied but carried the same info and a text to speech engine that could give each character a unique delivery of that info.

That would be a helluva game - .

Pug

Re:I'm tired

[DrEldarion]

The problem that I experienced with Morrowind was that it was TOO open plot-wise. Sure, just exploring around was nice, but even after playing the game into the double-digit hours, I still really had no idea what was going on. It felt like the whole game was fetch-quests.

Re:I'm tired

[Hinhule]

Thanks, I'm well aware of that.

I was thinking of the game genre as a whole. When 3d became standard it pretty much disappeared.

Re:I'm tired

[mink]

Try importing from europe and/or games from The Adventure Company/Dreamcatcher.

Re:I'm tired

[mink]

Apoc is bugged to heck and back. It also lacks true turn based play and goes to that real time interuptable stuff.
UFO:Aftermath does a better job of that then Apocolypse.

Re:I'm tired

[gbjbaanb]

Apoc is bugged to heck and back. It also lacks true turn based play and goes to that real time interuptable stuff

Have you played it? its never crashed on me, and when you enter a tactical mission you choose - standard turn based, or real time play. Not both.

Re:I'm tired

[mink]

By bugged, I mean things like the stupid ground vehicle bug (if you play apoc you know this well). I havent played it in years because of them.
I dont remember the optin at the start of a mission, but if you ahve played more recently then I I accept that.

Re:I'm tired

[gbjbaanb]

Ground vehicle? I don't think we're talking about the same game.

I refer to Microprose's X-Com Apocalypse. I liked it (and ok, there was ground vehicles in the strategic screens but I never used them as they were useless).

Re:I'm tired

[mink]

I am also talking about the same game.
If you had a ground vehicle with agents (say early on) and a UFO shot at you and missed, there was a significant chance the ground underneath the vehicle (no matter how good of an APC) would be destroyed and then instantly the vehicle and all equipment/agents would be magically killed/vaporized. That was a tragic bug and total bullshit.

Sure you get hover stuff (I remember bikes and cars), but I don't remember there being a hover version (again it's been some years) of the high troop carrying APC or tanks.

I liked Apocalypse as well, but I am finding that UFO: Aftermath is a much better game in that style, because it lacks things like that. I don't know why they didn't fix the issue (a lot of people notified them of it after release). Lets hope whatever we do get next is at least as good as what has come before and is properly tested to avoid crap like what we often see in todays game releases.

Re:I'm tired

[gbjbaanb]

lol. I don't consider that a bug at all - if you were driving along and someone blew the ground up you were travelling on,....I doubt you'd still be around :)

There were good flying vehicles that could carry troops - the car carried 4 IIRC, the second research vehicle you got from investigating crashed ufos (forget the name, but it was the equivalent of a van - 32 spaces that you could equip with seats if you liked. they were heavily armoured and flew) later on you also got the aircraft that could be equipped with seats.

I found the ground vehicles to be useless as they were slow. simple as that - why drive when you can fly :)

I will have to try Aftermath, see what it's like.

Re:I'm tired

[mink]

The problem was it always seemed to happen. Basically combat UFO to ground vehicle ended up like this:
UFO shoots and one of two things can happen
1. vehicle is damaged/destroyed
2. ground under vehicle is destroyed and vehicle is destroyed.

Using hover got around that, but the downside was that hover craft were crap in dogfights against larger ships. So you end up with something like 40 hover bikes with a single laser in the hopes you can swarm the larger ships without to many losses.

As for Aftermath, if you liked the original Xcom: UFO Defense (or as some know it Enemy Unknown) think of it like that but with pretty graphics and the real time tactical setup from Apocalypse. It is not perfect, but if satisfied my craving after Apoc, Armada, and Enforcer.

There appear to be a few UFO style game in the works and I hop however they turn out they play well no matter what style system they use.

DS2 would have been nice in 2001...

[Anonymous Coward]

DS2 sucked for 2005!!

Probably great for 2001...

Seriously lame for a full priced game.

The 3d graphics of the "movie" scenes
were at best nintendo 64 quality..

gameplay? argh... the demo campaign was a pain!
too linear...

seriously I don't recommend anyone buying
this game at full price.

Re:DS2 would have been nice in 2001...

[Talonator]

I'm sorry, this comment is ridiculous, I don't know wtf you're talking about.

I think the graphics are quite pretty (the shaders are nice, though the water shader looks a bit dated) compared to the original, but that's not the only improvement.

Linear, my ass. Compared to Diablo II or DS1 this game is most definitely NOT linear. I think there are about twice as many secondary (side) quests as there are main (plot-advancing) quests. You can choose to play it linearly, or you can do all the side-quests and make the game much more interesting. I also very much enjoy how they break up the linearity of the game world - there are many secondary quests that require you to return to parts of the game you visited previously. Very unlike Diablo/DS1.

The greatest improvement, in my opinon, is the multiplayer system. In DS1 multiplayer you couldn't add people to your party, while now you can. This lets you add awesome pets (like the pack mule.. god i love it) while still playing with your friends.

I had one (minor) problem with the game, however, which was performance.. (this may have been due to simply shitty old catalyst drivers) whenever there was text on screen (like item tags) the game would slow up considerably, because the text was highly antialiased. I solved this by turning off item labels for everyhting but magic ranged weapons and magic armor (i was playing an archer).

Seriously, great game though. Up there with Diablo II as one of the great hacknslashers.

Re:DS2 would have been nice in 2001...

[Anonymous Coward]

And, if it is anything like DS1, you can pretty much go through the whole game in an evening while watching tv or reading a book.

Yawn

[popo]

This review tries to make it sound like the game is good... but I can't help noticing that it succeeds in exactly the opposite.

"Diablo model"? (How old is Diablo now?)

"Very close to Dungeon Seige I"? (DS I was good but that was years ago.)

Those games are both archaic at this point when we have WOW and other MMORPGS, the game needs to offer something that those other games don't. Storyline? NPC's? FMV Cutscenes? Depth of character development? Thousands of rare items a la BGII?

I don't know if it was this review, but the game sounds positively retro.

Re:Yawn

[DrMrLordX]

Retro games aren't necessarily bad. If there's a lot of raw "fun" factor to them, there can be replayability, etc.

Sadly, Dungeon Seige I wasn't that great, and it had major problems scaling well at high levels. XP rewards were totally off, spells were messed up, etc. Totally unacceptable from a single-player game.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO The only interesting non MMORPG on the horizon is "Oblivion"

The folks at Bethesda look to be pulling out all the stops. And those trees!

Re:Yawn

[garote]

"Diablo model"? (How old is Diablo now?)
"Very close to Dungeon Seige I"? (DS I was good but that was years ago.)
Those games are both archaic at this point when we have WOW and other MMORPGS, the game needs to offer something that those other games don't.

How about: No [expletive] monthly fee? ;)

Re:Yawn

[Blakey Rat]

Dungeon Siege was boring as hell. Sorry, I can't call it a "good" game... not even close. It's more of a mouse button stress tester than a game.

Re:Yawn

[idlemachine]

Storyline? NPC's? FMV Cutscenese?

The usual half-baked garbage of blah-blah fantasies and pieces of broken medieval weaponry. Cutscenes are abrupt, tacky and generally feel disconnected from the actual story. Watching a cut scene never left me feeling informed and I would have to check the quest journal to find out what to do next.

Quests mostly seem to involve immediately setting out for some location (one noone got around to mentioning during the amateur thespian hour that was the FMV) and either a) killing some generic, buffer up uberboss and then teleporting via the most pointlessly-contrived-to-follow-the- story-line-set-of-portals EVER to prove what you'd done, or b) wandering along the totally linear track they're not even trying to make seem more open-ended until you 'stumble' on the 72nd hidden cave system, through which you idly slaughter everything in sight while watching the map overlay for 'secret' buttons that provide you access to fey elven puzzles of the sort that most people learned how solved the first time they put the blue ball on the blue table, because god only knows you need a 17th copy, THEN tracking down some buffed up uberboss...

Depth of character development?

At seemingly random intervals, your party members appear to try and build up morale by throwing non sequiturs at each other:

"That certainly was a thrilling battle! What a great journey this has turned out to be!"

"You make too much noise." (oh, the tension!)

"I am a great fighter!"

Do you remember the stories of old, where one event would follow another, where characters had motivations more compelling than being a half-giant or happening to own a crossbow, where Evil acted before Good reacted and eventually saved the day?

Dungeon Siege 2 may have started with the intent of being epic in mind, but it could have at least bought me dinner before just rushing me so joylessly through the tropes.

Thousands of rare items a la BGII?

Right before I realised I couldn't even fake the interest to finish the last few quests, the best armor I'd come across for my combat mage was some kind of infected-banana-yellow robe with a red flame trim, which had her looking more like a pimped out Zippy the Pinhead than conveying the inherent arcane majesty it's bonuses wanted to imply. And ENOUGH WITH THE GLOWING ALREADY! From the second you equip your first enchanted item with its +0.001% to some stat that's useless to you, the hidden wellsprings of the universe break open and pour their heavenly light upon you. Clip on the right combo of magical bling, statgrind until you can finally fit into that special bright mauve & rotten orange Tunic of Three Random Words (ooh, +2% chance of finding less pointless equipment!), and it's disco inferno...

And look when your title is a party-based RPG, when that fact is constantly highlighted in the marketing and the game itself as being one of the distinguishing elements of this shambling corpse of what should have been a stillborn franchise, when you impose artificial constraints on the size of that party that reduces the potential for more interactions without any noticeable advances in your game engine (setting the fog to a different colour dependent on the locale so at first it's 'snow', then 'smoke, then 'uh is that humidity? or a spooky self-generating atmosphere of malaise?' doesn't help conceal the lack of any evolution of the graphics engine - the six point seven trillion points of cheap psychedelia the game starts whoring within the first 37 seconds don't even begin to help), so, yeah, when ALL OF THE ABOVE, why, why, why can't a party of even two characters manage to consistently STAND ON A DAMN ELEVATOR PLATFORM AT THE SAME TIME BEFORE TRIGGERING IT or, god forbid, the fucking fighter standing right beside the pile of gold actually pick it up instead of waiting for the most physically distant party member to shuffle on over to grab it, which is genera

Re:What was our age demographic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nethack was a rouge clone. Granted the did add a bit of content to it. When I first played Diablo, I thought "oooh, a rouge-like game with a purrty gui" *drool and all that ... *

Monster Tower for playstation, same thing, rouge+gui. Though the totally turned the idea over.... 'up' was deeper into the dungen, rather then the traditional 'down'.

Slashdot is Helping Microsoft??

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Slashdot is helping Microsoft advertise/profit now?

Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[rufusdufus]

the original Diablo laid down many of the rules for the hack and slash adventure genre

This is totally incorrect. Diablo is a direct rip-off of Rogue and its many clones including NetHack. All Diablo brought to the table was evolutionary graphics.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[jayhawk88]

True but Diablo was the first game in this genre to bring it "to the masses", so to speak, let alone integrate all the graphics and sounds and such.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[merreborn]

Diablo is a direct rip-off of Rogue and its many clones including NetHack. All Diablo brought to the table was evolutionary graphics.

And clicking! Can't forget the clicking!

OH! A pallette shifted *BLUE* skeleton! That's new; I've only killed the Red, Yellow, and Brown skeletons up till now!

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK.
Take that Blue skeleton!

In all seriousness, I find diablo's interface a little easier to use than NetHack's. Did Rogue/Nethack even have plot much less quests and NPCs with speech?

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[scribblej]

Haaa... yes, way too much clicking in Diablo.

As a long time fan of Nethack, Angband and even Rogue, I'd like to point out the most critical difference. Rogue, Nethack, and all it's ilk are turn-based. Diablo is real time. It makes a huge difference. In Nethack you can spend a long time sitting in one spot debating whether you're going to try an unknown potion or scroll and possibly die. In Diablo if you spend a long time thinking, you *will* die.

Not to mention the multiplayer... I have yet to see a Roguelike with decent multiplayer.

Also, it' snot really fair to call Diablo a "ripoff" as the grandparent does. The designers of Diablo give a LOT of credit to Nethack for their inspiration. I think they did a great job.

I still play Nethack more though.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nethack involves quest dungeon branches. Each character type has a different quest. There are many specials levels to go through, such as medusa's lair, the castle, the valley of the dead, Gehennom and all the demon lairs in it, Vlad's tower, the wizard's tower, Moloch's sanctum, the astral planes, and others I've missed.

The "plot" is whatever it takes to ascend.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[scribblej]

Oh, forgot to respond to your question. Nethack has a few NPCs, such as the shopkeepers. There's not much dialogue to speak of, unless you count the shopkeepers talking to themselves, or getting seduced by a succubus or something... and there ARE quests, plural, though not as many as in a game of Diablo.

Rogue, aside from the overall quest to get the Amulet of Yendor, didn't have any of the above as far as I can recall. It's been a long time.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[Red Flayer]

You want plot and quests in a Rogue-like? Try ADOM. Available from http://www.adom.de/

There are two features of Rogue-like games I'd like to see implemented in modern hack-and-slashes:

(1) The ability to die without being a moron.
Seriously, unless you try to screw up, most hack n slash games are a breeze. I haven't played a single one where there is fear of what's behind the corner, the difficulty is always tailored to the strength of your character. There's nothing quite like worrying about your Level 5 Troll Monk bumping into a Greater Moloch in "A Nondescript Cave."

(2) Variability.
The gameplay is always the same. How about some more options for character races and classes? How about race differences affecting gameplay? I like to customize my characters in more ways than just selecting from a skill tree.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[Garwulf]

It was a bit more than that. You see, when Diablo came out, multiplayer gaming had been around for quite a while (around twenty years, in fact), and people who were playing multiplayer CRPGs were playing them on services like Compuserve - where you dialed directly into the server itself.

The Internet was released to the public around 1992/3, and the first thing that companies like Compuserve did was ignore it. Sad but true. It took the small ISPs making money hand over fist to actually make the larger servers take note and offer online access. So, when Diablo was released, the Internet was just coming into the public consciousness in a way.

Now, gaming companies had caught on around 1993 or 1994 that the Internet could be a good place to plant a game. However, nobody had tried it yet outside of a couple of MUDs, and those were very small scale. Origin was working on Ultima Online, and Verant started working on EverQuest a bit later, but nobody really knew how the games would be received.

With Diablo, Blizzard launched Battle.net, which was based on the Internet, and thousands upon thousands of people clamoured on and played. Diablo, put simply, was the test case that showed that Internet RPG gaming would work on the scale that would make a massively multiplayer effort worthwhile.

And that's why it's so important, and one of the reasons everybody keeps coming back to it, I think.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[aTMsA]

Well yeah they do have 1 main quest per class, there is a plot, and for talking enemies, most inteligent enemies will say something to you when you #chat with them, though it only serves to get feedback on their health sometimes, there are some that affect more gameplay like:

• Shopkeepers: Talk to them to buy sell or try to calm them(ie: bribe them) if you robbed them in the past.
• Temple priests: Can give you buffs for money.
• The oracle: Will tell you many tricks useful to know in the game, and also will tell you an important part of the plot.
• The named demon lords: Some of them can ask you a bribe to let you through their domains(or you could just smite them).
• And of course the wizard of Yendor: He will be trash talking you from the moment you find him to the end game.

Though it doesn't appear in the game, your god also talks a fair bit to you, and when you fight demons and angels they often tease and taunt you.

As for other quests, while they aren't explicitly "given" to you by a npc in a story like mode, you can find many special levels and entire branches of the dungeon with special properties and flavor, and a coherent structure. For example the gnomish mines, with a gnomish town in the middle, with all their citizens and shops, or of course the medusa level, croesus castle, or hell, which you reach crossing the valley of the dead.

Well I've only scratched the surface of the game but I hope it will be enough for you to see nethack has a very complex gameplay.

BTW maybe IHBT, I thought everybody knew at least that nethack was complicated and full of things, if not graphics, put it was a pretty good opportunity to evangelize it :P

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[jparker]

Sure, and Warcraft wasn't the first RTS, Everquest wasn't the first MMORPG, and, hell, Tolkein wasn't the first author to talk about elves. All of those still "laid down many of the rules" that their respective genres continue to follow. I've logged thousands of hours in ZAngband, so I know where you're coming from, but Dungeon Siege (and the rest of the post-Diablo hack-and-slash explosion) aren't ripping off Roguelikes, they're ripping off Diablo.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[msormune]

Oh yeah and everyone knows orcs and elves were introduced absolutely for the first time in Hack 1.0.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[loom_weaver]

Ridiculous. That's like saying King's Quest is a direct ripoff of Zork.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[Antiocheian]

Ridiculous indeed. Nethack and (perhaps even Rogue) is much more interesting and sophisticated than Diablo (which is nothing but click here, click there).

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[ded_guy]

I have yet to see a Roguelike with decent multiplayer.

TomeNET's not bad.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[Finkbug]

"Rogue, Nethack, and all it's ilk are turn-based. Diablo is real time. It makes a huge difference."

It was a tremendous change. Diablo also illustrated what I'd been trying to drill into the brains of the chuckleheads who kept making graphical roguelikes: Angband [I'm a partisan! booo Nethack! :) ] has thousands of unique monsters and items because it takes a few seconds with a text editor to create one. Once you need to draw and animate and record sound for the new content there's little time left to, er, make the new content.

"In Diablo if you spend a long time thinking, you *will* die."

Ever play Nox deathmatch? Wheee but that was fast.

"Not to mention the multiplayer... I have yet to see a Roguelike with decent multiplayer."

Ya. It might be an impossible task. MAngband was good enough I tried it a second time, a left-handed compliment for sure.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[Chris Burke]

In Nethack you can spend a long time sitting in one spot debating whether you're going to try an unknown potion or scroll and possibly die. In Diablo if you spend a long time thinking, you *will* die.

Another difference -- though it is related to the real time vs turn based nature -- is the number of different actions you can take. In Diabl2 you typically have only a few effective skills you can use, so you are mostly deciding where to move and on what to unleash those skills. In Nethack, the number of things you can do is extremely large, so it makes sense to actually take your time and consider the possibilities.

On of my favorite examples involves someone who actually posted to rec.games.nethack to ask for advice on how to deal with Demogorgon, who had been gated in (at extremely low probability) by a lesser demon and was about to unleash disease-laden whoop-ass on the character. A bunch of ideas flew around, some very creative, but what the player eventually did was polymorph themselves into a cockatrice so that Demogorgon turned himself to stone when he struck with his bare tentacles, giving the character a couple turns to turn themself back and cure the disease Demo inflicted.

That's why I love nethack -- every situation is unique, and there are a huge amount of possible solutions to nearly every problem.

Though I also like Diablo2. It turns out that a graphical real-time rogue-like can be pretty dang fun. And the multiplayer. The Gauntlet comparison someone else mentioned is pretty apt, now that I think about.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[Chris Burke]

Whatever. The Norse totally ripped off the idea for trolls from Tolkein. Though on the other hand, Tolkein totally ripped the idea of a bad-ass villain with a lesser, but still bad-ass minion who used to be on the side of good from Lucas.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[geekoid]

1) Take it off easy. Personally, I found the game Clive Barker was involved with to be the scaries piece of entertainment ever.

2) There as game that do this. There is a steam punk game that chossing different races and genders changed the game.

It's friday, and my ability to remember what anything is called is shot.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[antic]

I definitely agree with your first point. Some good examples of fear driving a game -- Shamblers in Quake, the Cyberdemon in original Doom, Hunters in Halo, a licker from Resident Evil 2, etc. Something that can beat you down without much warning if you're not keeping an eye out.

Some of those RE lickers were a bit much though. I think I was actually deterred from playing that game on PlayStation because I was so worried about encountering them!

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[afidel]

2) Is Arcanum. I couldn't remember the name off the top of my head but I looked up and the manual is sitting next to the speakers above my monitor =)

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyways, those folks annoyed the hell out of me and I've decided that I'm not going to release the sources for ADOM.

The author of adom re why he won't release the source.

He then goes on to complain about features not being available and his limited time. I've never even been tempted by this game.

Re:Why do you keep talking about Diablo?

[__aalwyc6372]

if anything diablo is a mixture of mainly GAUNTLET and rouglike.

You can download the demo....

[oliverthered]

You can download the demo from here a review the game for yourself.

Hopefully I can get it working under wine!

Re:You can download the demo....

[Deadguy2322]

I am crossing my fingers!!!!! (Not that I really want you to succeed, more because I am sick as hell of Linux a-holes bitching that games that were not intended to run on their choice of OS don't work on it!)

Re:You can download the demo....

[oliverthered]

Well, it starts up fine but the input is buggered in a really weird way.

the only bad thing is..

[xot]

that this game is so close to being Diablo 2 that you always find something missing.Its the closest that come to D2 which in my opinion is the best RPG ever. People who have played D2 will like this game and find it very easy to play.Unlike Neverwinter Nights the DS I was very fast paced.So for everyone who like fast paced RPG(lots of spells n magic) go for this one!

Re:the only bad thing is..

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo isn't an RPG, it's just hack and slash with numbers.

Re:the only bad thing is..

[Jugalator]

People who have played D2 will like this game and find it very easy to play.

Actually, I didn't, and the same goes for the majority of the community of 9,757 registered members that I'm part of. ;-) We have about 5-10 people I know are interested in the game.

It just feels like a game lacking spirit and attention to detail to me. It doesn't even look good for being a game of 2005. Compare DS2 to Guild Wars in that department. And when you dig deeper in its actual gameplay, it's DS1 all over with a few tweaks and replaced content. I think it should be more appropriately called Dungeon Siege 1.5.

I'd rather keep an eye on Hellgate: London if you're looking forward to a fresh game Diablo-style with random items and maps (yes, in a 3D game too). That time it's coming from the developers of Diablo as well.

Re:the only bad thing is..

[RalphSleigh]

Well said Jug, I never got more then, hmm, 10 hours? into DS I before falling asleep and just not bothering to carry on.

Re:the only bad thing is..

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo 2 sucks. Diablo 2 isn't even the 10th best RPG. The story is really bad just go to hell and kill the Deamon. What a pathetic unimaginative story. This is Gilligan's Island meets the RPG. Also the world has about 5 towns and just a sprinkle of NPCs. Dungeon Siege had a much larger world than this. Ultima 4 released in the dark ages of the abacus had a larger world than Diablo II.

The chief villain hardly qualifies as one. A deamon for the enemy? I can watch Angel Episodes for this!!! They should have a warlock or a sorcerer or something instead of deamons. Diablo II only has 5 puny acts with very little randomization and imagination. There are about 10 vendors in the entire game.

Diablo 2 and the online game system is really a joke. Dungeon Siege had lots of modding. But with Diablo 2 just play the same level over and over again ad nauseum. You are also limited to level 99 characters. They should have a totally different online world instead making players redo the same level(s) in Battlenet.

The stash is way to small and limits the amount of stuff you can store and carry. Diablo 2 gives you a shoebox for a storage closet. A true RPG should be expansive and let you own as much equipment as you can want. Diablo II is hardly expansive. Overall the game has a limited feeling like Blizzard doesn't want you to do what you want but what they want you to do. An example is the skill system where a character has around 99+ points to spend but Blizzard in all there virtues limits a character to place 20 points in one skill. A player should be able to put all there points in one skill if they want. Blizzard even tries to limit the number of times you can go through a level. 99 levels is really small why not 200? Lets not forgot that a spent skill can never be changed.

The rune word weapon system is also really bad idea. A rare sword has fixed attributes instead of letting you have greater variablitiy of true random weapons. The weapon system limits the power of the weapons. You should be able to design your own weapons. You have weapons like a savage reigndeer bow of slaughter. How contrite? Why not a truly random weapon system.

Blizzard also has a notorious anti cheating system. Even going so far as to ban accounts. There should at least be a few loop holes but Blizzard tries to close them..

Blizzard also updates there games about once every 5+ years. Look how long Star Craft has languished. Diablo II is way out of date. The graphics are no longer state of the art. The story is pathetic. I wouldn't make Diablo III if I were them and I wouldn't buy it either.

Re:the only bad thing is..

[Deadguy2322]

Hmmm, so you are disappointed that a game that came out 3+ years ago is no longer state of the art? Your parents must be so proud of you! And to think, your mother didn't even have to change her last name!

I'm a nerd

[toad3k]

I feel like such a nerd for knowing who minsc and hk-47 are.

Re:I'm a nerd

[phpWebber]

I named my WoW characters Dupre, Shamino, and Gwenno. As geeky if not more.

Re:I'm a nerd

[HBI]

My mage was Mordenkainen.

Re:I'm a nerd

[bdeclerc]

The eyes, Boo! Go for the eyes!

Re:I'm a nerd

[smileyy]

REPORTED!

Re:I'm a nerd

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't worry about it too much meat bag.

Re:I'm a nerd

[PreviouslySeen]

was? guess you aint coming back eh? :)

Re:I'm a nerd

[HBI]

Intense lack of desire to play any more MMORPGs.

I already did the MUD thing. The lack of socialization is the problem for me. All the guys in female toons is kind of distressing too, it defeats the purpose. Like World of Trannies or something. Oh, the inconsistent (or total lack thereof) backstory and monotony of the higher level experience also don't help.

I question a lot of the design decisions.

I think i'm done with MMORPGs after that, though, so even if someone comes up with a "NEW! BETTER!" one, i'm going to be unwilling to even try it because of the length of time required to find out if it sucks or not.

I found a package called Dosbox which is sufficiently good that it plays UW like a charm in fullscreen mode on XP. Been playing that the last couple days. Now, that was fun.

Draft Richard Garriott to do another 3d fantasy game!

Re:I'm a nerd

[PreviouslySeen]

actually, you arent the only one in the guild that is bailing the game or guild.

I predict that within two months, the remaining guild will be absorbed into another or will be gone through attrition.

Re:I'm a nerd

[HBI]

Great, and I get stuck with the domain name ;-)

Oh well, at least the web board is always up.

Re:I'm a nerd

[PreviouslySeen]

true, but its only a prediction, I have been known to be very very wrong.

Neverwinter Nights is still the king

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll get no argument from me that the campaign that came with the original Neverwinter Nights was crap, but there are hundreds and hundreds of well done modules available on the NWVault. Stuff ranging from pure hack-n-slash goodness to modules with real plots and intrigue.

DS1 is the combination of a straight-as-an-arrow linear storyline and far too easy fights. This review tells me DS2 is DS1 with nicer graphics.

Re:Neverwinter Nights is still the king

[aardwolf64]

Yes, Neverwinter Nights knocks the socks off of DS2. Plus, NWN has been out for two years, and you can buy the Linux and OS X versions.

I called it Diablo 2.5

[Eugene]

the game plays a lot more like Diablo2 then Original Dungeon Siege. Although Dungeon Siege 1 copied some element from D2, Dungeon Siege 2 took A LOT MORE from D2.

Skill points, even the graphics and description looks like D2.

Teleporter system

Magical, Rare, Set, and Unique items

Town stash

game difficulty system

if you are D2 fan, you'll spot a lot of similarities..

of course, the game has put a lot more then just copying D2, the party fighting, enchantment system, summoning, and special powers are all pretty good.

Graphics is pretty good, but I like the , and I have decent framerate with my AMD 1700+ with ATI 9600XT. so hardware requirement isn't too bad.

the game do have a lot of bugs though, hopefully the next patch will solve the majority of the problem, such as adding party members and various scripting bug.

my most disappointment is the network play, which only allow maximum of 4 players to join a single game(I have more friends). and there's no way to play IP based game (to prevent pirated copy going online?). however LAN based game is possible, and I know you can trick the game to use Hamachi to play LAN over internet.

My own mini-review

[Muerte23]

I have found that while DS1 was more like the SSI type DnD games, DS2 is *much* more like Diablo 2. The craziest lacking thing is the ability to control single characters. So you can't make a picket line and send one guy to pull the baddies in. It's either "everyone do what i click" (mirror mode) or "everyone kinda do what i click" (rampage mode).

It's taken almost ALL of the strategy away, but the result is much faster paced combat, including massive explosions and lots of gibs.

Instead of runes (ala D2), there are Reagents which an NPC can enchant into enchantable items. But these reagents are typically not so powerful compared to the set based and uniqe items. Some of which are pretty awe-inspiring.

One new feature (?) is the autocast section in the spellbooks. Each mage may have 2 spells (not direct fire ones, more like curses or monster summons) that automatically cast at appropriate times.

The super-linear plotline and map is kind of annoying after playing so much D2 with a more area-based (vs linear) approach, but the maps are nice.

However, I have not seen the same beautiful landscapes that actually sometimes wowed me in DS1.

Anyways, the game was a good buy. It's super long, and some of the sub-missions are pretty cool.

m

Re:My own mini-review

[Kentamanos]

I finished the game, and I agree with your points. The gameplay is very long (especially if you're a pack rat like myself who tries to complete every set of armor and refuses to sell "Unique" items :)).

The lack of single PC control got annoying at times. There is a certain point in the game where one party member has to run into a room to activate something and another member has to stay near another control. Doing this in DS2 required "Rampage" mode and directly clicking the items in question so that people would not follow.

The landscape was awesome indeed. The amount of ferns etc. in the jungle were very well done. One of the cool things (that they continued) from DS1 was the seamless scene manager (no "zoning").

The plot line was very linear, but I thought the story was pretty good. There's a small twist ending at the end which I didn't expect.

I had forgotten DS1 didn't have auto-cast, but it's an absolute must for buffs and healing spells on your nature mage.

I definitely have some complaints about the game (for instance the first time I played thru a bug caused a primary quest to be broken, making me restart the game), but overall it's a good game.

Re:My own mini-review

[|absolut|]

The craziest lacking thing is the ability to control single characters.

There is a command (Party Orders: Wait) that will give you this option. However, I don't think it's bound to any keys by default, so you have to go in and assign it to something.

Re:My own mini-review

[dasOp]

You can control single characters. Or more specifically, you can tell the rest of the crowd to stay put. Insanely enough, this is a setting without a key assigned to it. So off to options you are...

Re:My own mini-review

[afidel]

Actually there are guard and stay commands, they just aren't bound by default =)

Re:My own mini-review

[Pushnell]

There are (at least) two additional party commands, Defend and Wait. I didn't know about them either until I was checking the key bindings screen. (I changed mine to D and W, since I don't use the keyboard for camera control.) Defend is similar to Mirror, but your party will attack creatures on their own if they come close enough or attack first. Wait is like a stationary Defend, they will defend themselves but not follow your active character. You can indeed use this to set up good attacks. Personally, I like to have all my ranged chars wait, and a tank go pull creatures towards the group. With the ranged attackers firing away as the creatures come towards the group, you can deal a lot of opening damage with minimal damage taken.

I agree with everything else you said, especially about the ultra-linear plot and the interesting sub-missions. The main plot bored me after about the 3rd or 4th movie, and my entire goal of the game has already shifted from "survive/progress the plot/develop character" to "find all the sub-missions", some of which are quite difficult to find. Oh, have I mentioned that this is all before the end of the 1st Act? *sigh*

Re:My own mini-review

[FatDom]

Im sure some has said this by now but...there are 2 party commands (Defend and Wait)that are in the game but do not come set to default hotkeys. Using Defend allows you to control 1 character while the rest of your party will only attack creatures that get very close or attack first. The Wait command will have the remaining party members stay in 1 place and not follow your main character, allowing you to explore or lore mobs to a strategic location. Why these commands don't come pre-assigned to hotkeys seems dumb, but I just custom set them to D and W. One thing I really liked about the game that I hadn't seen before is their pet system...you can have a pet as 1 (or more) of your party members and there are several different types of pets you can choose from (or quest for better ones)but what I really liked was that each pet starts as a baby and has 6 levels of maturing to go through to become an adult, and the only way to make them grow is by feeding them items. Depending on what type of items you feed them will determine what skill bonuses they receive. Giving them melee weapons boosts strength, ranged weapons boosts dex, caster weapons increase int, and each class of armor gives appropriate ac bonuses. You can mix and match any way you please depending on what you mainly want to use the pet for, and there are different skills a pet can obtain depending on the path you chose. Right now my pet Dire Wolf has more hp's and ac than my main tank. I thought this was a pretty cool aspect of DS2, and despite a lot of poor reviews (a lot saying the game seems dated) I'm enjoying it thoroughly. Yes its basically a party based diablo 2, but I see that as a good thing cause D2 rocked.

Tedium ad nausium

[B5_geek]

I very much enjoyed the original DS. I loved how the game allowed you to advance based on how you play.

BUT...

After 20 hours it gets damn annoying to smash every crate and check the loot to find the good upgrades. I would have preferred fewer crates with more 'valuable' goods in them. After finding my 200th Robe of Defence +1 it gets annoying.

Advancing your character: one fun trick that I found at later levels;

Set your healer to auto-heal himself & you, never attack. Have your character start roaming in an area of low-power bad-guys auto-attacking everything he sees with the weapon you want to increase in power.

Let the game play itself for a few days, and your player & healer have both leveled up 10+ levels.

blah

[original_papasan]

played the original for awhile and i enjoyed it for a couple weeks. it was pretty bland but enjoyable in it's way. NWN and even Diablo 2 was far more entertaining.

Dungeon Siege 2 is more of the same. the skill system changed but it's still a pretty dull game that will numb your mind for a few hours if you let it. after about 4 hours of playing i wondered why i was wasting my time and stopped with no urges since then to continue.

i usually 'try' out games for a couple days / week then buy them if i like them. won't be spending any money on this one...

Re:blah

[qaz23]

Agreed, I found DS2 to be really boring. The same old skill archetypes are used over and over... melee, ranged, offensive magic, defensive magic /yawn.. The gameplay was too similar to DS1 also. IMO, Diablo 2's skill trees have way more variety than any of DS2's.

reviewed the wrong game

[MagicMerlin]

This is a reveiw of Dungeon Siege I. DSII is only mentioned in passing. I mean, come on! :)

Guild Wars -- a better alternative to DS2?

[IronChefMorimoto]

I don't play fantasy games often. RPGs, MMORPGs, etc. Just has never been fun.

I did, however, LOVE Diablo2. I loved playing 8 hours straight with some friends in a LAN game. So much fun.

I recently was asked by one of those friends to try out Guild Wars, which I incorrectly thought at the time was a pay-to-play MMORPG. From what I've read, and since I've played the game for nearly 90 hours now as a complete novice, it's more of an online RPG that (a) doesn't cost you monthly to play but (b) doesn't include the limitless exploration and community building that you might expect from World of Warcraft.

DIFFERENCES FROM DIABLO2

First off, you have to log in online to play Guild Wars -- kind of annoying if you're not used to online RPGs, but you do get instant updates. I hated having to keep up with updates in Diablo2 -- since I didn't play anything but LAN games, so I never did the Battle.net thing.

Secondly, you have total control over your PoV in Guild Wars. I love being able to go first person to see things up high and then pan around a raging battle.

Third, and this is why you want the PoV -- THE GRAPHICS ARE INCREDIBLE!!! The rendering isn't all that sophisticated from what I've read, but they use software anti-aliasing (???) to really add a "fantasy" look/feel to the game. The environments, although not limitless, are terrifically rendered. I probably spent my first 10 hours looking around at stuff. Waterfalls, leaves, etc. are all nice touches to the gaming world.

Fourth -- when you play online with folks, you cand do it 2 ways -- in a questing mode OR in a PvP mode. I haven't touched the PvP mode, but you always know it's going on. There are constant updates in the chat area of the screen indicating a win for Europe or a win for America. It's intriguing, but not really enough to interest me in trying it out yet.

Finally, when you online with folks, you don't have to "share" an entire world/area like you do with World of Warcraft (correct me if that's wrong). You instance out an area of the world and take you and your designated party with you. Basically, they've negated the chances of you entering, as in Diablo2, the world, stepping out of town, and having some high level player go hostile on you and kill you for your stuff. I think this also helps them keep server/hosting costs down -- and this means you DO NOT PAY MONTHLY FOR ACCESS TO THE GAME!

BIG DIFFERENCES FROM DIABLO2

The BIGGEST aspect of this game that is different from me, since I've only played Diablo2 pretty religiously before, is the whole crafting of armor/weapons aspect.

Basically, if you had crap in Diablo2 that got dropped, you could sell it for armor and weapons.

In Guild Wars, you gotta salvage stuff you can't wear/use, make raw materials, and then you go to crafters who make stuff from the raw materials. Armor is crafted by default, I think -- you can't pick it up and use it normally on the battlefield.

Weapons can be crafted, but you have a better chance of getting weapons in battle -- I have only crafted like 1 weapon since I started playing.

What does this mean in terms of gameplay? You have to customize EVERYTHING you use. You can't sell armor (at all) and customized weapons. They only work for you.

I do like that they have RUNES in Guild Wars, and you can buy these when you advance to the REAL storyline after the intro quests. Unlike the runes in Diablo2, however, you can only insert runes you buy or find (from salvaged enemy armor) into your own customized armor. And the runes are specific to your primary character class. Thankfully, you can salvage runes you've used in armor whenever you go to upgrade -- as opposed to losing them in Diablo if you want to sell a weapon that's been "runed."

Character class, by the way, is a duality in Guild Wars. You pick from the standard classes and then choose a secondary profession (if you want) that gives you all the additional powers of the secondary class except th

Re:Guild Wars -- a better alternative to DS2?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Finally, when you online with folks, you don't have to "share" an entire world/area like you do with World of Warcraft (correct me if that's wrong). You instance out an area of the world and take you and your designated party with you. Basically, they've negated the chances of you entering, as in Diablo2, the world, stepping out of town, and having some high level player go hostile on you and kill you for your stuff."

Close. WoW's main world is shared. You see party and non-party members, alliance and horde alike. This means that someone can steal kills or treasure chests. But areas where the big items are and the big quests are called instances or dungeons. These places are seperate and when you enter are only available to your party memebers.
On the PvP part. There are three types of server play. PvP, Normal, and Role-Playing. I'll just cover the first 2. PvP is obvious when you make a character and play on these servers you are PvP 24*7 and so if you run into an an opposing faction chacter they can kill you possibly. Normal is optional PvP. You can turn it on and it can be turned off(5min timer not instant). This allows for people to play without getting beat on when they are just out there trying to quest.

Re:Guild Wars -- a better alternative to DS2?

[Megor1]

You forgot the most important part! THE TALKING FROG!

Re:Guild Wars -- a better alternative to DS2?

[Jugalator]

DS1 is a Diablo-style game with focus on PvE, GW is a tactical semi-MMORPG with split focus on PvE and PvP. They aren't too similar really. You really have to like PvP in tournaments to some extent, and preferrably get into a guild too, to get most out of the game, which are aspects that are basically missing in DS2. But I agree GW is a greater game than DS1 as in "having more fun with it". We're talking evolution there, as opposed as with DS2, which is more in the cash cow milking department.

Re:Guild Wars -- a better alternative to DS2?

[ReverendLoki]

I've been playing GW for a long time now, and if I may, I would like to add a few things. First off, about not having anything to do once you reach level 20: This (usually) is not at all true. Most people reach level 20 well before they reach the end of the game, and for some before they are even half way through. Also, after you've beaten the "final" mission of the story, there are still more missions off the beaten path, as well as a couple of areas specifically designed for the highest level of players to challenge just about anyone. And of course then there is the PvP aspect, which is like another half of the game...

Some have complained that there isn't enough content for those who enjoy PvE, that the game isn't long enough. Now, someone who is really intent on it, and buzzes through as fast as they can (and in the process skipping a large portion of the content) can beat the game in a week or less, but if you're an average player, there's all sorts of content in it.

Yes, there is a major content update coming up, to be released on Sept 7th, which is the middle of next week, that will open up 2 new regions. These, too, will be aimed for higher level characters. Nice thing is, late in game development they had come up with some new tools for game design, but didn't have much of a chance to use them before release date. These new areas where made with these tools, and apparently a lot of the developers are really happy with the results. It looks like we get a sneak peak at where the game is heading for future expansions as well...

Re:Guild Wars -- a better alternative to DS2?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having played Guild Wars and DS2 (and D2 for that matter) I'd say GW & DS2 are just alternatives for Diablo 2.

Guild Wars is very good if your interested in the player skill department (where player skill is more important than items/stats and you have to be awake to play), but because they have no uber items and a deliberatley low level cap, people find the lack of endgame uber creeps annoying, though in reality they just don't realize that the uber creeps are other players ;). Very PvP based game but the PvE is still great too.

Also Arena.net (dev team for GW) feature alot of prominent figures who used to work at blizzard. GW has a similar feel to D2, I can't put my finger on it, but it just screams D2.

While DS2 is the opposite, entirely PvE based Hack'n'Slash. It's not as ugly as everyone makes it out to be (apart from the character models) but DS3 would definetly need a new engine. The item system is good, but theres simply not as many items as D2. Sure theres rares and you can make your own,(enchanting system similar to socketing system) but it's just not the same. The pet system is a nice addon, but doesn't really go anywhere and the party controls are limited.

Also DS2 was essentially 'directed' by Chris Taylor, which we all love for Total Anihilation.

Overall I like GW the best, but really thats only because I've played D2 to death.

Re:Guild Wars -- a better alternative to DS2?

[IronChefMorimoto]

There is one BIG thing that is different from Diablo2 that I really hate.

In Diablo2, I seem to remember that you could go to a neutral area like a town and NOT have the entire swath of dead monsters that you created OUTSIDE the town reset. That's why you could have town portals.

In GW, ANY TIME you go into a neutral town, because the game is instanced to your machine, you will reset EVERYTHING. Bosses, annoying monsters (you may not know what a devourer is now, but you'll come to hate it), etc. I think having a limit on what resets would be nice in the future, but I also know that traveling to a town means leaving the instanced world (on your computer) and returning to a set of town "servers," so that might not be possible.

It sure sucks, thoguh, if you are like 5 dudes away from beating a mission and need to go back to get an extra henchman.

IronChefMorimoto

Re:Guild Wars -- a better alternative to DS2?

[Jamu]

Level 20 is definitely not the end of the game. You'll find that level 20 might actually be the best level as far as gameplay goes. All the skills have been carefully balanced for PvP at level 20. As a result the later levels are mostly beaten with a degree of skill (and sometimes simple determination); you no longer have the option of leveling up and beating the monsters with a more powerful character and no weapon or skill is overpowered. Having said that, you might find that your biggest problem is finding other players that have some skill. While you're leveling you might also want to look for a good guild and populate your friends list with good players.

The original was more like mario brothers...

[GecKo213]

I liked the original Dungeon Seige. I thought that for an RPG it was pretty close to a mario brothers type progression in the game. Rather than being a wandering RPG where you go things dind't seem to progress much unless you were moving from "level to level"... Just my impression, I did however like going back through the game a second time and obtaining the Chicken Gun. It's still a fun game though!

game innovations: new way to die

[leroybrown]

i was in the room with some friends who were playing this game a week or two ago, when one of their characters died. the voice over said something to the effect of "your character has died due to incontinent demise". man, what a shitty way to go...

Why is......

[otomoton]

Zonk the only one who seems to post anything anymore? Almost makes me want to read some more ads from Cmdr Taco............
If Zonk doesn't learn to write better articles/reviews, or get a ghost writer, I think we are all going to "zonk"out and get in trouble for sleeping at work.

A seeming contradiction

[stonedonkey]

An intriguing contradiction struck me:

"Combat and mechanics are all well and good, but roleplaying games should be about storytelling." Fair enough. A matter of taste and not objective assessment, but it's your review.

But then you end with, "Even though the game hews very close to the genre standard, the entertaining and visceral combat gameplay can make this a worthwhile addition to your library." (Emphasis mine)

So what kind of game is this? Is an action RPG, against which you are, respectfully, biased? Or is it a classic RPG?

Re:What was our age demographic?

[Anonymous Coward]

ROGUE not ROUGE, god damnit.

And NH added more than "a bit" of content to rogue.

Here's a better, shorter review:

[Dragoon412]

They took the original Dungeon Siege, absolutely ruined the pathing and AI, neutered the spell system, added an extremely shallow and uninteresting skill tree, and a handful of special attacks that can be triggered when you've dealt enough damage. Of course, the graphics have been dolled up. The game looks good; the environments are positively lush, and Jeremy Soule (Morrowind, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege) did the soundtrack, but it's probably the most bland and forgettable score he's ever done.

DS2 focuses more on story than its predecessor, but has the usual array of predictable plot twists and subpar voice acting, all implimented by dialogue boxes, similar to Neverwinter Nights.

The crippling multiplayer problem that prevents just about anyone with a firewall (regardless of port forwarding) from playing online that was around in the original still exists, and although multiplayer has been improved, it's still impossibly shallow.

DS2 would be great... if it was an expansion pack. It's entirely unworthy of being a standalone game though. For Dungeon Crawler fans, I'd recommend picking it up, but only after it hits the $15 dollar bin.

Re:Here's a better, shorter review:

[Shardis]

Funny, I've used DS and all of it's official variants and a hell of a lot of mods and a few total conversions for years.

Never had a single problem with 4 different types of firewalls. Having a basic understanding of internet networking may help here.

DSII Problems and bugs

[Alyred]

Well, one of the things the review DIDN'T mention is that the netcode is terrible. You can't just connect to a friend's machine over the internet anymore (LAN you can, though), you are FORCED to "meet up" in the Gamespy/close variant chatrooms.

The problems arise, however, that at least with Linksys routers, the stupid game inserts a forwarding rule through uPNP that makes no sense. MS refuses to acknowledge the problem, but when you try to start the game and the rule is there, all you get is a black screen on ANY multiplayer DS2 game (even local). If you go in and delete this rule and restart DS2 (there's no way to cancel the "load" that is frozen) it works fine.

Turning off uPNP helps, but it took me 3 days to find this solution on some random forum. Even now, weeks later, there's nothing in the DS2 "knowledge base" about this problem, or the infrequent crashes to desktop that occur.

I'm still waiting on a return email from M$ on this problem. Their "24 hour response turnaround" is at about 2 weeks now.

I dont' know who they are...

[dark-br]

... but in other hand I've been laid lately.

Oh well, screw minsc and hk-47! ;)

Re:I dont' know who they are...

[Jord]

screw minsc and hk-47

That doesn't count.

Re:I dont' know who they are...

[djp928]

... but in other hand I've been laid lately.

So you've been using your off hand lately, and somehow that makes you better than the rest of us?

-- Dave

Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but if any of these kinds of games set any standards it was most certainly Myth, a game that still stands on its own to this day and which many similar, more popular titles have stolen ideas from incessantly.

I'm not one to jump into game arguments, but Myth was far ahead of the pack on this one.

Re:Myth

[snuf23]

Myth was a fantasy RTS. Yes is was a campaign driven one that was not economically driven, but it was an RTS not a Diablo style game.
And yes it was a great game.

Hasn't this been out for a while?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasn't this been out for a while?

Here's my thoughts on DS1...
http://people.stdnet.com/jonathan/default.php?schr 101=Gaming_Reviews_DungeonSiege.php

DS1 was ok

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

I played about half of DS1. It was ok. I really liked the fact that there were no loading screens, just one long continuous environment. Eventually the pure hack'n'slash and spell/arrow slinging just got boring. It could have used more of a plot and could definatly have used some puzzles to break up the monotany. The closest I came to a puzzle was having to put some kind of bottle on an altar (it's been a while since I played it. It's possible I was told to put it there and just don't remember.). Different paths to choose from would have been nice too. If I had to choose, I'd pick puzzles though.

Thousands of new games a year

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

And you have to review a big-name one not available on Linux and, and this is a kicker, MADE BY MICROSOFT?

Look, I have no grudge against Microsoft gaming studios. Except for buying Bungie, for which I will never forgive them. Regardless, it seems that for a community such as Slashdot, which is interested in things for nerds there would be a review of something obscure, interesting, and AMAZINGLY NEW in here. Not a review of a game I might have heard about were I surfing CompUsa's website, and CERTAINLY could have found easily through going to the supermarket.

I want to read a review about a game that makes tetris look like eye candy filled mushminded crap. I want a review about a game that makes Baldur's Gate's characters look shallow and uninteresting. (which they are, regardless) I want a review about a game that blows my mind, not a review about a cookie cutter POS rolled out of the M$ play-dough factory of software creation.

Re:Thousands of new games a year

[M.Salivar]

I want to read a review about a game that makes tetris look like eye candy filled mushminded crap. I want a review about a game that makes Baldur's Gate's characters look shallow and uninteresting. (which they are, regardless) I want a review about a game that blows my mind, not a review about a cookie cutter POS rolled out of the M$ play-dough factory of software creation. --- If you know of that RPG, please, by all means, mention it. Linux required

Re:Thousands of new games a year

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

If you want an RPG with a variety of interesting characters, I suggest an MMORPG. They change regularly, have personality of their own, are just as effective as your own character, etc. etc. etc. If you're a real role-player, I suggest you look into the older ones - I'd guess there's more role players in games that have lasted a long time.

But if you want a game that has put more into writing good "out of the box" characters and fleshing them out than the BG series, you're right. It probably doesn't exist. And probably won't for quite a while - as soon as a game becomes as easy to write as a novel, you will see games as complicated as novels. Unfortunately, there is a line between programming and art which has not quite been crossed yet. Wait ten to twenty years, and you may see it.

magic users

[Red Flayer]

"Magic users in particular fare badly, as the monsters all known the "geek the mage first" addage. "

Slashdot editors in particular fare badly, as the posters all pwn the "badmouth the editor first" subtractage.

Seriously, I do have to say that this is important for Hack n Slash games. If your magic-user is a tank, what fun is that? Without the risk of dying, hack n slash loses my interest very easily...

DS1 was *boring*

[DamienMcKenna]

My wife and I simply loved the cooperative multi-play in Diablo 1 and especially 2. DS1 was hailed as a Diablo heir so we tried it. The first day it seemed great, some really cool graphics and atmopherics, definitely a step up for us as we'd not bought a game in two years. After a few days of on-and-off play we realized it was boring! The action took care of itself so you were left to do the directing... the land was extremely sprawling and at times difficult to work out or remember directions, so even that was out. And the story wasn't exactly Oscar material. Boring! If they haven't fixed the action aspect then I really don't think this is going to be any great shakes.

Now, what's this about Diablo 3 on the drawing board?

Damien

Re:DS1 was *boring*

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo three is in the same place as your missing </b> tag.

They are making so much money on WoW they will never make another non-mmog.

-penis fingers

Meh

[bobsacks]

This game failed to keep my interest after a few hours. It had sub-par graphics, a clumsy interface, and the story did not seem that great to me. It was a lot more linear that the first game, what I played of this one anyway. You walked through the jungle, but there was really only one path you could follow. In the first game right off the bat there were wide open spaces with little hidden caves in em. There was also a very steep power curve. You went from being killed by more than a handful of monsters to utterly wiping everything out with no problem over the course of a few levels. And thats where the game got dull instead of frustrating. I do not recomend buying this game for the full forty dollar price tag. Wait til it goes down in price if you want to play it very bad.

a bit late

[Anonymous Coward]

I finished the game 2 weeks ago and it's not worth wasting money on this.
It's fun for a while but it's incredibly easy and pointless. My "pet" was 1.5x stronger thana ny other character and it was even worse before he got to adult. The wolf had something like 1200 hp and would never die.

Sounds like a flawed interface to me

[ReverendLoki]

From the review:

Holding down the mouse button on an opponent tells your main character to go to town.

No no no no no.... clicking the mouse button on an opponent should tell your character to kick the opponent's ass. If I want to go to town, then I'll click on the town...

</whistles innocently>

Chris Taylor Won't Sign "Copy" Of DS2

[topgeek]

'They wanted me to sign a copy of the game,' defended Taylor, who was at The Software Boutique promoting Dungeon Siege. 'No, I mean an actual copy, burned onto a CD-R! I only intended to sign originals at this promotion.'

Review: Dungeion Siege II

[alwaystheretrading]

I had a lot of fun playing DS1 when it first came out so I immediately ran out and got DS2. I am disappointed that there is very little in the lines of upgrades from the original. The graphics look dated and the game play has no significant improvements. It is still a fun game, but I expect more from a game in 2005.

On the other hand, this is one of the FEW new games out there that supports cooperative multiplayer. Unfortunately most games that have come out lately with multiplayer ability only allow death match. Kudos to Dungeon Siege 2 for allowing my friends and I to play as a team against the computer.

Re:Review: Dungeion Siege II

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Thats the problem these days.

Every sequel is expected to be updated in terms of graphics and technology, why not just play off the strengths of the first rather then re-inventing it.

If DS2 was to have a new graphics engine, I bet we would not be seeing it for another 2 years. Rather then re-inventing the graphics engine, they simply offered us an improved gaming experience over the first one, DS2 is probably what they originally wanted DS1 to be. They also offered this sequel under 2 years from the first, meaning we get to play these fun games sooner rather then later after we have forgotten about them.

I will change my tune if DS3 is released in a year or 2 with the same graphics, but I think we can stop this trend of having to spend 5 years between sequels just to make it prettier. A fun game is a fun game regardless of the quailty of the graphics.

Dungeon Keeper III

[fdiskne1]

Slightly off-topic.

I'm just waiting for Dungeon Keeper III. Yes, a completely different game from Dungeon Siege II, DKII was much better than DSI, in my opinion. For those not familiar, in Dungeon Keeper, you are in SimCity-like control of an underground area with a few imps to serve you. You tag rock for the imps to dig out. Relatively early, you find a gateway where creatures enter your dungeon. You build a lair, hatchery (chickens to feed your creatures), training room, library for your spellcasters etc to keep your creatures happy and trained. You then send them out to take over other Keepers' dungeons or protect your dungeon from do-gooders from the top-side. If you don't keep your creatures happy, they can rebel, damaging your dungeon, or just leaving. Fun game. The DKII disc had a preview movie for DKIII. I just hope they actually make it someday.

Re:Dungeon Keeper III

[Ween]

It looks like you are going to be waiting a while. "Dungeon Keeper 3 Cancelled. A Bullfrog site update states that development has ceased on the strategy series' follow up".

I also believe that EA did away with bullfrog. If you go to bullfrog.com it forwards to europe.ea.com which isnt resolved. I guess the whole franchise is long forgotten. On a positive note, it may still ship before duke nukem forever.

Re:Dungeon Keeper III

[nifboy]

While you're waiting for hell to freeze over, try Evil Genius, which is the same concept with James Bond instead of King Arthur.

Re:Dungeon Keeper III

[fdiskne1]

Aw....thanks for the info. Obviously I haven't looked up the progress recently. I appreciate the update.

Re:Dungeon Keeper III

[fdiskne1]

Eexxxcellent! I hadn't heard of this one. Looks cool. Thank you.

Re:Blizzard

[Tadrith]

Uhm... this isn't a Blizzard game... it's by Gas Powered Games, and published by Microsoft.

Needs an Editor

[MBraynard]

On my way to being tossed 'off-topic' or 'flamebait' or 'troll', I'd like to note that I am sure that there are better review writers among the /. audience that should be given the chance to get a thread.

If any nobody had submitted this review, I doubt it would have been green-lit because it is very amateur - better reviews are found written by Amazon customers.

But because the EDITOR wrote the review, here it is - up for all to be bored by. Did he even proof read it?

Solid, satisfying combat and a worthwhile storyline mark this solid genre title.

So the game is.... solid? That's one of the many bad buzzwords/metaphores that you find thrown into amateur review far too often.

Please do us a favor and let quality writers do the game reviews on /. What's next - movie reviews written by editor's girlfriends? (er - never mind that last bit)

GameRankings Score 81%

[Varkias]

Check out GameRankings.com It's RottenTomatoes for video games. Here is the Dungeon Siege II Review

When I play a game, I don't care what the "Winning

[hackwrench]

solution" is. A game becomes more fun when you dicipline yourself. Try playing in a way that you get bashed less so you use less potions. Don't buy that shiny new weapon when you can get by with what you have no matter how many times over your wallet can buy that new equipment.

Dungeon Crack

[mmdurrant]

I swore off this series and every hack-and-slash dungeon crawl. It's like crack. At the end of the night, you wonder "Man, what am I doing with my life?"

One night, my friends and I played into the wee hours of the morning. I went to sleep for 8 hours, woke up, and they were still there, crackin' out on Dungeon Siege. We have since renamed the game Dungeon Crack. They still use the stuff pretty heavily, but I swore it off.

Droidquest

[SeanDuggan]

^_^ This is actual a rehash of old gameplay with updated graphics (well, not even really that updated), but check out Droidquest. It's a Java remake of the old TLC game, Robot Odyssey. Basic gameplay is that you program 3 (eventually 4) robots to solve various puzzles using digital logic gates. The game was marketing as "for 8 and up," but the later levels are touching on topics that usually come up in college-level digital logic courses. If you really want a challenge, the author has included a super-secret 6th level with even harder puzzles that even he hasn't successfully completed yet. If you're unfamiliar with the tenets of digital logic, the game has a series of seven tutorials that take you from the very basics to advanced techniques like robot teamwork.

As of right now, the interface is kind of limited and the graphics are not wonderful. Thomas Foote wrote the game as a remake of the original, so the graphics and interface are almost entirely drawn from the original game, which came out in the 80's. However, he also has the complete source code of the game available for those who want to tinker with it. ^_^ It's a retro game that requires you to think and has open source. What's not to like?

Re:Droidquest

[Deadguy2322]

What's not to like? How about your whoring?

Re:Droidquest

[slaker]

Gah. I played the original. Still have the 5 1/4" disks. My father's an EE and thought it would be "fun" for me. Yeah... I played with it for about a year (about age 10). My old man gave me $100 when I finally finished the damned thing, since it said on the box that only some tiny, tiny fraction of people can get all the way through it. I worked and worked and worked for that money.

Gonna have to try this remake...

Just beat it today.

[GoNINzo]

I just beat the game this morning, it was pretty fun, IMHO. I love the 'powers' you trigger, cause they make things easy when things get really hard. heh I just wish I had an option to reset my guy's skill trees.

Serial Number treatment in DSII

[TwoPumpChump]

In case any of you were wondering, you can buy just one copy and install it on every machine in your network, without the worry of finding unique serial numbers. When playing LAN games DSII apparently does not check for unique serial number instances. (Unlike NWN.) My wife, being cool, likes Dungeon Siege as much as I and couldn't wait for II. We checked and sure enough we can play together on the home LAN without the need for another serial number. (Probably won't apply on the 'net, but we're stuck on dial-up anyways and don't play online.)

Better trick --

[oneiros27]

In the swamps area, there are 'Swamp Hags' who will summon creatures that attack the party -- they are the most valuable creatures in the game, if done right:

1. Tell everyone in your party to not attack.
2. Save the game. (we might want to come back if we mess this up)
3. Set one or two of your party members to cast healing spells. (they'll do it automatically.)
4. Take the character that the hag is attacking (we'll call him 'bait'), and have him stand away from the rest of the group.
5. Set the other members to not advance, so the bait is between them and the hag. (this will be the combat group)
6. Have the combat group use ranged weapons (or spells, but spells require babysitting)
7. Make sure that the combat group can *not* hit the hag.
8. The bait is allowed to heal (even if he's crap at it) or use close combat weapons (but he can't move, so it's mostly useless)
9. Save again (just in case you want to try again should this fail)

You need to watch it for a few minutes,but once you're sure the hag is targeting the right folks, and the hags aren't getting hit by stray arrows (you may not want to have the bait directly between the hag and the party, to reduce the chance of accidental shots).

Baby sit the setup for a few minutes --mana potions for the healers, etc, but after a while, you'll feel good about leaving it ... come back in a few hours (after work, next morning), and there will just be items dropped in a nice little ring (the hag may be dead from a stray shot) ... pick up the magic stuff, convert the crap to gold, find another hag, and repeat.

It's tricker to deal with 2+ hags at once, especially if they target different folks, so you have to subject more guys as bait, but you can get great gear this way, and a ton of levels.

(I was also criticized by my friends for making Command and Conquer unplayable within a week when finding you made money if you sold not quite full silos, and ruining the spirit of Morrowind with my overpowered potions)

Oh -- and a while back, there was someone who had a ranking system for computer games, based on 'crates'. Basically, the more crates (or sooner you ran across them in a game), the greater the lack of originality in the game. I want to say it was done about the time of C&C2

Re:Better trick --

[Vendetta]

Oh -- and a while back, there was someone who had a ranking system for computer games, based on 'crates'. Basically, the more crates (or sooner you ran across them in a game), the greater the lack of originality in the game. I want to say it was done about the time of C&C2

I think that was Chet and Erik at OldManMurray.com

Re:Better trick --

[MWLongworth]

Oh -- and a while back, there was someone who had a ranking system for computer games, based on 'crates'. Basically, the more crates (or sooner you ran across them in a game), the greater the lack of originality in the game. I want to say it was done about the time of C&C2

That would be Old Man Murray's Crate Review System - arguably the finest metric of game originality ever devised:

"To test our theory, we installed and played the twenty-six games we had within easy reach of where we were sitting. To our scientific delight, all exhibited crates within the first one hundred and twenty seconds of play. Please note that by crates, we mean both crates proper and the circular crate, the barrel."

It's a shame that Old Man Murray stopped updating a while ago - the site possessed a unique sense of humour. I still can't help thinking about the Death of Adenture Games whenever I hear the name "Gabriel Knight".

Re:Better trick --

[TobyWong]

You might as well just use a trainer if you are going to engage in that level of metagaming. Either you're a purist who wants to play it through completley the way it was intended, or you are the IDDQD type in which case save yourself the time and trouble and just use a trainer.

Where have all the indies gone?

[voice of unreason]

I like big budget games as much as the next guy. And I'm sure that DS2 is a nice hack'nslash game. But does anyone wonder why slashdot's game coverage is pretty much oriented towards the big studios instead of the small indies that are acutally doing creative and new things? Slashdot's editors are the sort that bemoan the lack of creativity in gaming, but when that creativity shows up, they don't give it any press. What about great old school RPG's like Spiderweb software's Geneforge series, with real plots and dialog? What about great physics-based platformers like Gish? Instead, we get the same EA Games/Microsoft/Vivendi stuff that all the big publishers cover. When is Slashdot going to move beyond asking for creativity to rewarding that creativity with reviews and coverage? I just wish that Slashdot would put their money where their mouth is regarding coverage beyond the shovelware studio system.

Another WOW ripoff?

[nancjs]

looks just like World of Warcraft

Re:Another WOW ripoff?

[KrisW]

Except for the fact that it's not an MMORPG in any way shape or form...

Re:Another WOW ripoff?

[__aalwyc6372]

you never have played any of those two games have you?

Diablo is a Gauntlet clone

[xswl0931]

End of story

laid down the rules? not hardly

[photon317]

the original Diablo laid down many of the rules for the hack and slash adventure genre

Diablo, and every other game remotely similar to it, really drew their inspiration in terms of computer game heritage from the rogue-like text adventures, of which Nethack is the most shining example. While they've tacked on nifty stuff like shiny graphics and networked multiplayer, they have still completely and utterly failed to capture even 5% of the depth and complexity of gameplay that Nethack has enjoyed for years.

Re:laid down the rules? not hardly

[Anonymous Coward]

Nethack was a silly game. Angband rules.

Re:laid down the rules? not hardly

[geekoid]

WHy does everyone keep saying nethack is complex? it is not. it is simple and boring...there I said it.

What depth? tell me where the depth is. Unles by 'depth' you mean lots of levels.

Diablo draws it heritge from text adventures like the automobile draws it's heritage on the wheel.

true, but the automobile is so vastly superior it doesn't even make sense as an comparison.

Re:laid down the rules? not hardly

[vga_init]

WHy does everyone keep saying nethack is complex? it is not. it is simple and boring...there I said it.

But how much have you actually played nethack? I think you simply missed a lot of the game's depth. This depth has nothing to do with graphics, but rather all the problems you encounter and the clever ways of going about solving them. In addition, the depth also draws from the fact that the game is chock full of many odds and ends that would take literally years of gameplay to discover (I've played it on and off for ages and always see something I've never seen before; can Diablo do that? At all?).

My friends would often laugh at me because I would start so many anecdotes with, "I was playing nethack..." I always had a story to tell, and each one was unique and interesting. I did this countless times; how many times have you told friends stories about Diablo? I don't mean game flukes or multiplayer tomfoolery, but actual scenarios that the game engine was designed to accommodate.

"One time, in diablo, I killed a monster. Then it dropped a shield, so I equiped it. Later, I killed the same monster and went to a new level, which had more monsters." Wowee. Meanwhile, nethack players are doing all the same things and much, much more.

Nethack has more years of development than Diablo (I or II, or both combined). The game is larger, and unquestionably more complex. I can only imagine that you think it's simple because of its graphics or interface; it in fact does more than you are aware of. Hell, it does more than I'm even aware of, and I've played many hours of it. It in fact does more than any RPG I've -ever- played, and I've all of the ones that you might think have more "depth", whatever that is to you.

Diablo draws it heritge from text adventures like the automobile draws it's heritage on the wheel.

We call this a "false analogy." Automobiles are more complex devices; they has more parts and more functions. Text adventures have more parts and functions than Diablo (nethack is a good example), and are therefore more complex.

I own Diablo. I played it the other day. It's EXCRUCIATINGLY boring. I played it for some hours when it was new, but now I can't play it for more than a few minutes. If you've played it for ten minutes, you've played nearly the entire game. I can still sit down and play a full game of nethack (until I die) and find out something new.

If Diablo were open source, it would be interesting to compare the size of the source code between it and Nethack. Forget about graphics code and network code, but focus on the core game engine. How many more lines of code do you suppose Nethack has merely devoted to game mechanics? Probably a staggering amount.

How much more single-player game data do you suppose Nethack has? Not graphics or sound data, but pure game data (ie items, monsters, quests, special scenarios, dialog, events, etc etc). Diablo would be seriously pwned. Dude. Seriously.

Don't believe me? I challange you to prove me wrong, and prove it computationally.

Yay, agreed, try some spidweb games

[coder111]

If you're into RPGs, go try some spider web games, they rule. RPGs with VERY good stories, and yet quite enough of freelancing/exploring. And a VERY well thought-out gameworld.

Geneforge 1,2 are good. Exile series was good, especially exile 3 and 2.

Oh, and another note, these games don't offer much eyecandy, but they do offer good gameplay.

I'm not affiliated with spider web, just a happy gamer, that's all.

--Coder

Re:When I play a game, I don't care what the "Winn

[R.D.Olivaw]

wow, excellent advice! Let's not bother with develeopping good, challenging games anymore. Let's train the players to adjust their gameplay so that the game will last a bit longer. What did you use to do with in the old days when an arcade game was too easy? Will your hand/eye coordination to be worse? on second thought that might still work on some games nowadays

Re:Linux

[schon]

Dude, check out the publisher.

If you're lamenting MS not publishing Linux software, I bet you're also saddened that Fox doesn't produce any french-language sitcoms.

Are you nuts?

[coder111]

D2 best RPG ever?

Umm, what about story? I mean, not some half-assed diablos go and threaten the world and you must kill them, but a real story. What about freedom of action and non-linear scenario, not some half-assed going forward just in one direction? What about a gameworld with a decent background, not some half-assed 2d space full of monsters to kill and nothing else? What about quests? I mean, not just go there kill someone/bring something, but REAL quests? What about ability to talk to characters? What about ability to do the same tasks in many ways fitting your character, like magic/stealth/ murder/deception/etc.?

Diablo 2 has good character development and equipment, and quite ok playability. Ok, it also has good multiplayer. But calling it best RPG ever is blasphemy. It is missing so much qualities of a good RPG, I'm reluctant to call it an RPG at all.

Go play Torment or something... Or maybe Fallout.

--Coder

Re:Are you nuts?

[Nasarius]

I enjoy Diablo 2, but it's nowhere near the same level as good RPGs. It kinda looks like an RPG, but it's an action game. Deus Ex is much more of an RPG, even though it looks like an FPS.

I'd second the Fallout/Fallout 2 recommendation. If you're willing to go old school, look at Darklands, Realms of Arkania, Daggerfall, or even the Quest for Glory series.

Solution

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

Ditch the PC and get a Mac with OS X.

You are guaranteed to be totally psyched no matter WHAT comes out. ;) (I say this as an honest-to-God Mac gamer... WoW, Desert Combat Final, Zero Hour are current faves...)

Re:Blizzard

[StormReaver]

The introduction implied that it was a Blizzard game:

"Like most of the games that Blizzard has produced...."

If it's not a Blizzard game, then I may change my mind.

Wow, no mention of the best feature of the game

[koreth]

I'm surprised the review and the comments I've seen so far don't mention the single thing that makes this game (and its predecessor) absolutely rock: you can walk from one end of the game world to the other and never see a "Loading..." screen. There are few things that pull me out of a game experience more than stepping through a doorway and having to wait thirty seconds to see what's on the other side. Granted, in DS2 you still have to wait a few seconds when you use a teleporter, but that's under your control and is much more bearable.

It's 2005. Computers are fast enough to load the surrounding landscape's data in the background when you get near the edge of an area. If you want to know what good those up-and-coming dual-core CPUs will be for games, well, there's one answer.

Game developers: My gaming money will go to a game with a lower frame rate and no annoying interruptions in gameplay before it'll go to a silky-smooth game that makes me twiddle my thumbs on a regular basis. I bought DS2 specifically to show my support for no-loading-screen games -- and (I hope) it won't be the last game I buy for that reason.

Re:Wow, no mention of the best feature of the game

[Kentamanos]

Technically speaking you HAVE to use portals to get between certain areas (so you can't walk the whole world), but I agree.

DS1 and DS2 are good examples of writing a scene manager that loads and unloads resources (textures, scenery, sounds, NPC geometry, etc.) effectively.

Re:Wow, no mention of the best feature of the game

[Flunitrazepam]

That was somewhat new and somewhat impressive in DS1.. I'm not sure it is a feature to brag about in a game years later, but it is nice.

Re:Wow, no mention of the best feature of the game

[Dirtside]

If you want to know what good those up-and-coming dual-core CPUs will be for games, well, there's one answer.

I doubt that having dual-core CPUs will make your hard drive able to load data faster by any significant amount.

Re:Wow, no mention of the best feature of the game

[smash]

It's 2005. Computers are fast enough to load the surrounding landscape's data in the background when you get near the edge of an area. If you want to know what good those up-and-coming dual-core CPUs will be for games, well, there's one answer.

Shit, Ultima7 could do this back in 1993. Ultima 6 before then even (and probably earlier ultimas as well) :)

Admittedly graphics have improved a bit, but the whole continuous game world thing isn't new - simply that most developers take the easy way out... or trade graphics/audio for load time.

smash.

Earlier real time games

[snuf23]

Diablo built on the game structure outlined by much, much earlier games such as Rogue, Hack, Nethack, Larn, Angband, Sword of Fargoal etc. Now these were all turn based, but there were a couple of early efforts to bring this type of game to a more action oriented real time style of play. The most famous is of course the arcade game Gauntlet, which stripped out almost all of the little details of the previous game, focusing instead on a heavily action oriented arcade game play.
Another early attempt that comes to mind, is the game Gateway to Apshai. This was a real time dungeon crawler that built on Epyx's Temple of Apshai series. Released for the Colecovision and Commodore 64, it was closer to the traditional Rogue style of gameplay than Gauntlet, but was played with a joystick in real time.

Why don't you try some of these?

[jasko]

Jade Empire - Mythic Chinese themed RPG w/ real time martial arts combat - but not hack and slash, more like the combat-as-puzzles presented in this game you should also try:

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Fantastic platforming, puzzling, and combat-as-puzzles. Great storyline featuring ACUTAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Woah.

Mind Rover build and program robots for fun! Anyone remember robotwar on the Apple ][? This is fun like that was fun.

And how about some games with people? Try Munchkin or Illuminati.

And I've been playing RPGs on tabletops for 25 years (and I got a girlfriend, married her, game with her, and our son games too, so forget the 'RPGs are for anti-social ubergeeks' sterotype). It's not my fave, but D&D is the industry standard - like Windows, everyone's got it, everyone knows it, and many of us hate it but use it anyhow. For more flexibility, I suggest GURPS, the new 4th edition is very smooth. And for the Linux of RPGs, just google on "free RPG". Here's one by a designer I admire: The Shadow of Yesterday but I haven't gotten to play that particular game yet. Enjoy!

Train?

[hackwrench]

I never played arcade games enough to really find out. How can you tell the difference between a good challenging game and a game that would have been good and challenging if it weren't for the fact that they handed out power items too early in the game?

Re:Train?

[R.D.Olivaw]

the point is if the game is not challenging, then it's the designers' fault not the player. I don't have to guess why it isn't (too much power, too much money, I don't know what) and compensate for that myself. If the game is too easy, then it hasn't been well designed.

if the first is... and the second is...

[iamhassi]

no no no, u got it wrong:

The first rule of a Spell Check Nazi is - you do not talk about a Spell Check Nazi.

The second rule of a Spell Check Nazi is - you DO NOT talk about a Spell Check Nazi.

Third rule of a Spell Check Nazi, someone yells Stop!, goes limp, taps out, the Spell Check is over.

Fourth rule, only two guys to a Spell Check.

Fifth rule, one a Spell Check Nazi at a time, fellas.

Sixth rule, no spelling, no check.

Seventh rule, a Spell Checks will go on as long as they have to.

And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at a Spell Check Nazi, you have to Spell Check.

I got it when it was released...

[BulletMagnet]

My RPG background came from the Pen-N-Paper group up to BGII and NWN when computers became the deal, and having never played DS1, I have to say "It's OK" ... My one true complaint about the game is, as previously posted, is feeling like you're being led around the nose about where you need to go, and how to get there. In NWN, you'd take the FedEx Quests, and get the "general location" of where you needed to be to get part XYZ to finish the quest, but in DS2, you simply follow the arrow. The massive clickfest does get old and my party of 2 ranged, 1 Nature Mage, and my melee dire wolf pet are all level 27 or 28 at about halfway through Chapter 2 (of 3) Act 1 (of 3). Zonk nailed the "Geek The Mage" since my wussy magic wench is always getting jacked 1st, even though she's supposed to be a healer who hides in the background. When getting mobbed by a goonsqud of level 25 Vai'kesh zealots does bring about the pseudo-death (unconciousness) to both my mage and my 2nd Ranger (the pregenerated chick from the beginning who I must say sounds way too "Valley Girl" to be any bit beliveable when we have to stop and listen to her babble on or bitch at the Mage)and when they both get wacked, the wolf and I need to run for cover until they wake up and rejoin the fight. Only once so far as anyone actually gotten tombstoned (real death) but that's as simple as burning a Resurect scroll.

Zonk never did mention the pet owning, which might be in DS1 (again, never played it) and I thought it was facinating to actually have to FEED your pet. Granted my wolf must have an iron gut because I fed his ass armor, swords, spears, magic crap, and now fully grown, is a rather badass beast and very useful. I haven't had too much complaint of another user's post of "collecting my 200th cloak of protection +1" and the loot I pick up actually makes you think about what to equip. Does this ring which raises armor X points over what I have now beset the ring that has some armor upgrade but also some secondary or tertiary benefits. Choices, Choices... in NWN, everything was more absolute that This Ring Is Better Than This Other Ring.

I have yet to play it online and am happy to hear that one copy will suffice for LAN'ing since that's about as Multiplayer as I'd get with it(if I want to play against people, BF2 does the job)

For what I paid for the game, I feel I'm getting my money's worth, however I do trully miss "HERE COMES HALFLING DEATH and NO ONE WALKS AWAY"

Here's to waiting for NWN2.

Re:When I play a game, I don't care what the "Winn

[LurkerXXX]

What did you use to do with in the old days when an arcade game was too easy?

We used to drink. Heavily.

Booooring.....

[Jaysyn]

Dungeon Siege was one of the most boring, least challenging RPGs I've ever played.

Nice Fucking Ad Slashdot.

Jaysyn

Re:Booooring.....

[Maljin Jolt]

Dungeon Siege was one of the most boring, least challenging RPGs I've ever played.

Would you say it loudly, facing me or some other Maljin?

Re:When I play a game, I don't care what the "Winn

[__aatgod8309]

We used to drink. Heavily.

Which appears to be a winning strategy for this game as well...

better game next

[TaGirl_Keri]

Supreme Commander is his (Chris Taylor)next game. He's the big chief of Gas Powered Games. He also made Total Annihilation for Cavedog and SupCom is TA's Spiritual Successor (his words). Not a fangirl. Really. Well mebbe just a little :)

Re:better game next

[TaGirl_Keri]

I Forgot. It's NOT backed by M'soft, but by THQ, publisher of the excellent Warhammer40k (from Relic)

QUestion

[geekoid]

Have you forgiven the people at Bungie for selling?

Becasue MS can through all the money in the world at you, and it is meaning less unless you actual sell.

MS made a good move in buying bungie. Had I been looking to buy a company at that time I would ahve made them an offer.

Re:QUestion

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

Whether I forgive them or not doesn't really matter. Halo was a big deal when I was playing the original UT. Why would I bother forgiving them when they've probably moved on, gotten older, stopped doing new and interesting things. It's the nature of people and companies both to stop toeing the line as they age, and there wasn't that much I considered really that 'new' in Halo 2, but it made them piles upon piles of money.... I originally saw that video with the guy on the back of the truck gunnin' down foo's, and said, "Sweet." Halo was going to make a BUNDLE of money no matter what, and I was monumentally pissed when it came out on console months ahead of PC, driving all these FPS gamers to console, which was the entire point of the acquisition. I have since gotten mildly more mature.

Finished it. Don't recommend. Play BG2 instead....

[guidryp]

I have been playing CRPGs since Bards tale on the C64.

Here is my take on Dungeon Siege 2: They tried to figure out what worked in Diablo and failed. It has all the mechanics copied to the point of annoyance. Three play throughs (same story monsters have more HP each time), town portal, teleport locations, skill trees, saves now only save your state, not where you are. Done because I think they can't figure out what actually made Diablo fun. It doesn't work. Throw in some side quests on the linear road to try to inject more Roll play and that does work either. Candy coat it so it is so warm and fuzzy that you 5 year old will be comfy. Pablum RPG.

Action RPG fans of Diablo: No comparison. Diablo 2 is a much better action oriented RPG. This is boring and slow.

Story or hard core RPG: Nothing here. A few pointless sidequest departer from the strict linear game that you couldn't not make it to the end if you tried to get lost. Has nothing on Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Planescape Torment or any good single player games.

It feels like a comitee sat down and picked some elements from succesful RPGs. The result is nothing but a monster/treasure treadmill. For those folks who just want to level up and find more elite weapons endlessly. It is the "spinal tap" of RPG games, with the treasure output cranked to "11". If some treasure is good, heaping piles of it must be great. Somehow the concept of less is more never registers. If you always have tons of crap, it just plain doesn't matter. The value of something is in direct relation to it's scarcity. The best PnP games I played, you might find one magic item during a days play. But when you did find it, it was amazing.

Graphics look pretty much identical, to DS1, which is fine by me, heck they are better than Neverwinter Nights, but NWN is actually a fun game.

Bottom line, there is just a hollow shell again. They just dont' grok action RPG and they don't grok story RPG.

I think you can still buy Neverwinter Nights, or Diablo Gold if action is more your thing. Both cheaper and better.

Played the demo - huge disappointment

[gullevek]

I downloaded the Demo and played it, because I loved DS. But DS II started with such a stupid voice acting, that was embarressing and like in an Army Training Camp. My first thought was, "oh my god the `Americanized` the Game".
It was not really a start that looked interesting. I doubt I will buy that game (thought it would even run on my stone old Laptop)

My own "top three" bugs.

[Trejkaz]

1. You still have to hold down the mouse button to attack an enemy, and there's no way to make your character keep attacking someone without maintaining that pressure. Step up to RSI.
2. The AI of members in the party is just as useless as it was in DS1. The monster AI will consistently kick the party AI, even though humans and the like are supposed to be smart, while monsters are largely supposed to be stupid, killing machines. In the end, it turns into an enormous baby-sitting affair... I prefer to go solo to avoid the trouble, frankly.
3. Starting a network game over a LAN results in a black screen of death, with no way out... presumably the 2.2 patch will fix that.

Re:My own "top three" bugs.

[afidel]

1) It's called right click, you will attack until your target is dead =)

Re:My own "top three" bugs.

[Trejkaz]

Nope, right click is normal attack in DS2, and you have to hold it down otherwise it stops attacking.

Re:My own "top three" bugs.

[neura]

THere's an option under "game options" to have attack mode sticky, so once you start attacking it stays attacking til the target is dead.

There's even an option to defend yourself whenever you get attacked.

Those two options together (especially if you're melee) make it pretty much a game of "move near some enemies then sit and wait til they're all dead". It DOES have it's more challenging moments, but they're few and far between. ;)

Re:My own "top three" bugs.

[Trejkaz]

Ah. I'd been into the options, but maybe not the right options. As a ranger or wizard, the amount of damage you're doing is typically too low to deal with the game in any other mode.

The puzzles do seem reasonably challenging in this game, at least. Or should I say, the sticks you have to fetch don't look so much like sticks as they normally do. I'd put it on par with Neverwinter Nights in that respect, but both games seem to have more or less the same level of detail in their quests (of course, DS2 is unlikely to be modded as extensively.)

Are there ANY decent RPGs out there?

[GrumpySimon]

Seriously - I've been looking for a good RPG for months now, I tried the demo of DS2 yesterday, and it's slightly better than 1, but it's still just a screensaver with swords.

Where's a GOOD RPG with a storyline? Character Development?

Where's this years System Shock 2? NWN? Eye of the Beholder? Morrowind? Fallout? Planescape Torment? BG2? Anything?

I've tried Sacred, DS2, and about 10 others that just sucked hard, either because of major bugs, or dull gameplay ( click-click-slash-slash-drink healing potion-repeat ).

Any suggestions? please? Or am I just going to have to wait for the Morrowind followup (Oblivion) and reinstall Nethack?

Re:When I play a game, I don't care what the "Winn

[afidel]

Well, Diablo 2 wasn't very challenging in the basic mode. However if you played it in hardcore mode it could get interesting. Once you died, that was it, your character stayed dead. I played that way with a large group of friends for several years, without the challenge of hardcore mode I probably would have played the game for about 6 months. Adding additional artificial challenge can make an even somewhat simple game more fun.

Game Resolution is retarded. No WS Support

[Hack Jandy]

I noticed the game doesn't support widescreen resolution, nor resolutions over 1600x1200. This probably should have been mentioned in the "review".

HJ

Dungeon Seige II

[Deth Rot]

I was major disappointed with DS2 for the one basic thing that they said they were going to do. The graphics were supposed to be like most cut scenes are now.When I downloaded the beta demo and seen nothing but the same game engine and same 2000 graphics I uninstalled and forgot about it. I am sure this one will be in the bargin bin for 10 bucks or less just like DS1 is now sooner than most people think. Just goes to show how much "HYPE" alot of the promoters put into the game just to get it sold to the "preorder now !" crowd and for the rest of us to buy it when it hits the nearest trash yardsale. I believe that the PS3 and Xbox2 will be the same way.Just a bunch of hype and not alot of improvement.

Roguelike with good multiplayer!

[Whatever99]

A very good implementation of Multiplayer roguelike is tomenet http://www.tomenet.net/ Give it a try! Once you are used to the quasi real-time gameplay it's very addictive!

Yawn

[jonoverdose]

This isn't the game you're looking for. Move along.

Re:Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

Both of you fail reading comprehension.

Re:When I play a game, I don't care what the "Winn

[R.D.Olivaw]

I haven't played D2. I wasn't trying to compare DS to it. I was just making a point that the game should be interesting by itself, not that the player s have to dumb themselves down to enjoy it.

Re:When I play a game, I don't care what the "Winn

[RidiculousPie]

With ye old Baldurs Gate 2, I found it interesting to replay with limited party size, sometimes just me, or just me and a multiclassed thief/priest.

It was one of those games where you could try different strategies in nearly any battle.

That's not to say I disagree with you.

Enjoyable but flawed.

[__aalwyc6372]

What makes the game good:
- Neat (not too special) story line
- Tons of nice side quests
- Quite nice voice acting
- Some neat puzzels
- Rememberable locations (the old but pepped up engine put to good use)
- Few loading screens (teleporting)
- Enjoyable difficulty
- Pets!

The major drawbacks are:
- Linearity
- Lack of strategic combat handling.
- Buggy pathfinding
- Stupid AI
- Badly scaling engine (got a gforce 6800gt, amd64 3500, 1gb ram and it lags like hell on large scale battles)
- Ugly textures on closeup and the heroes look like shit most of the time, especially casters.
- Total ripoff of known titles (diablo, nwn)
- Teleporter animation: YEARGH!!!
- Music featured by the usually genious Jeremy Soule tends to be annyoing in times, especially in the town Aman'lu.

You just saved me countless hours

[syrynxx]

Thanks - I was cued up to play this game, since I thought the first DS was visually rich. But if it's as self-derivative as this indicates - I think I will break BG2 out again. Butt-kicking - for goodness!

That isn't always the case.

[hackwrench]

If you want something to be fun it only makes sense to look for ways to make it fun. If a game has mini-games and you don't like them, but like the rest of the game just fine, it would be rediculous for you to keep playing the mini games and then blame the manufacturer for making a game that isn't fun.If a game has a weapon that makes the level too easy, you have only yourself to blame if you use the weapon. That does't mean that the game is too easy, it just means that the weapon may as well be a cheat code that puts you in God mode. In many games you can attack yourself or your own team, but if you keep doing that, again it would be stupid to blame the game.

Re:Demo available if you have any doubts.

[guidryp]

Go for the eye boo, Go for the eyes!

I would gladly play old low res games that actually have gameplay value over eye candy without substance.

OT: Bruuuuuuuuuce!

[Nasarius]

Good to see a fellow Bruce Cockburn fan hanging around Slashdot.

Revive it!!

[holiggan]

Now this is a franchise I would like to see revived, using the next generation of consoles as an excuse (a la the slashdot article from days ago). It was an awesome game, and since we get to play the "bad guy's" side, it was a very fun game indeed!:D

Too visceral

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think that paragraph is too visceral? To me it should be gut retching or stomach turning...