Sunday, November 22, 2015

Dungeon Siege 3 Video Game Review



Dungeon Siege 3 is the third (obviously) game by Obsidian and published by Square Enix. It was released in 2011 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the PC. Dungeon Siege 3 takes place in the fictional Kingdom of Ehb, the Kingdom from the first Dungeon Siege, which is a typical fantasy setting except for the fact that basic firearms exist.



PLOT

The story of Dungeon Siege 3 is pretty generic. There is a bad person, in this game it's Jeyne Kassynder, who is at war with everyone and you have to stop her. You are a member of the former 10th Legion who had kept the peace in Ehb for the last 400 years. After her father is killed by the 10th Legion Jeyne rallies the people to go to war against them and destroys the Legion 30 years ago.



A man named the "Venerable" Odo, who is one of the last of the 10th Legion, has called a meeting of the remaining members in hopes of restoring the Legion. The meeting is attacked and after you escape Odo asks you to find out if any of the Legion members survived and if they have to gather them up to reform the Legion. This is your goal of the game, to reunite the remaining members of the Legion, gather allies and defeat Jeyne Kassynder.

GAME PLAY

Unlike traditional role playing games that use the I Go U Go system for combat, think Final Fantasy, Dungeon Siege 3 uses a combat action system. You can use special attacks and magic in combat but it happens in real time like Skyrim. I enjoy both systems and it works well here.



CHARACTERS

In Dungeon Siege 3 you choose from one of four characters to play as. I played as Katarina because she uses guns, a rifle for long range and a pair of shotguns for close range. You can also use Anjali who uses a spear but can also transform into a fire form to attack with. Lucas Montbarron is your typical fantasy fighter using either a one handed sword and shield or a two handed sword. Number four is Reinhart Manx who is a mage that uses magic up close and ranged. The three you don't pick are still part of the story and you will meet up with them throughout the game. The game allows you to have one companion to fight with you, I picked Anjali for her healing abilities.



PRESENTATION

Dungeon Siege 3 is a nice looking game but it's not great. I've played RPGs that looked better like Skyrim but it this game gets the job done. The biggest issue I had was with the camera view. You can choose from a behind your character or a behind and above view. The behind camera was at an angle and you can't make out much in front of you. The behind and above camera allows you to see more but it has the same problem as the other view. Also there were times when I would get stuck in a corner while fighting and I wouldn't be able to see what was happening.

I like how the goblins look like Yoda.


Another issue I had with the game was with the map. You have a mini map in the right corner of the screen but there is no full size map. On top of that the waypoint marker just shows you which direction you needed to go and I swear I spent an hour in one of the cities trying to find my way. I was able to make a lot of XP while doing it so it wasn't a total waste but I was still annoyed. Of course near the end of the game I found the button on the controller that would display a glowing orb trail to your chosen way point. Now I'll admit it was my fault for not using it but I have a digital copy of the game and there isn't a control scheme in the menu. I guess I could have downloaded the manual but that's annoying too.



SUMMARY

I liked Dungeon Siege 3, it's your basic dungeon crawl game that despite the generic story was still a lot of fun. I played the game on Normal difficulty and it wasn't too hard and I should have picked Hardcore. On Norman the game took me 13 hours to complete including all side missions and reaching level 30 which is the highest rank you can reach. It's not a very long game but it was long enough to not feel like a rip off. I give Dungeon Siege 3 an 7 out of 10.

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