Choose your shoes
Dungeon Siege III starts by giving me a choice of four characters. Of course, I chose Katarina with the guns. Who wouldn't want to be a hot chick descended from a witch and a legion commander, and whose specialties are warfare and magic? Shall I break out the bullets or the black hound? Trouble is, that's my limit. Customisation here is minimal at best.
Red and green should always be seen
Each character is vastly different in style, attacks and equipment. Firstly, there is Anjali - this chick is basically all about torching those baddies or sticking them with her spear. Then Lucas Montbarron, all chop-chop, hack-and-slash swordsmanship. And finally Reinhart Manx who combines logic with mage skills and some nifty traps. You always work as a team with one of the other characters as an AI - and not a very bright one, at that - over whom you have no control apart from picking their abilities.
The combat is very action focused, and I spent at lot of time dodging swordsmen and tiny white spiders so I could keep out of range. I always pulled out my pistols when confronted by multiple opponents. In pistols mode, I could summon and attack with my mutt. My first block ability, confusingly accessed by the space bar (jump, jump) gave Katarina health regeneration. Controls on the PC are generally poorly thought out, I should say - a sign that it's a console port, or what?
Even though the combat is the best thing about this game and is, admittedly, fun, it's not up there with the latest RPGs, like those listed above.
Am I being too critical?
Leveling up, I got points towards purchasing proficiencies, talents, and with points for putting into your abilities for stronger attacks, draining my enemies’ attacks and buffing my health. Unfortunately, I felt that all the characters would become generic by the end of their narrative because there was a talent twig rather than a talent tree. I was impressed at how my character’s armor upgrades all looked detailed and this is followed through to the end of the game where I had taken on a whole new visual persona.
Next page: The line is drawn
COMMENTS
Title
I still have Diablo II until Diablo III comes out thanks.
RPGs...
these modern RPGs suck balls. They should get back to 2D. start over. I just want to explore environments, meet strange creatures and smash their faces with a hammer, and adorn my character with armor and jewels and crap. Stealing stuff and burning down villages is fun too.
I don't want to save a kingdom or talk to overly designed 3D characters with voice synced lips with storylines from kids TV.
How can you make an RPG that I find boring? Amazingly these big companies manage to do it again and again and again.
Dungeon Master
DM on the Atari ST was and still is one of the greatest RPG's, has anything else come close yet?
@NomNomNom
I have enjoyed some of the recent RPGs (notably Fallout3), but I think the RPG pinnacle was Baldur's Gate 1 & 2.
I am still waiting for a new RPG that is even close to those for sheer playability and enjoyment.
Story..
Story is usually the mainstay of any RPG (I was actually fond of the storylines in Guild Wars; I largely chose to play it as a single player RPG with henchmen).
DS3 was lacklustre in this, though not offensively so. An innocuous storyline of "fight the evil/misguided person"; you know what you're getting early on.
Then comes the ability to configure it to your play style. It tanked hard on that (no ability to remap keys.. In this day and age? You're kidding right??)..
Saving: This game uses Save Points.. You what? Really?? This is an evil spawn of the days when there weren't the resources to have regular saves when you thought you needed them (i.e. someone turned up at your door inviting you out for a beer; you don't want to have to say "Hang on for 20 minutes while I find a save point for my game").
Graphically.. About 5 years behind the curve. It's pedestrian at best, but hey, that's the icing on the cake stuff.. I can live with that as long as story, configuration comfort and the rest live up (which they don't).
Definitely agree that the looting is just rubbish. There's not the diversity of the high end gear (is there really any high end gear apart from the last purchase point, and to be honest, that's not that great).
It's a braincandy game that's not truly offensive (apart from the consolitis of the save points and lack of key binding config), but definitely not worth the "new game" price. Pitched at around £15, it'd be a fair(ish) deal, but at around £30? Not really.
