Dave’s Good Stuff

I beat Dungeon Siege last night… at least the Single Player portion. It wasn’t bad. Typical fantasy plot, nothing fancy or special about it. In fact, it merely reinforces my thought that the real strength of this game isn’t the game itself, but the ability to create your OWN game out of it. I can’t wait for those editing tools to be released so I can start in on my own… Single Player was good, but Multiplayer will own!

I posted earlier about some of the things I liked and didn’t like about the game. I’m pleased to say that most of the things I’d change were already there and I just hadn’t found them, while some of the rest are easily fixed by small mods. The BSOD’s have mysteriously stopped, the Party AI is still a bit off and the pausing when someone joins a multiplayer game is still there (those pretty much require a patch from the blokes at Gas Powered Games). Of the rest, only the lack of a thief class, and the ability to use your quickslots for anything remain.

This is easily one fo the best games available right now… in my humble opinion, for any platform.

Now that I’ve had a chance to play Dungeon Siege, and having made my way through about half of the single-player campaign (at least, judging by my location on the nifty cloth map I got with it - damn, I love those things), I feel I have something on which to stand whilst I pointlessly bray my opinions.

The Good:

Graphics - Oh my. This game is pretty. Really, really pretty. It’s not trying to be ultra realistic, and has what I consider a beautiful style to it. The colors, the atmosphere… there isn’t a single thing about the graphics and artwork that I find disappointing.

Gameplay - This is what Diablo II really should have been. It has all the addictiveness of the Diablo series, with so much more of the graphics. The game as delivered isn’t so much the role-playing thing as it is the hack-n-slash thing. That’s fine… one of the best things about this game is the ability to create your own modules, known as Siegelets. The tools to build Siegelets are coming out, allegedly, in May. I think then we’ll see many many cool things happen.

Character Generation - I really do like the idea that you develop your character into either a fighter, mage or archer through how you play your character. That, to me, is a long awaited method for character advancement. Bravo.

Party AI - It’s nice to be able to just sit back and watch as your party takes on the hordes of baddies that come to beat on them. Especially nice is assigning healing spells to two mages and having them just sit back automatically healing your fighters as they beat back.

The Bad:

BSODs - This is the only game, the only application, for that matter, that gives my WinXP Pro box blue screens. When it happens, it is usually when busting open a crate or barrel, though I’ve had one while attacking a beastie. Don’t know the cause as I’ve found little in the forums that is of help, though I suspect sound drivers (Creative is always a good fall-guy when application instability is concerned). Ironic, that this game was published by Microsoft.

Party AI - This is also in the bad section, b/c sometimes a member of your party will just up and run away after an baddie, thus attracting even MORE baddies, which is always *ahem* bad. Additionally, if a dragon knocks a party member out, you really cannot convince the healer to just let him lie… he’ll insist on healing the downed comrade, no matter that the dragon is still there… and nothing short of removing his ability to heal will stop this absurd behavior. Alas… game AI still has a ways to go.

Multiplayer Pause - When a new person joins an ongoing multiplayer game, everyone is forced to pause and wait for them to create the character, set their options and join up. What’s with that pause, anyway? Get it gone, I say!

The Would-Have-Been-Nice:

Map - I wish there were an in-game full-world map, or something considerably larger than the top-down "mega-map" that’s given. The "mega-map" is very cool, but I’d like to be able to scroll out MUCH farther to get a sense of things. If not a whole-world map, then the ability to scroll around the map unattached to the party would be nice.

Following - In multiplayer, I wish you could click (or something) on a comrade and just follow w/o having to pay attention. Maybe you can. I didn’t find it, though I only played multiplayer for an hour or so.

Thief-Class - There is no thief class! So many of the chests are trapped with explosives or darts… having a thief class to disarm them, or to sneak around being all ninja would be so truly excellent. Perhaps this can be addressed in a patch, or can be somewhat easily mod’ed.

Camera Control - I like how the camera is controlled, but I wish you could look up, or even horizontal. Right now, the camera is limited to between 90 degrees (looking straight down) and about 30 degrees (best guess). I’d love to be able to look up… the engine they’ve developed is so beautiful, I want to see more of it!

Scrolling through the Messages - Unless you leave the scroll speed real low, you don’t have much time to read the messages as they pop by… and leaving them up forever means you’re losing valuable screen real estate. A traditional drop down console (Quake) or a resizable message box (Baldur’s Gate) would have rocked.

Multiplayer Save - There is no saving the status of your game in multiplayer. ‘Nuff said.

Quickslots for Anything - Instead of four quickslots assigned as 1 for melee, 1 for ranged and 2 for spells… just let those quickslots be for anything at all. My Spell casters don’t need weapons, and could use more spell quickslots.

Conclusion

That about covers it… I didn’t get much sleep last night due to a sudden and inexplicable case of insomnia, so I’m likely missing something here. The "Good" section is noticeably smaller than the "Bad" and "Would have been Nice" sections… don’t let that fool you. Though smaller, those things I listed as good pack a mean punch, and easily make up for the less-than-good things (at least for me). All in all, this is a very good game, and well worth the wait… I’ve had a blast with it! Every now and again, I just pause the game and look at it in wonder… what a beautiful thing it is. :)

As I’ve mentioned, myself and a couple friends get together a couple times a week (at least) to play pool at his home table. This week, he had family over so had to cancel. Not to be dissuaded from my recently re-acquired taste for the cue sports, I decided to use that time to re-acquaint myself with the pool hall I used to frequent… appropriately called "The Pool Room".

It was a blast. I really had forgotten how much fun that place can be. I started out on the 9′ tables, just warming up practicing my stroke, and practicing my side-pocket shots (a common weakness). It never really clicked, and I got a little frustrated. About then, an old friend by the name of Ray showed up, so I turned in my rack and went over to the 7′ bar boxes to shoot with him. More people I used to hang with showed up, as well as some I’ve only recently met. Ray beat me in the worst of ways… game after game after game was his. Oddly enough, though I’d have been frustrated and even angry about it any other time, I just didn’t care. It was fun just to hit the balls around again.

I did catch my stride later on, though, after Ray left. While playing 9-ball with the wife of our local cue-maker and a friend of hers, there was a stretch of three or four games, right before I started getting tired (it was 11:30 or so) that I could not miss. I made some really nice long-table thin kick shots when left badly by one of my opponents, but when I was shooting, I never had a hard shot… my position play was in rare form. Weird thing is, 9-ball has never been my game. :)

I’m looking very much forward to going back… I just hope I get a job soon so I can go w/o feeling guilty about plucking down so many quarters. ;)