Dungeon Siege II

[Hatchling Dragon]

I'm wondering if anyone's picked this up yet. I've been tempted, but definately going to wait until I at the very least see some reviews, and probably even price reduction (as Best Buy does on most games).

I played a fair bit of the first, how does this compare? Could you explain how it's better? Replayability? Anything you can think of would help me decide if I want this.

 

[Gantros]

I just started playing through the single player campaign a few days ago. The gameplay feels very similar to the original - frequent combat and mostly item retrieval-style quests. The UI seems a bit more streamlined, and the graphics are better, but nothing special by today's standards. The battles still seem really easy to win, although that could be due to the strange decision to only let you play on the easiest of three difficulty levels until you've completed the game at least once.

I'd have to say I'm feeling underwhelmed by this game so far. I found the original strangely addictive, but this sequel seems less so. Hopefully it will get more interesting later on.

 

[LrdApoc]

Well I'm working on my review right now for the paper but let me sum this up with my perspective - I love a good hack and slash RPG from time to time and Dungeon Siege, while not terribly original, was a good game. DS II is possibly better than the first in terms of story, setting,cool things to collect, etc.

It has perfected many of the strong points of the first game - the team party system, skill development, etc. and done away with many of the weaknesses - the game playing itself, potion micromanagement, really bad quests and long walks between areas.

DS II is also one of the most stable games released in the last few years. The single player is solid and there were a few minor issues with MP but overall it's almost perfect from a bug standpoint... something you don;t see often enough anymore.

I'm most likely going to rate it as an 'A' title for the action RPG set. It's fun and fairly mindless but the multiplayer modes make it worth playing with friends. I own three copies so I can play with my wife and oldest daughter.

 

[HeinorNY]

I played it for a some hours and gave up. I'm not in the mood anymore to play Diablo 2 clones...

 

[mps42]

Is DS II worth the price of admisson?

First off, let me say that I hae only played the Demo but, from what I've played, I like it.

Likes:
The world seems much richer and there's a lot more background to "pretty up" the space. The races are well defined and fairly easilily discernable on-sight (its pretty easy to tell a elf from a human from a half-giant).
I liked the skills trees ala Diablo and I liked the powers that you create by taking certain combinations of skills. I do, however wish there has been "custom" skills (only available to particular races or) or make certain races able to gains certain skills faster or something to make a Elven Bow fighter different from a human Bow fighter.
I liked the mini-quests and side-quests. To me the lent story and background to the game and drew you into places you might not go otherwise.
There were some battles that seemed very easy.

Dislikes:
If I save a game at a particular point, i should be able to EASILY get back to that saved point, EVEN IF MY ENTIRE PARTY DIES. this annoyed the heck out of me.
There were some battles that seemed VERY hard, even when using skills and powers.

That being said, overall, I liked the demo and will pry buy the game. IMHO, if you liked DS and Diablo or Diablo II, you will most likely like DS II


My $.02

 

[Ashrum the Black]

I will also point out that a number of issues have been reported of the game freezing during play on some machines. The fixes right now involve diosabling EAX, or AGP texturing among other things. I can testify to this issue, it died and took my install of windows with it.

On a fresh build I played for an hour and a half and then it started locking up again. I'm still trying to get the thing to run well, and it is the only progam I've had this issue with. And, just so you know I'm an IT professional by trade, and a computer engineer by schooling. My PC's are all well maintained and patched, and I don't run anything funky on that PC at all, and I sweep them regularly for virus, adware, and spyware.

So, while I apreciate someone that says the game is stable, I would take that, as with all reviews, with a grain of salt.

-Ashrum

 

[Ravenknight]

Have it. Love it. Nothing new since DS I or Legends of Aranna though. It basicly the same game all over again. So if You liked them You know what You´ll get. Frantic Dungeonhacking and looting at it´s best.

Haven´t encountered any bugs or problems. Seems like a stable build.

 

[KenM]

Is it as linear as the first DS? I played the first one for awhile but was really turned of at how linear it was. You go down the road and kill stuff, then kill more things further down the road. The road leads to cave and you kill more stuff in the cave, you come out the other side and kill more stuff. NO PLACE was there a place to branch off. At least Diablo 2 had illusion that it was sort of non linear. But the first DS was liteally going down a road and killing things.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I got it, and I rather like it. I haven't had any problems, though I'd like a good support site, like diabloii.net.

Brad

 

[Ravenknight]

Is it as linear as the first DS? I played the first one for awhile but was really turned of at how linear it was. You go down the road and kill stuff, then kill more things further down the road. The road leads to cave and you kill more stuff in the cave, you come out the other side and kill more stuff. NO PLACE was there a place to branch off. At least Diablo 2 had illusion that it was sort of non linear. But the first DS was liteally going down a road and killing things.

Yup. Just as linear. There are a decent number of sidequests that You can catch up with at any time though.