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Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
It's nice to have a life; it really is. Wife, kids, golf, tennis; even writing these things is an enjoyable part of it. It all comes to an end though, when a game like Dungeon Siege comes around. Life? Sunshine? Forget it. I don't want it any more. Give me a computer, a dark room, a shut door, and EVERYBODY GET OUT. Indeed, I fear I begin to resemble the little monsters I so relentlessly slaughter while playing this game. It is a RPG, or role-playing game, which essentially means that you take the part of the primary character during it. In Dungeon Siege the scenario is this: you are a simple farmer, and one morning you wake up and find that a spell has been put on the community, and all kinds of demons and monsters have risen up and are murdering humanity. You have about ten seconds to digest this before they come after you. Unlike other computer games I have played, such as Age of Empires and Pharaoh, there is no redeeming intellectual value to this one. In those games, there is some history to learn or an ancient historical battle to be refought, but in this one, all those considerations are gone. Your job is to kill monsters, hundreds and hundreds of diverse and different kinds of monsters, over and over again. You want to learn something? Read a book, Einstein. And what monsters! Abominable snowmen, screeching forest trolls, sword-wielding skeletons, resurrected corpses, flying gargoyles, goblins, giant worms, skeleton dogs, white wolves, boars, swamp witches, cyclopses; my goodness, if there is a horrible beast mentioned in myth or fiction, chances are you'll run into it here, usually in an unexpected and deadly fashion. And they all have something they can get you with: massive clubs, gas, electrical bolts, fire-breathing, swords, bows and arrows; some of the little beasties even surround you and throw rocks at you: believe me, there are a zillion ways to die in this game. (And I'm here to tell you, I experienced them all.) You start off with your dying neighbor telling you that you must get to town. All you have is a knife. This is pretty much how the game goes. You get to one place, you are given another mission, (or missions), then you go merrily on your way to the next. Each time it gets a little more interesting, and a little more difficult. But you are getting stronger too, depending on which skills you use; and also richer, with the gold you pick up off the enemies' dead bodies or find in hidden treasure chests. This allows you to purchase better and more dangerous weapons; stronger armor, including helmets, gloves, boots, and shields; and spells, if that's what you choose to do. To me, the "shopping" was as fun as anything: picking and choosing cool-looking armor, or weapons such as hammers, axes, bows, swords or clubs. You can't wait to get out there again and hit something with them! You can also increase your skill as a mage, or magician, by using spells and that sort of thing, and although these types of characters play an important role in the game, I found that playing this kind of character just wasn't as fun. They're weaker, for one thing, and easier to kill; for another, it just doesn't give you the same thrill as bashing some poor, ignorant zombie into the ground. The sound and the visual effects are really wonderful, spectacular even. Right off the bat, in fact, you're in a forest, confused and uncertain as to what to do next, and what do you know: it starts to rain, with big drops falling everywhere and making that foreboding pitter-patter. During the course of the game you will experience deserts, forest, swamps, snowy mountains, towns and in the end, a magnificently detailed, huge, colorful castle. And of course there are the underground places: mines, crypts, tunnels, dungeons, caves . . . all spectacularly rendered and beautiful to look at. There were many times I simply had to pause the game to drink it all in. It is stunning. And the sounds: the hum of machinery in the goblin cave, wind blowing, rain falling. I actually turned down the sound while in the swamp a couple of times to be sure the night sounds--crickets, bullfrogs, etc.--weren't coming from outside my window! The playing of it is a dream. You won't have to practice anything here. All you really need is the left clicker on your mouse. To view what's to the left, move the cursor to the left side of the screen. To get a birds-eye view, move the cursor to the top. To get a more level view, move it to the bottom. Very simple. It'll take you a minute to be playing this. I am just overwhelmed by this game. In fact, it is so perfectly done in all respects that at various times during the day the remembrance of it comes back like some odd, vivid, intense dream. And the playing of it, of course, literally transfers you to a different world. A world in which you become utterly immersed, and in which real life is forgotten. This is what you want when you play a computer game. It is really a superb creation, and a joy to play.
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