Dungeon Siege 3 Announced, But…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 8, 2010

So apparently there’s going to be a Dungeon Siege 3. For consoles and PCs.

Sadly, I can’t get enthusiastic about it. I have both of the previous games. I’ve played them both. Well, part-way. There’s nothing I hate about them. Every once in a while I look over at the DS2 box and think, “Gee, I should re-install that one and give it another chance.” There was no reason I quit playing it. They were very pretty games with some nice ideas and reasonably fun diversions. We enjoyed playing the first one multiplayer a little bit. It was pretty much like playing Gauntlet: Legends. Fun, but forgettable.

They were nice games with some interesting ideas that were designed to be really easy to get into. Maybe too easy. That might have been part of the problem: They were kinda boring. I never found myself really engaged by either game. I was loosely aware of the plots, found myself kinda-sorta restricting my actions to help force my character to develop in one direction or another, spent the requisite amount of time tweaking my equipment and spell loadouts, and otherwise played it like any other arcade game. Er, with RPG elements, which almost always improve any arcade-style game they belong to (see? That’s how old-school I am. I still use the term “arcade style” and “arcade game”). They just don’t hold my attention for very long.

Now, with Square Enix involved as publisher and Obsidian helming it, maybe the third time really will be the charm. We’ll see. In the meantime, forgive me if I’m not overwhelmed with enthusiasm.

Filed Under: Mainstream Games - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

Travis said,

Yeah just installed #1 again because of the announcement. Never finished them either so I thought what the heck I’ll try them again. Here is the problem the game just plays itself. Its pretty and all and there is some nice ideas but there is nothing to do its boring and that’s a problem.
Groboclown said,

I will say one thing about the original Dungeon Siege – it is the platform with (arguably) the best Ultima remakes – Lazarus (http://www.u5lazarus.com/) and The Ultima 6 Project (http://u6project.com/).
Xenovore said,

I loved Dungeon Siege 1, but could not get into DS 2; it was just too much more of the same. A key point, however, is that these games only truly shine when playing them cooperatively. Single player is less compelling.

Done right, DS 3 could be awesome — it looks like there are some talented people working on it…
Greg Tedder said,

I have both, and enjoyed DS 1 on a moderate level, but only put about 5 hours into DS 2 before getting really bored. Neither had a lot of depth, neither had enough depth. It is a waste, because they are both quality software, responsive, stable, visually appealing. Just boring. 🙁

If the reviews are good I might pick up DS 3 when it hits the bargain bin.

The reviews are going to have to be shocking for me to make a new purchase.
Miral said,

Yeah, I had pretty much the same experience. In DS1 I remember I reached a point somewhere in a swamp (about halfway through, I think) before getting totally bogged down with inventory management (because I’m a packrat), and actually started writing an inventory management (packmule/storage) program for it before getting bored and wandering off (it was almost done; it could view your whole inventory but making changes to it sometimes crashed the game).

I think I only got a quarter of the way through DS2 before getting severe inventory-itis again. I didn’t write software for it this time though. I have the expansion for DS1 but never actually played it.
Sslaxx said,

I only ever brought DS1 because of the Ultima remakes. Roll on the remake of Ultima VI!