GamersInfo.net

Dungeon Siege 2 (let's call it DS2 for brevity's sake) is set in the land of Aranna, which was also the setting of the first game Dungeon Siege (DS) and its expansion pack, Legends of Aranna (LoA). It is not by any means necessary to play the first games to enjoy this sequel. Nothing story-wise was carried over, not that the original game had much of a story to begin with. DS2 does improve on this shortcoming of its elder quite a bit. There is a ton of back story and lore behind this game, and the frequent cut scenes (both in-game and CGI) serve to keep the story advancing and keep the game moving.

Briefly, the "first age" of civilization in Aranna ended when a warlord named Zaramoth the Unmaker rose to supernatural power by wielding a demonic sword. A man named Azunai the Defender rose against him, carrying a powerful, enchanted shield. When the two met in battle and the sword struck the shield, the shield was shattered and the first age ended in cataclysm. Now, in the "second age," another power-hungry tyrant named Valdis has found the long-lost sword and begun a new reign of terror. He seeks to reassemble the fragments of the shield and use the two weapons to bring the "second age" to a premature end. You joined forces with Valdis briefly, but you'll soon see the error of your ways. You, after all, are the hero who has to stop Valdis.

DS1 was a revolutionary game in graphics and gameplay, but the graphical improvements in DS2 are more evolutionary. Where DS1's environments were rich and detailed, DS2's are much more rich and more detailed. This becomes apparent right away, as the game's first major location is a lush jungle setting. Overall, though, very little seems to have changed with the game engine itself. With the exception of much greater detail, DS2 really has the same look and feel as DS1 ... and that is good.

Gameplay in DS2, on the other hand, is a vast improvement over DS1. While the basic mechanics remain the same, the sequel brings new depth and complexity to the series. The addition of racial traits, powers, skill trees and pets makes this sequel much more fun to play overall than the previous games. DS1 and LoA were fun, mind you, but limited. The melee and ranged classes were one-dimensional and combat overall seemed too automatic. My friends joked "Dungeon Siege, is it a game or a screen saver? You decide!" Some of that still exists in the sequel, but it's much less a detriment to the game than it was for DS1.

In DS2 (as in DS1), character advancement is divided into four schools: Nature Magic, Combat Magic, Melee and Ranged. These schools are by no means exclusive. Any character can be advanced down as many or as few schools as you like. Broadening the character's power does have its drawbacks, though. The law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty quickly and you can end up with a jack of all trades type character who'll inevitably spend all his time in the Inn swapping tall tales with the other wannabes, while the real heroes are out saving the world.

Since you can control up to six characters at a time, even two-school characters are wholly unnecessary. You can easily have each school represented without resorting to such growth-stunting tactics. This makes me wonder why it's even still possible to "dual class" in this sequel, and relates to one of my nitpicks about the game. When you equip a new melee weapon on a spell caster for its magical bonuses, the game automatically assumes you want that character to behave like a melee fighter. If you're not paying attention, that character will end up advancing several levels in melee before you can correct the problem. This is annoying and rather pointless as a feature. I really hope the developers can be convinced to change this behavior in a patch.

New to Dungeon Siege 2, each school offers a skill tree. The skills can be used to further specialize the character. The fighter's skill tree branches three ways and his choices have mostly to do with how he uses his left hand. He can dual wield, or carry a shield, or become a master of powerful two-handed weapons. Ranged fighters can choose archery or thrown weapons as their primary attack. Combat Magic's skill tree allows specialization in lightning, fire or death magic spells. Nature mages can focus on ice damage, summoned creatures or casting spells that heal and increase the power of their comrades.

Additionally, advancing certain skills on the skill trees grants characters special and remarkable powers. They take some time to recharge, but these powers can be devastating to the enemy. A melee fighter can unleash a Brutal Attack that deals truly massive damage to a single enemy. That can mean the difference between death and survival in some boss fights. Nature mages, on the other hand, can create a Gravity Stone exerting force to pull enemies together and hold them. A Combat Magic ally can then attack with an area of effect spell or power, and annihilate the whole group. These are just a few of the powers available. The strategic possibilities in their application are numerous.

Very soon after starting the game, you'll encounter your first allies. Six characters can be active in your party at any given time, and you have the freedom to choose five of them. (The main character can't be removed.) You can dismiss a party member, and they'll wait patiently at the inn. If you want, you can go back for them. Unfortunately, only the active characters advance in power. If you leave someone in the inn too long, they'll be hopelessly far behind the rest of the party and almost completely useless. There's really no way to keep every possible party member leveled up with the rest of the group. That's a shame, too. It would be handy, for example, to be able to switch to an all-melee party when fighting enemies that eat mages for lunch.

Party members have their own personalities and, occasionally, they'll speak up when they have something to say. It's a nice touch, if a trivial one. It helps make the characters human rather than blank-faced, personality-less automatons. Each party member also seems to have at least one optional quest. There's no compelling reason to do these side-quests, but they do help develop their personalities further.

If you're not a people person, and prefer the company of animals instead, you can buy pets. This is one of the coolest features of the game. Initially, the selection of critters is limited, but optional quests can unlock special, more powerful animals. Pet stores in each town sell the pets and each pet has its own specialty in the same four schools that humanoid characters can develop. You get to name your pets, and you get to raise them from youth to maturity.

There's no Kibbles 'n Bits in Aranna, though, so your pets will have to settle for eating unwanted treasure. It's better for their teeth anyway, I guess. Different types of treasure contribute different stat bonuses to your pet as it grows. For instance, melee weapons boost its Strength while ranged weapons boost its Dexterity. Pets have the same inventory space as humanoid characters do, and they can be sent to the inn for safekeeping, or released into the wild if you grow tired of them.

As you can probably tell by now, DS2 is much more complex than its predecessor and one might find oneself somewhat overwhelmed. Thankfully, there's a great in-game handbook to keep everything sorted out. The handbook is part of the journal, which also keeps track of quest progress, logs any interesting lore you discover on your journey, and other important information. It's the repository of information that other games might leave you to remember on your own or jot down on paper. DS2's solution to this is elegant and helpful. My only complaint about it is the journal window does not scale in higher screen resolutions, sometimes causing me to press my nose to the screen trying to read it.

Other new features are somewhat flawed, too. One of the big new ones is chants. At several locations throughout Aranna, shrines have been erected at places of great magical power. A player can visit one of these shrines and utter a chant to be rewarded with beneficial spells and the like. There are lots of chants to be discovered throughout the world. They take up fully 16 pages in your journal. Unfortunately, most of them are rather useless, because the beneficial spells only seem to last a very short time. I find myself using only the chants that conjure a random magical item. It's usually junk, but it keeps my pet dire wolf's belly full.

The sequel has quite a bit of optional side-quest type content, which really just amounts to a lot of backtracking. It seems silly to have a quest half-way through the game that takes you back to the very beginning areas, where the monsters are such push-overs that they explode into tiny bits at a mere stern glance. Backtracking is not fun. I'd prefer optional side-quests to take place in areas I've never seen before, or at least in areas where the main quest is taking place. There are lots of teleporters scattered about to make the trips shorter, but quite often you'll have to comb the map looking for an NPC who you know you've seen before but were unable to talk to. This slows down the game considerably, especially when playing with friends.

DS2 supports three modes of co-operative multiplayer. Solo mode supports six players and allows each player to control only one character. This is the way multiplayer worked in DS1 and LoA. Couples mode supports three players, each with one ally or pet. Party mode is for two players and two allies each. The multiplayer game is otherwise almost identical to the single player game.

There's a major nit to pick here. When one player in a multiplayer game is engaged in a dialog with an NPC, the other players cannot hear or read the conversation. Nor can the other players strike up the same conversation with the NPC. This means important quest information is never seen or heard, and the player who heard it will have to convey it to his allies through the in-game chat system or some other means. Fortunately, I play on a LAN in the same room with my friend. We can usually both hear the dialog or easily tell each other what was missed, but this is a major flaw in the multiplayer, if you ask me. Hopefully, it will be fixed quickly in a patch.

This game has been a long-awaited breath of fresh air for me. I've been pining for a good cooperative RPG for a long time now and, despite its flaws, Dungeon Siege 2 is it. I can already hear the horde of RPG purists out there complaining about the game's linear story line and its lack of "real role playing." I say to them, "Feh!" The Dungeon Siege games are not computer versions of pen-and-paper, Dungeons and Dragons games. They aren't meant to be. There's a lot to be said for a game that's just simply fun to play and this game fits that bill nicely, especially in multiplayer.

With a meatier story, greatly improved gameplay and tons of new features, Dungeon Siege 2 belongs on the hard drives of any co-op RPG fan and any gamer who can appreciate a game for being simple, elegant and fun.