Space Siege

I really had high hopes for this. Having enjoyed the previous Dungeon Siege games, I thought Space Siege would bring the appeal of the former games up to date and expand on what they created.

It doesn't. And in an alarming number of ways. I'm approximately 90% the way through it and I'm simply carrying on to see it to the end. The main character is preset - no change of appearance/race/sex here. Simply a small number of cybernetic upgrades which increasingly make you less human, should you choose to have them fitted.

Then there's the HR-V (or Harvey) as he is known in the game. This robot sidekick can be 'promoted' in a number of ways to have better armour, more resistance, more health, etc. He can also carry different weapons that are picked up along the way - but only one can be fitted and used at once.

So you set off on your quest to fight the aliens that have landed aboard your ship. And that's where the first (and main) problem occurs. The control interface is… more »

I really had high hopes for this. Having enjoyed the previous Dungeon Siege games, I thought Space Siege would bring the appeal of the former games up to date and expand on what they created.

It doesn't. And in an alarming number of ways. I'm approximately 90% the way through it and I'm simply carrying on to see it to the end. The main character is preset - no change of appearance/race/sex here. Simply a small number of cybernetic upgrades which increasingly make you less human, should you choose to have them fitted.

Then there's the HR-V (or Harvey) as he is known in the game. This robot sidekick can be 'promoted' in a number of ways to have better armour, more resistance, more health, etc. He can also carry different weapons that are picked up along the way - but only one can be fitted and used at once.

So you set off on your quest to fight the aliens that have landed aboard your ship. And that's where the first (and main) problem occurs. The control interface is truly awful. As other reviewers have said, it's slow, cumbersome, unresponsive and just deters you from wanting to make worthwhile progress. Clicking on the ground for the character to move often results in him completing his actions and then moving. Annoying as hell when inbound fire is coming right at you.

And Harvey is stupidly dumb. What should be seen as a great team setup - his weapon selection complementing those of the main character, just doesn't work. Being unable to give him any form of tactical control - he will wander in amongst a swarm of enemies, despite being equipped with a long-ranged weapon, for example. The F3 key tells him to come back to the main character - and its this key that I've almost destroyed on my keyboard since installing Space Siege. Harvey is more often than not just pure cannon-fodder - only survivng attack rounds later in the game as I've selected better health and armour for him on the unlock tree.

It is a game that is good to play - but it could have been SO much better. The story is good, if a little unoriginal, but the gameplay gets very repetitive after a short while.

Bizarrely, it was approached, designed and implemented far better in the older titles and I think this will put off a lot of Siege fans. Definitely a more basic point & click affair this time around.

Wait until it comes out on budget, would be my advice.

Think carefully before you buy this, it not an RPG, it's a shooter, and not a particularly good example of the genre to boot.

There is no loot system, all mobs drop generic parts that you use to upgrade your weapons and armour. Weapons are fed to you at pre determined points in the game as are cybernetic 'upgrades'. If you're looking for customisable characters, armour sets, paperdoll style menu etc. you aren't going to find them in this game, despite the misleading references to dungeon siege on the box.

There is no AI for either the enemy mobs or your robot sidekick, he will gladly charge into a group of mobs even if he's down to his last HP and does not use any of his special abilities unless you manually select them.

There is a keybinding option screen that is totally non-operational, don't like the default keybinds... tough, your stuck with them.

There are on screen hot bars which are also totally non-operational. You have to drag abilities on to them to… more »

Think carefully before you buy this, it not an RPG, it's a shooter, and not a particularly good example of the genre to boot.

There is no loot system, all mobs drop generic parts that you use to upgrade your weapons and armour. Weapons are fed to you at pre determined points in the game as are cybernetic 'upgrades'. If you're looking for customisable characters, armour sets, paperdoll style menu etc. you aren't going to find them in this game, despite the misleading references to dungeon siege on the box.

There is no AI for either the enemy mobs or your robot sidekick, he will gladly charge into a group of mobs even if he's down to his last HP and does not use any of his special abilities unless you manually select them.

There is a keybinding option screen that is totally non-operational, don't like the default keybinds... tough, your stuck with them.

There are on screen hot bars which are also totally non-operational. You have to drag abilities on to them to assign them to the un-editable keybinds, but you can't select or trigger abilities from the hotbars with the mouse!

The camera angles, (choice of 2), both severely restrict your field of view, even the 'zoomed out' camera only allows you to view a few yards in front of your character. I was getting a sore neck from trying to peer under the edge of my monitor!

Other than that it's a fairly bland and monotonous shooter, waves of mindless cannon fodder followed by the odd boss fight. Even if the issues with camera and controls were sorted out this game would still be run of the mill.