I bashed my last monster a few days ago. My party cracked the big bad meanie over the head in a spectacular demonstration of particle pyrotechnics, before settling down to their packed lunch to watch the final conclusion of the story. I have used the intervening days to allow my brain to dismantle and disseminate what I experienced whilst playing Dungeon Siege so I could write a better, more balanced review for our readers. There have been a lot of words written about Chris Taylor’s new game and now here are some more from that unique perspective of the British gamer just in time for the title’s release. The had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with starting up a new game of Civilization III. No, really.

Let me begin by bringing up the main criticisms that this game has been receiving; that the gameplay is simplistic and derivative, that your characters do too much for themselves, that the monsters just clump around you to attack and that it looks too damn nice for its own good. Well yes I say, the gameplay is simplistic, this is an after all. There are no real puzzles to speak of and very little interaction with the environments as a whole. From beggining to end the player will be engaged in nothing else but banging monsters on the head, picking up new gear and healing up the party. There are no stealthy bits to slow the pace down, no opportunities to split your party up to gain an advantage. The essence of the gameplay has not been changed from that laid down by the first dungeon crawls many, many years ago.

If that seems to be a real problem to you then you might as well leave now for this game isn’t going to be for you. I have one simple request to the early leavers - using the spare time you have from not playing this game could you please search out an action RPG which showed even the slightest hint of moving the gameplay into a new direction and bring it back here for me to see. For those of us keen to continue and who have passed their reality check let’s go on.

This is hack and slash, that’s what it set out to do and that is exactly what it has done. The enjoyment one gets from this game comes from building up your party with newer, bigger and badder equipment to take on greater numbers of fiercer and uglier monsters all the while exploring changing environments for hidden treasure and hidden dungeons. Just like 2, except with more then one guy. I personally have the suspicion that if this game had been released by any publisher other then M$ it would have suffered less under the typing skills of the pernickety. It differs very little from Blizzard’s big daddy in terms of the mechanics of the gameplay, giving the player the tools to run around endlessly smashing things with a minimum of fuss.