Although described as a role playing game Dungeon Siege is closest in gameplay to Diablo 2. Whilst both could loosely be described as role playing the actual playing of a role is subservient to incessant combat. Veterans of games from the Bio Ware stable or indeed any Dungeons & Dragons type game will be shocked when they start playing this game. Traditionally a role playing title will require the player to first create their character. This will involve choosing a race, weighing up the pros and cons of various character classes, rolling up attributes, picking skills and fine tuning the distribution of points. Dungeon Siege dispenses with all of this allowing you to pick either a male or female character and deciding what clothing they should have.
There are only 3 attributes, strength, dexterity and intelligence and they are all set at 10. Your character also has 4 skills, melee, ranged, combat magic and nature magic and these start at zero. This minimalist approach to character building is continued into the game with skills and attributes going up depending on what your character does. Spend your time in melee combat and your strength and melee skill will go up. Use a bow and ranged and dexterity will increase. Use magic and your intelligence will increase as well as either combat or nature magic depending on what spells you cast.
There is no player intervention in all of this and it does allow for a wide variety of character types, unrestricted by any labels such as fighter or mage etc. You can for example increase melee for a couple of levels and then switch to ranged or magic, levelling up in that skill for a while and then switch back to melee.
You start off with just your own character but soon you can add other PC's who will either join you for the fun of it or you can pay them a fee to so so. Eventually you can have up to eight including your own. For novelty value one of these can be a donkey who can carry a hefty burden, solving inventory management. The characters that tag along can increase their skills in any way you choose in the same way as your own character. Thus you can build a well balanced party or if you prefer a legion of swordsmen or archers or an all spell casting combo.
Graphically this is a superb game. I particularly liked the seamless passing from the open countryside into a dungeon, or moving through a door into a house and then down a trapdoor into the cellar without any loading screen getting in they way. In fact there was little evidence of any loading going on at all and considering the huge size of the world you play in this is quite a feat.
Almost immediately the game starts you are in combat, at first with some farm implements but then with an increasing array of both mundane and magical weapons. Combat is pretty much what this game is all about. There are quests along the way, you can talk to the occasional NPC and do a bit of shopping but these are just added so that the game can be labelled a role playing game. Essentially you simply move along a bit, fight some bad guys, move on again, fight some more and so on. The game is entirely linear. Your path is pretty much fixed apart from the occasional foray off the main path.
To cater for the intense combat you have a wealth of options for controlling your party. You can set the behaviour of each individual member or for example you can group all the fighters together and give them different orders from the archers and magic users. You can also pause at any time and redirect individuals or groups to do different things. An array of hot keys allows you to change weapon or spells for individuals or the entire party. You can make combat as complicated or as simple as you want.
In concept Dungeon Siege is simply a case of equipping your party with the best weapons, armour and spells you can find (and there are huge amounts of this to find) and going out and killing everything that comes near you. The narrative has little to do with this, quests even less. In fact the "role playing" element could have been left out altogether and it wouldn't have made a lot of difference.
As I said at the beginning the closest game to Dungeon Siege that I have played is Diablo 2. However Diablo 2 is a far better game than this. I have no idea why I found Dungeon Siege unappealing. I just got fed up playing it. It may be that it falls between too many stools. It doesn't have the rich character development and role playing of a real RPG like Baldur's Gate 2 or Fallout 2. It doesn't have a strong narrative like Planescape Torment, nor the edge of your seat excitement of Diablo 2. It's funny because Diablo 2 has the same intense combat and minimal approach to character development and narrative. The only difference was that you couldn't save every few seconds and maybe this gives it the edge over Dungeon Siege
Overall then a huge game, graphically superb with some great innovations but ultimately I found it unsatisfactory. I might come back to this one again one day, but with Morrowind coming out soon, it's going to the back of the queue.