Dungeon Siege III Demo Impression

Dungeon Siege was the first contact with my RPG genre, so it holds a special place in my heart. The very ability to customize characters was a wonderful experience for me. So the first flaw of DS 3 that I notice is the pre-made characters (2 in the demo). Sure it helps in carving the story in a definite manner, but still character customization can be seen in most of the games that claims to have RPG elements and with the first and second game both allowing for a custom character creation, the latter with different races.
With that out of the way, the game surely was designed with the console in mind, the PC version seems to be an after-thought. I say this because of little things like for example a total lack of control customization system. Yes, you can't bind your keys to the configuration you like, but rather will have to make do with the game's configuration. Another annoying little quirk is the assigning of only 3 powers in the interface. Although PC version could very easily manage up to 9-10 hotkeys assigned for this purpose. Clearly this game was developed for the console in mind. (Though, the graphics customization is quite good. I mean for a game that doesn't allow you to set your own key-configs, being allowed to set the MSAF, Texture, Shadows and visual effects is quite surprising!)
The game supposedly supports controllers, but I couldn’t get my controller working, even though I checked the controller support box. And since there’s no input-config screen, I couldn’t even force the game manually in-game to default my input to the connected controller. Maybe the game only supports Xbox 360 controllers, or it’s one of those infamous Obsidian bugs. So, I started the game with the normal Keyboard-Mouse combo. There’s a short introductory sequence that sets up the story and the backdrop of the story. The cut-scene is done through painting based narrations by the grandmaster Odo of the 10th Legionnaires. After the cut-scene you’re made to choose one of the pre-made characters. The demo allowed for 2, a warrior and a mage. Since I’m the mage type, I took up Anjali (yeah seems Square Enix is very interested in Indian names, which makes me proud), an Archon, who can switch between the Human form to fight with a spear, and an elemental fire form, fighting with balls of fire. After this you’re allowed to choose the difficulty from 3, with the Hardcore version, according to the game, not for faint of heart and those prone to throwing controllers (not banging keyboards, even though the controller didn’t work!). Following this there is another cut-scene through a letter based narration and you’re finally thrown in to the game world. The game pops up Tutorial texts giving you directions around the world. The tutorials are very basic covering only the basic usage like moving, attacking and looting and some advanced topics like Empowered attacks. Yet the game doesn’t tell you that for accessing your special power you need to press the numerical keys. Even clicking on the power’s picture doesn’t work. Even after changing the difficulty to Casual, the tutorial wasn’t shown. RPG players might find their way around, but new-comers would be at a complete loss. Also, there are help topics, but again, given the genre of Hack-n-Slash, the players won’t be as patient and it would’ve been preferable to have the info integrated into the game rather than reading pages after pages of it in-game. Maybe it would be included in the Manual, so that players can read it while the game installs.
The game play is simple hack-n-slash like Torchlight or DeathSpank; you move your character using the right mouse button and attack using the left. The movement can also be done using the W & S keys, while A & D rotates the camera. A nice touch, according to my preference. But the console bug is here too, you don't click to loot chest, but rather go near the object and press a button! The combat is based on clicking. Every click makes your character attack, depending on your stance. There are 2 stances for every character: one for handling multiple foes and another for a single foe. Anjali for instance in the human form fights with a spear that attacks in a frontal arc. That means anyone caught in the arc takes damage, and the enemies are intelligent enough to get behind you to attack as well as swarm to overwhelm you. So you’ve got to keep moving about and watch your back while doing it. And the second form for Anjali, her elemental form is for single foes, as she throws fire balls in a single direction. Speaking of enemies, the primary enemies faced by me looked like colonial English soldiers, specially the attire. There are both ranged enemies with bows as well as rifles, and melee enemies. As mentioned above, if you don’t properly guard and block, using the space bar which also drains focus, the enemies will soon overwhelm you. The enemy health stat is displayed by a green circle at their feet, which gradually turns to red as they lose health. The game itself is linear, atleast from what I've seen in the Demo. There aren't any fogged up part, the path's all revealed, and you have a clear marker as to where to go for the objective, so you can just run in that direction to get your objective.
The customization, unlike the previous quirks is quite varied. Sure not as RPG-epic kind, but for a hack-n-slash, it’s quite varied. You have the standard slot for armor, helmet, boots, Yantras (magical amulets for Anjali, another term related to Indian mythologies) and so on. The best thing is the inventory is auto-sorted, so you don’t have to scroll through list of all the equipments to find that specific ring. Every piece of gear is given its own tab, and you’ll find only those things that apply there. The skill system, though short on first look having just 12 skills, is also varied. There are 2 proficiencies for each of them allowing you to customize the skills even further. The talents, likewise, can be upgraded too, to provide better bonus. The health and Stamina are auto-increased at every level, so you don’t need to think of them in term of skills or talents. But different gears do act as Health and Stamina modifiers, so you might pay attention to what you’re equipping. The game makes it easy for you to choose them as the game gives you a summary when you select them in the form whether you’ll gain in any attributes over your current equipped gear or lose them.
It seems like an upgrade over the original Dungeon Siege, but nothing spectacular. The presentation however is very sleek (it’s a Square Enix game after all!). The interface is clean, with the different bars and the portrait at the bottom left, the map at the top. Any items you receive from NPCs are shown in the top left corner. The objective updating is done through slide outs in the bottom center part of the screen, like an achievement pop-up. The game is fully voiced, including the character voices. The dialogue is done through a dialog wheel, kind of like Obsidian’s previous game, Alpha Protocol, though the time limit is removed. The dialog wheel is quite beautiful with intricate art design, a real eye-catcher. That being said, the voice-over of Anjali was, in a word, horrible. It seemed the devs put in a slightly better version of Microsoft Anna, with the voice actress devoid of any emotion and an almost robotic feel to the dialogue. The other voice actors however are quite good, especially the voice-actor voicing Grand Master Odo.
Overall, for players who want to get into the Kingdom Ehb once again, or people looking for something to hack away at will probably love it. The combat is enjoyable, the story intriguing and the presentation is sleek, which can make this game worth playing. Plus the different customization options does warrant some re-play value. It is quite different from the other Dungeon Siege games in the series, it shows that the game's rights have changed hands. Plus the game seems to be lacking in the traditional Obsidian bugs and tech-mis-haps, which seems to be another boon for it.