Dungeon Siege 2

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $10.50

Features:

• Lead an elite battle party against a vicious marauder in this RPG
• Choose up to 6 battle comrades; each class with unique heroic powers
• Powerful and unusual allies; exotic creatures with special abilities
• Challenging opponents; cinematic storytelling; interactive world
• Online multi-party gaming for cooperative or competitive gameplay

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Vista? [Posted on 2007-04-14]
Very enjoyable when I had XP on my machine. Now that I've installed Windows Vista (which I do enjoy), this Microsoft game doesn't seem to be a "Game for Windows" product. I just can't get it to run, while older products like Rise of Nations run just fine under the new operating system. Somewhat surprising . . .

Nice game! [Posted on 2007-05-11]
Just finished playing through this game, it was great. I gave up on DS1 halfway through it, because it just got sort of boring / tedious. DS2 seems to have better scenery and variability, so I played it all the way through without getting bored... :) Although I am not inspired to play another round at a higher level (what's the use, I saw everything already...?) I do recommend it... good difficulty level of puzzles, too. Challenging but no so much that you have to cheat ;)

Also, it ran perfectly well on my machine - 3 Ghz, 2 Gigs of RAM, and an NVidia GeForce 7800 GS. (An AGP, admittedly, but it's the best AGP there is!) I have no idea why those reviewers had problems running this game with their high-end cards. Maybe it runs worse on a PCI-E card? I can't imagine why that would make a difference, though. On my machine, it stuttered once or twice during a couple of those HUGE battle scenes with dozens of monsters, but 99% of the time it ran smooth as melted butter! No bugs, crisp beautiful graphics.. a pleasure to look at!

Good Game and Well Worth the Money  [Posted on 2007-06-28]
Fun, action-packed, easy-to-play, lots of hack-and-slash and loot, no gameplay issues -- not a classic but lots of fun.

Microsoft's "Dungeon Siege II" is a fun, action-packed, easy-to-play fantasy role-playing game that is well worth the money. It's a fairly standard hack-and-slash game where you start with one character and recruit/befriend more characters to join your party (or purchase a pet!), up to a total of four in your party.

The graphics are good but the game interface is great. The controls are simple, user-friendly, and self-explanatory, and all of your note-taking and logging is kept in the game. (No need to keep a notebook by the computer because your quest book will remember everything.) The character interface is especially good, and you can easily compare your new weapons and equipment with what your character is currently using by simply picking up the new item - your character's stats will temporarily change to show both the current stats and stats with the new item. You can also easily zoom and move the 3-D view, although I wish that the game allowed a lower, behind-the-party view instead of the isomorphic above-the-party view.

The quests are easy enough to complete without the use of online guides, with lots of dungeons and bad guys to kill. However, the quests are very scripted, and you rarely have any choices to make when talking to others, you're just along for the ride. As is typical of this genre, your character follows his destiny in a struggle to save the world from one evil villain. Although the character acting is very bad, this doesn't detract from the game because the ongoing plot is just a sideshow to the action.

This game is a lot of fun with many hours of gameplay. I never had any problems with the software. The quests are not as involved or challenging as those in some older classics such as the Might & Magic or Wizardry games, but the monsters you face are not your typical fantasy monsters but are much darker and more macabre. This game is not a classis but is still lots of fun.

ANOTHER BOTCHED SEQUEL... [Posted on 2008-01-29]
When the original game is a groundbreaking masterpiece, its sequel rarely lives up to the unavoidable hype. There are notable exceptions of course (BALDUR's GATE II and MAX PAYNE II spring to mind). However, I have to agree with most of the other reviewers: NEVER had I been so DISAPPOINTED with a sequel more than DUNGEON SIEGE II!
Following the innovative and brilliant original DS, the anticipation was so great that minor flaws would be forgiven. With DS2, though, it was one big blunder after another.

Contrary to the original DS (for which one had to physically tear himself from the computer screen) this one is a boring chore. Running back and forth to the base camp to barter equipement is a tedious procedure with all the fun sucked out of it. Moreover, no matter how much you improve your character (either leveling up or equipment-wise), your enemies simply match your abilities (or resort to crowding) resulting in NO CHANGE in the gameplay. I am not talking new enemies, but aren't higher leveled characters supposed to easily wipe out enemies encountered many hours before? This way, the whole game is nothing but a even-leveled blandness.

On a similar note: why was it necessary for **minor** enemies to have so much life? I was bored out of my skin hacking and slashing FOREVER! Increase the damage they can cause and keep it interesting - do not give them a longer life only to artificially increase the game's duration!
Oh, and the enchanting system was a joke - since the items found were much better than anything one could pay to have forged.

Graphically, DS2 is not even one step higher than the original DS. Shadows and particles may have increased, but characters (and equipment) have not. As a result, the heat of the battle (even on high-end systems) will find you in the midst of a disorienting...blur.

This was the chronicle of a botched job foretold. With the exception of OBLIVION (which was an excellent game), one can count on 2K GAMES to...ruin any game franchise and kill its successful progress once and for all. Gaming history is littered with the relics of their failures: STRONGHOLD II, CIVILIZATION 4 (not until its second expansion did this one become a playable game), SID MEIER's RAILROADS - the list is endless...They should probably stick to consoles.

My advice: avoid this stinker and, instead, try the original DUNGEON SIEGE (and its expansion). It is a MUCH BETTER GAME!

I pretty much got this for the multiplayer [Posted on 2008-03-11]
I played DS 1 while in college with my roommates. I'm not a huge fan of the single player because I don't like managing parties; However I love to play the multilayer with my friends. This game is really good because you don't have to take it seriously and you don't have to play for hours to have fun.

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