Game Reviews

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t a big fan of the Dungeon Siege series. That isn’t to say that I don’t love me [sic] a good Diablo clone as much as the next guy, but the way Gas Powered Games handled the third-person-camera system left much to be desired. When I first heard of Space Siege, my reaction was something along the lines of, “Oh great; Dungeon Siege in Space...” Welp, I wasn’t too far off the mark...The good news is that sieging space with a fundamentally broken camera system seems to work better than in a fantasy flavored Middle Ages. The bad? Read on... The story is pretty generic. Random hostile alien species invades Earth, kills everyone, you barely escape on a makeshift colony ship, Starbuck goes bat shit crazy, blah, blah, blah. Whoops, wrong sci-fi series, but you get the idea. Here’s the quick version: before you get out of orbit, the aliens managed to dock a troop transport to your hull and all hell breaks loose as you try to repel waves upon waves of elites, brutes and grunts. Err, I mean Keraks. The graphics and art direction really remind of playing Halo in the third person. The only difference is that Space Siege isn’t as bump mapped and the models look like they have lower poly counts. If this was released in 2002 or so, the visuals would be superlative, but for a $49.95 PC title in 2008 they leave much to be desired. The physic effects and particle systems are nice, but when you zoom in close to get a better look at the world, you can really tell how dated everything looks. It wouldn’t be so bad if the game ran smoother, but for whatever reason, is pretty chuggy. By the time I finished the game, I crashed four times, with two blue screens of deathDespite the frustrating camera system, once you get a hang of the controls, the gameplay becomes fairly fluid (and even fun). There are a bunch of weapons and cyborg implants that you find over the course of the game and unlock. That, along with a two-tree skill system and a series of upgrade options, is what makes Space Siege a ‘role-playing’ game. Some of the skill pre-requisites require a certain percentage of cyborg parts to be installed, others depend on how much humanity is left inside of you. Points are awarded after finishing objectives, but there’s not much of a character level system per say. Upgrades to yourself and your best robot buddy Superfly (that’s what I affectionately called my HR-V unit) can be purchased by picking up the loot monsters drop, barrels and boxes hide, or even the electronics stuff you blow up along the way.