Dungeon Siege III (PS3)

 Dungeon Siege III (developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Square Enix) was released across North America on June 21 and was heralded in their own live action advertisements s as a long awaited and much needed return to dungeon crawling action RPG couch co-op fun. And I was elated. I love a good couch co-op game that I can kick back and play with the wife. It’s good fun. Man, was I ever disappointed. Dungeon Siege 3 was anything but.

The story behind the game was rather unmemorable due to the way in which it was told. The beginning of the game is nothing but exposition with a little bit of action and then more exposition with some extra exposition on top. Honestly, as the wife and I played through it, I kept bemoaning its long-windedness. If you really want to know, and you shouldn’t, it centers around a some legion or the other being wiped out by the evil female antagonist, Jeyne Kassynder – whose name they beat like a dead horse. The player characters are descendants of those defenders of the realm and are still being hunted. As they gather together again a generation later, Jeyne Kassynder strikes again leaving you to save the day. Honestly, if they only took as long as I have to set the story up in the first place this paragraph wouldn’t exist.

The gameplay and mechanics are both clunky. I played the warrior and his 2-handed sword attacks felt like he was fighting underwater or in some kind of choking miasma they were so slow. Also, there are no healing and mana postions; those only drop in the form of orbs after enemies are killed. And, at least in the first couple of levels, there aren’t even any direct healing spells, only heal over time and area of effect heal over times spells. Which means that you can’t learn how to fight a boss on the fly the first or second or even third time around. Nope, kids, repeatedly dying due to lack of heals is definitely one of this titles downfalls.

But, oddly enough, the game’s graphics are surprisingly good. DS3 is a very pretty game, but the same care that was put into graphically rendering the game was obviously lacking in its other major areas. The music and voice acting was solid, save the bizarre accents used. I could have done without those. But nothing else in the game’s sound jumped out at me, so it must have been ok.

In the end, if you are looking for a solid couch co-op dungeon crawler, you’re probably better off never touching this title. I rented and I was glad I did, because that meant that I could take it back. I definitely would not pay $65 for DS3; it’s simply not worth it to me. It’s not a fun game at all due to its overwhelming flaws. I couldn’t play it for more than 3-4 hours and justify continuing to play it. I, sadly, have to rate this one a lowly 4 out of 10. Do yourself a favor and hang in there until Lord of the Rings: War in the North comes out in August.