Dungeon Siege III Preview

PC Gamer has cranked out a hands-on preview of Dungeon Siege III, which turns out to be one of the very first articles we’ve seen that carries any mention of the PC-specific controls. Unfortunately, it’s not all good news:

The arena is littered with bits of armor and health and mana orbs (there are no health potions in DS3), and we quickly dart around the room to snap it all up. We then spend several minutes each checking out our new gear and min/maxing with DS3’s convenient equipment system. Categories with something new are marked as such, and highlighting a new piece automatically pulls up a comparison window with red and green arrows indicating the traits of the new piece compared to what you already have equipped. In most circumstances, you’re safe just going with the most green arrows and moving on, which is a huge boon when your co-op buddy is waiting to get back to the action.

Compared to Torchlight, there are some big differences in combat. While Torchlight is action bar focused, DS3’s combat is much more immediate hit the punch key, and your wizard plants a lighting punch right in a zombie’s face. But as I ventured around in co-op, I couldn’t help but feel (this is so what Torchlight should have been.) Playing a narrative-optional, loot heavy game is way more fun with friends, Diablo made that clear years ago. That said, if I’m going to tolerate this game at all with a mouse and keyboard, Obsidian has got to get their controls wrangled in. PC controls on the build I played weren’t final, but with a June release fast approaching, they still need a ton of work. Sometimes more so than monsters, I found the camera to be my greatest enemy, the controls of which are shared by the mouse pointer, middle mouse button, scroll wheel and the (A) and (D) keys WTF! My preview left me really wanting more, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that Obsidian is able to patch the control issue up before launch, especially now that the genre is finally starting to see fresh signs of life.