Dungeon Siege III Review

With the game coming out on Friday in Europe, it seems likely that the editors at GamaGanda jumped the gun on an embargo, but regardless, it appears we have our first review of Dungeon Siege III, based on the PC version of the title. They award it an 8.8, low points for the reviewer being the control scheme and the interface, while lore, mechanics and visuals all get praised. Note for those who are afraid of spoilers: the article contains screenshots all up to the endgame sections. Here’s a sampling:

In terms of stats to watch and tinker with, you’ve got the usual Hit Points and experience, as well as Stamina, Attack, Will, Agility, Attack DPS, Ability DPS, Crit percentage, Doom, Armor and Block. There are other stats too, like Retribution, Warding, Momentum, Stagger, but their existence and value depends on the items you’ll equip your character with. There’s a special set of stats, the Chaos one, but these stats come only with powerful items that you’ll obtain later on in the game. Their effect and duration is always the same, but the damage depends directly on the value of that particular Chaos stat. Overall, there are plenty of items to choose from, plenty of places to loot and lots of merchants to trade with.

Gaining experience and advancing the level of your characters also means that you’ll receive points for your abilities, proficiencies and talents. First, you buy abilities. The abilities you have determine the proficiencies you can develop. Talents improve your overall performance in battle, reducing some of the Focus you need to perform an ability or giving you a bonus of one basic stat like Agility to your DPS stats. They can also help you outside the battle, as you gain more coins or health/focus orbs left behind by your vanquished foes. Last but not least, there are the Deeds, certain feats you perform, much more like achievements, throughout the game. There’s a catch though. You don’t have a list of these Deeds. They appear in the Deeds section of the Player Menu only after you’ve achieved a certain goal or took a certain decision.

Update: the review has been taken down and, according to GamaGanda’s official twitter, will be back online on Friday morning.