Dungeon Siege III Reviews

We put together some more reviews for Obsidian Entertainment and Square Enix’s first collaboration, Dungeon Siege III, which keep offering us some rather diverse impressions of the title.

EDGE, 7/10.

It’s a game built from pluck and resourcefulness, in other words: thoughtful when it can afford to be and stoically reliable for the most part when it can’t. With handsome landscapes and a clutter of personable NPCs, Dungeon Siege III makes up for the absence of BioWare’s gleaming polish or Bethesda’s knotty intricacy with a little more soul, and perhaps a broader, more human, imagination.

Blistered Thumbs, 7/10.

Including all of the side quests, Dungeon Siege 3 clocks in at a brief 10-12 hours. The co-op adds a little bit of replay value, but it’s flawed in a considerably big way. With that being said, the single player delivers an experience that will likely resonate with fans of the action RPG genre. It may not be the followup that people who enjoyed the original games were expecting, but it’s still a well made title with an interesting story and solid gameplay. Oh, and plenty of awesome loot.

CrunchGear, scoreless.

So yeah. I realize there may be somewhat more to this game than this, but I’m not really interested in playing. What I’ve played so far makes me want to return it. It’s awkward to control, it clearly was never intended for the PC, and it doesn’t seem to bring anything new to the table. Or if it does, I got bored while they were bringing it. The game might fare better on consoles, but it’s an affront to PC gaming and there are far better experiences available for the discerning hack ‘˜n slasher on consoles. It shouldn’t have been released like this and in my opinion, the compromises made for console controls just spoil the game; they’ve turned it into a sort of flimsy action RPG with Dungeon Siege flavoring added. It doesn’t stand up to the competition, and it doesn’t stand up to its own kin. If you’re looking for a good action-RPG with loot galore, I highly recommend Torchlight , Sacred 2, and Titan Quest. The original Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Siege 2 are also still quite entertaining. You can skip this one.

Softpedia, 7.5/10.

There’s nothing groundbreaking in Dungeon Siege III, nothing we have not already seen and likely will see again in the role play and the hack and slash space. This does not mean that the game has nothing to offer or that it’s not worth playing, just that those who plan on picking it up should adjust their expectations accordingly.

The best part of the game is the actual combat, with its mix of frantic action and strategic choices when it comes to special power deployment but it too could have used a little bit of extra depth. The weakest element is the bad camera, which can make even good battles a chore and often leads to unnecessary death.

Dungeon Siege III is a video game that will not break into any Best of 2011 charts and will probably also fail to light the sales charts ablaze but the team at Obsidian has worked carefully and managed to create a solid hack and slash experience that could have done much more on the story front and could have benefited from a better port to the PC.

Honest Gamers, 4/10.

I don’t ask much from an action RPG. Unfortunately, the things I do ask are the things that Dungeon Siege III doesn’t do: meaningful character development, interesting treasure, a sense of discovery when it comes to exploring the world, and ideally the option to team up with my friends’ characters. Instead Dungeon Siege 3 has the feel of pushing a plumbing snake down a drain. You’re driving two characters down long twisting hallways, scraping them clean of trash loot and trash monsters. Occasionally you get to the bigger clot of a boss monster, which might take a bit of elbow grease. But it’s ultimately all about pushing your way through those pipes until you come out the far end and what point… well, I suppose you could move on to a better action RPG with some replayability.

Raiding Party, 7/10.

Although similar in spirit to Diablo and Torchlight, Dungeon Siege 3 is its own animal. Let down by some silly omissions like the option to save your character and not just the game, and nowhere near long enough for this type of loot-tastic violence-fest, it nevertheless provides a solid, good-looking slice of dungeon-crawling action. And if nothing else, it’s got loads of barrels to smash open for precious, precious loot. Champion.