Space Siege Preview

GameSpot has served up a preview of Space Siege, based on some face-to-face time they spent with Gas Powered Games’ Chris Taylor.

The focus on just one character is very different from previous games by Chris Taylor, particularly Dungeon Siege II, which offered control of up to eight players at any one time. Taylor says that having so many characters was an open option in his previous game, but it was one that players always took advantage of for fear of missing out on something. The result was that things became unmanageable, especially when it came to managing inventories. This time, he wants to place the focus on one character, which he hopes will not only strengthen the narrative (comparing the hero to John McClane in Die Hard), but also simplify things for novice and advanced players alike. Having said that, Taylor introduced a robotic sidekick named Harvey that can be called upon to help deal with multiple enemy attacks. In the demo we saw, Harvey was fairly autonomous, attacking enemies automatically if no specific orders had been dished out, and thankfully, even if he does die, he can be reconstructed again.

Though the build that we saw was still in early stages, it’s beginning to come together nicely. The graphics are fairly basic right now, although the team has just implemented high dynamic range lighting and plenty more detail is promised in the run up to release. The enemy artificial intelligence is also developing, and some of the smaller baddies that we saw would jump back to regenerate their health if they were under attack. However, they are still pretty dumb at the beginning of the game and would happily run into a set of mines just to hunt the player down.

In other news, there are also four new screenshots from the sci-fi action RPG on offer over at WorthPlaying.