Eurogamer Review: Dungeon Siege III

Would you look! Eurogamer published my review of the console-toy version of Dungeon Siege III. Did I like it? I did. Though that didn't stop me from having a pop at the loot system. Click past the jump to read that and another choice extract, or just go read the full thing. The choice is yours, adventurer.

So, here's me being mean:

Here's how loot works in Dungeon Siege III: you nudge open a slug egg or pile of bones and something called Brave Pants fall out. They look the same as your existing pants. You open up the equipment screen. They seem worse than your existing pants, and so you leave them there, in your growing collection of pants that look the same as your current pants but instead of offering +4 attack, +2 armour and +4 Chaos: Doom they offer entirely different buffs, like +4 will and +5 block.

And here's me being nice.

With the exception of a handful of tough fights spread throughout the game, it's possible to go tumbling through Dungeon Siege III with half of your brain playing and the other half chatting idly to your co-op partner. You simply tap away at the attack button, dodge on those occasions when you see an attack being aimed in your direction, and fall back and use your healing ability when you're hurt.

But don't think this means that Dungeon Siege III is a brain-dead game. It's just an adaptive one. Because your character has up to 11 abilities, as well as charged versions of each of those, and each is best used in a slightly different scenario, trying to play Dungeon Siege III perfectly is a totally absorbing dance of glossy particle effects, small victories and even smaller failures.

All this said, I'd give the demo a shot prior to buying the full game. This is very much designed foremost as a game of slumped sofa co-op, and rumours abound that it isn't the best of ports. A shame for a series that started out on PC.