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> Results: Dungeon Siege II
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Dungeon Siege II is an enjoyable click-fest that offers few innovations, but plenty of action role-playing gaming. It seems like developer Gas Powered Games had a few simple, though far from easy, goals to accomplish with Dungeon Siege II: make a game that is safe, fun, and just novel enough to keep people from the "been there, done that" syndrome. For the most part the developers succeeded at doing just that, and the end result proves to be enjoyable to fans of the genre as well as accessible enough to pull in a few new gamers as well.
The plot of Dungeon Siege II reads like a role-playing cliché cookbook. It has a fantasy setting (complete with elves, dryads, and giants as playable races) a struggle of good versus evil, a central main character on a series of main quests (involving ancient artifacts, of course) as well as many optional side-quests along the way. Character development goes from weak-as-a-babe to god-like in power, and it all culminates in a final conflict deciding the fate of the world. There is nothing earth-shattering, but it doesn't need to be. For an action role-playing game, the plot just needs to not plagiarize too much and be coherent enough to prevent someone after the millionth mouse click from saying "What's the point?" and giving up. While the story is not particularly memorable, it provides enough of an impetus to prevent that from happening. Visually the game is nothing special, but the 3D engine is stable with nice lighting detail. The engine also does a good job providing unique special effects for magical spells and abilities which are both appropriate to the nature of the magic and appealing to the eye. The game slips a bit on sound, with a musical soundtrack that is merely passable and sound effects that don't escalate much above average. The voice acting, while plentiful, suffers the same fate as the other sounds in this game. Nothing made me cringe, but it's also not a strong point of the game.  The basic gameplay is not substantively different than that found in other action role-playing games. Left-click the mouse to walk around, and sooner or later you encounter a baddie. Right-click on the baddie to attack. Kill the baddie with some variant of weapon or magical spell, and hope the baddie drops some loot that you can use to improve your character. Lather, rinse, repeat. That being said, the game does it all upon well crafted terrain populated with a slew of fantastical creatures replete with variants and boss-monsters culminating in surprisingly satisfying massive end-battles. On the finer points of gameplay, there are enough wrinkles to keep strategic and statistic minded gamers happy. Most of the features have been seen before in other genre games (e.g. Diablo II, Sacred, and of course Dungeon Siege I) but the developers have most of the features well-tuned. Several sophisticated and complex features are both easily understood and easily used. That brings up a significant point: The game is easy. It's almost too easy for people who have experience with this genre. The flip-side is that kids who pick up this game are unlikely to get frustrated. Even when things turn nasty and the entire party is wiped out (beware the Mimic), all that is required is a quick trip to the local necromancer and a little donation of gold off the bodies. With that you are up and running with all of your equipment again, essential for insuring a quick return to the fray. Speaking of equipment, improving your gear is an important part of any game in this genre and Dungeon Siege II is solid here. There is random treasure of varying degrees of quality and enchantments that can make your character stronger, smarter, faster, or improve your character's resistances, health or mana. Dropped items include rare and unique goods as well as Item Sets that give cumulative bonuses as more pieces of the set are acquired. You can also enchant items, but in all honesty you'll find better loot out there. Enchanted items are really only useful to fill in a spot that has somehow been passed over due to bad luck. If there is one stand-out feature of the game, the skill tree and special abilities are it. Unlike other genre games, you don't start out with a particular class. Instead, your character improves in four distinct classes (melee, ranged, nature magic, and combat magic) as the character performs actions associated with the class. If you enjoy casting fireballs, then you gain ranks in combat magic. Like swinging a sword? Many ranks in melee are in your future. As you gain levels you gain points for skills belonging to the classes you develop. More powerful skills become available as you develop more levels in that class. This leads to a satisfying feeling of customizing your character. A melee character can go the standard sword-and-shield way, turn into a 2-handed hackmaster, or become a dual-wielding dervish all through judicious spending of skill points. In addition, certain combinations of skills at the right point levels open up special abilities that are probably the most entertaining part of the game. From smiting a tough monster with a single sword blow to obliterating tons of weaker monsters with a deadly ice blast, the special abilities can often turn the tide in tough battles. Luckily they recharge fast enough to make them integral to the strategy of playing the game.  Dungeon Siege II doesn't do a bad job at anything, and does a few things pretty well. If you believe Diablo II is the pinnacle of the action role-playing genre, Gas Powered's game probably isn't innovative enough or pretty enough to change your mind, but it does provide good entertainment. 
This game is rated M-Mature for blood and gore as well as violence. Dungeon Siege II is a violent game with blood all over the place. Bodies and body parts tend to go flying with powerful attacks. However, the blood doesn't stick around and the corpses disappear after a short time. The game is inoffensive otherwise. There is no nudity or objectification of women and no bad language. In addition, the game uses the fantasy setting to its advantage and you typically fight monsters and only rarely fight humans. On the unusual occasion that you do, it's clear that the human is a particularly ignoble specimen. The overall low difficulty of the game itself makes Dungeon Siege II accessible to kids who will find it just as easy as adults to mouse-click away hours in action role-playing bliss.
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