Dungeon Siege 3

[MisterBubbles]

So i caved in a bought it, as i can't resist a good hack-n-slash and loot-em-up. This is the PS3 version.
So you start the game and you can pick 1 of 4 characters, each is a different class and atributes.
So we have Lucas who's your fighter/melee class, Anjali your Mage who uses fire and long range attacks, Renhart who's a Magician class and uses tricks and spells, and finally Kristina who another fighter but uses either short range pistols or long range shotgun type weapons.

So your character is in the Legion an organisation who protected the people for 400 years, but now its fell on hard times and its members are being hunted and killed by the evil Jeyne Kassynde.
Its your job to find members and rebuild the Legion.

The game starts from the demo if you tried it. So onto the gameplay and its surprisingly good, ive put it on hardcore and its pretty challenging. Each character have 2 stances which lets them use different skills, R2 lets you change theses stances. L2 blocks, and L2 + square lets you heal. So theres a nice range of tactics and how you enjoy playing hack -n-slash games. The graphics are pretty good and theres loads of effects going on when using spells etc, not much slowdown but just occasionally when the screen gets very busy, ie usually like 10 or more enemies characters etc. The games has really great lighting and uses it well going from dark dungeons to lush forests and a day and night cycle. The story serms pretty linear and you watch cutscenes and choose responses ala dragons age ,ME2,scroll wheel.
I tried multiplayer and its drop in drop out , this could be great, but until now ive had loads of drop in and out with people not staying long or you helping them do a quest then they log, oh how i dislike randoms.
Overall i think its a great game and would go with say 83%, as i said in my demo impressions its not going to change the world but it's a fun and solid game. Now wheres my +3 pants of super vitality.

[MrKirov]

I was tempted by this for me and the missus, but dont know about the local co-op....

We dont want drop in-drop out, we want to level our own characters and play with each other on the same screen- much like the Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance games allowed us to do. Im not sure if this game will allow it!

We managed it in Sacred 2, although it seemed they didnt want us to, and we had to have her signed in under a different profile, start her own single player game, then save, then get her to join my game with her own character- it was a nightmare to sort out...

Can we do this on this game?

[MisterBubbles]

So when your playing campaign you usually have 1, 2 or 3 AI characters , depending on where you are in the story. So the missus would press start and replace the AI, and its all on one screen, no split screen.
The multiplayer seeing has no split screen you sometimes have to wait on others who are either pillaging barrels etc and you just want to kill enemies, not sure what people think of it, oh for 4 people with mics and want to party up, i can wish.

[Adam]

It's pretty challenging on Hardcore, glad they had the option for harder difficulties as there's nothing worse than playing through a game on a forced easy mode. Have died a few times, and actually got Game Over on 1 particular boss,

->Open Spoiler<-

the spider with the guy who was strung up in webbing.

I play as Katarina and had to find a nice way to play her. Was holding back on ability usage cause they use Focus, but then I saw the skill Mastery stats and figured I really need to use everything whenever I can. So I'm attacking to build Focus and spamming abilities whenever I can and combat has gotten alot more fun.

There's a Deed system, the game rewards you with permanent stat increases if you fulfil them. Example: refuse all monetary rewards from sidequests in the first town will net you +4 Will. Can't help but feel there's something lacking with the Deeds though. As it is you only get them by accident, as there is no indication that anything you're doing is effecting a Deeds progress. They only show up in the Deed part of the menu once they are completed.

Customising abilities seems pretty fun, you get to chose 2 different ways of improving each ability. Can only improve each one 5 times though and it's hard to choose as they are all good. Lot's of new stats to learn, bit surprising, as the whole game reeks of trying to be more accessible (it is, in a good way) and they throw around stats like Retribution, Will, Chaos etc. Even a seasoned RPG player will need to look up what all these are.

Quite pleased with the flow of the game, the plot is interesting and the sidequests aren't just filler either. You get full speach from the NPCs, your companions remark on your sidequest objectives when you are out in the feild, there are whole boss fights that are only triggered from sidequests too so it's pretty important to do everything you can. The quest helper golden trail thing is mapped to Up on the Dpad and it basically takes all the hard work out of finding where you need to go. Maybe makes it too easy even.

[Guts]

So, about the co-op on the same console...

Can you play through the whole game in co-op with the same characters and level them up and collect better gear for both (like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance)? Or does only the main player keep his experience, items etc. and the other player just plays who is in the party at the moment?

[Riskbreaker]

Only the player who hosts the game keeps the profits This works for local co-op though as you'd usually co-op with the same person and save on one particular console.

For online it's a really naff idea and has put me off playing it over live completely. When you join another player's game you're just taking over the role of a character in their game. You can't bring anything at all back into your own, xp, gold, loot, nothing Better yet, if your co-op team has to fill your place for a session, "your" character still levels up. Player attitudes will vary on this, but it doesn't sit well with me. Kills any "ownership" of your particular character.

[Guts]

That online mode is truly retarded, what the hell were they thinking? Kills any joy of wanting to play online for me (and many others surely).

So did I understand you correctly: locally, if I'm playing with a friend on the same sofa, both of our characters will keep their experience points and gear when we save the game and turn it off and we can continue with the exact same characters (exp, abilities and loot remains as it was when we quit)?

[Adam]

Online is pretty bad, had a few sessions with Misterbubbles here. Ran into many issues indeed. Voice chat didn't work to begin with, got that sorted somehow though. To make things worse, you don't have access to all 4 characters at the start of the game. I'm a fair bit in on Katarina and only have Anjali. So when another player joins my game and selects Lucus or Reinhart, they have no equipment whatsover and are useless. They die in one hit and can't do damage to anything. There were random difficulty spikes, one minute we were clearing through enemies fine and then eventually we die, as you do. Then we are back at the save point and we fall to the first set of enemies that appear like we are made of paper. Over and over, but they were perfectly killable earlier! Random online people can also go straight to a shop and quickly spend all your money on crap. It could work online if you play with the same friend each time, maybe have a dedicated save game for when you do coop.

[Riskbreaker]

So did I understand you correctly: locally, if I'm playing with a friend on the same sofa, both of our characters will keep their experience points and gear when we save the game and turn it off and we can continue with the exact same characters (exp, abilities and loot remains as it was when we quit)?

Yup. I think you can even switch and use the other characters, as the spoils and exp are stored for all 4. Not sure about achievements for player 2, I think you'll get them if you're signed in as your own tag.

[Guts]

Thanks for the answers Riskbreaker. Might have to give this a shot then, if the local co-op isn't a mess like the online one.

[Skull Commander]

Just played through this over 5 nights. A good game for what it is, although I didn't enjoy it as much as the Ultimate Alliance titles. It got a lot better the further I got into the game, but the story wasn't that gripping. Having said that I did like the ending which showed you how your choices affected the various people you encountered.

I did try an online game, but it was just full of people seeming like they wanted to do speed runs or just dicking about.

[moonwhistle]

I usually like gauntlet type games so I tried this for local multiplayer. I could forgive that the game is utterly mediocre in design but it's broken in so many ways that we've given up after two hours. The camera is too close, can't be changed, spins all over the place and randomly gets stuck on things and jolts to a new angle. We reached a dead end where a gate closed behind us forcing a fight with an enemy way too powerful for us. There was no way to go anywhere to level up or buy new stuff. Overall I'd say this game is a piece of crap. Next!