Space Siege Review

Aug 12, 2008

Expectations are tricky, particularly when a developer takes a proven game concept to a new setting. We didn't want to presume too much about this "dungeon crawl in space" approach to Space Siege but many of us here at IGN are fans of the original Dungeon Siege and were cautiously hopeful about Gas Powered Games' new action RPG. While Space Siege definitely delivers the superficial experience of a classic dungeon crawl, it fails to provide the player with enough meaningful choices or variety to make it worthwhile.

The story is full of stock sci-fi elements that aren't surprising by themselves and aren't used with any great effect. The game begins with the player hunting down stowaway aliens on board a massive spaceship and then runs through many of the standard twists and predictable turns. There are a few surprises here, but your emotional involvement with the story is never enough to give them any great meaning. It's simply enough to know where your objective is and that you have to shoot every alien, robot or cybernetic soldier you meet along the way. The few characters you meet are generally interesting but aren't really given enough to do to get you from one chapter to the next.

Getting from A to B is fairly straightforward. The sequence of objectives and the basic layout of the levels don't allow for any real variety or flexibility in the way you approach the game. There are definitely plenty of instances where you can choose whether to go left or right, but the choice ends up the same in the end. The only real challenge is in trying to determine whether or not the objectives that show up on your mini map are above or below the level you're on. At the very least it would be helpful to see where the elevators are.

Space Siege bills itself as an action RPG but the developers have cautioned that it leans more towards action than RPG. The combat mechanics are functional if not particularly inventive. The player simply points and clicks the mouse to move and shoot, and uses the number keys to launch the occasional special attack. We'd have loved to see a WASD-style movement system like we saw in Shadowgrounds, because using the mouse pointer to control movement and shooting makes it impossible to do both at the same time. It's not usually a problem but in the bigger firefights it can be a real liability that you can't move while shooting.

There is a dodge function in the game, but it really doesn't work. There's no option to dodge to the side or the rear, so anytime you dodge, you roll forward towards your enemy. This presents two big problems. First, it puts you closer to the enemy and gives you less time to dodge their next attack. Second, since you're dodging right along the enemy's line of fire, you'll likely pop up from your roll only to be shot in the face.

On the plus side, there are some tactical elements you can use to make the fights a bit more interesting. As in any large space ship there are hundreds of explosive red barrels and crates scattered in every area and you can use these to create some interesting surprises if you can get your enemies to walk by them. You can also use your engineering skills to lay booby traps or drop turrets in front of your enemies. Since none of the enemies do anything more sophisticated than running straight at you, you can usually be sure that they'll hit the traps you place.

Your greatest tactical asset is HR-V, pronounced "Harvey", a combat robot that you can outfit with a couple of different weapons. HR-V basically follows you around and shoots at whatever happens to be in its field of vision. While it doesn't have as much personality or charm as the pack mule from the original Dungeon Siege, it's definitely useful to have an extra pair of guns when dealing with large groups. Though HR-V follows you around and engages in combat automatically, you can also give it specific move and fire orders. The movements orders are sometimes useful, but for the most part the game doesn't give you enough breathing room to hand select HR-V's targets.

Space Siege's roleplaying elements are remarkably light. There are only two skill trees here, one for combat and one for combat-related engineering abilities. Your progression through each of the trees is up to you, but since you only get advancement points as you move from one mission to the next, the pace of your progression is completely out of your hands. On the one hand, that gives the developers a great chance to balance the content and present battles that are just right for your abilities. On the other hand, it feels like the character's advancement has less to do with your own experience than it does with the scripted chapter breaks.

One of the more satisfying components of the original Dungeon Siege was its cool loot system. Enemies dropped a variety of items that could equip to make your character more uniquely powerful. All of that is gone in Space Siege. In this game enemies just drop generic components that function like cash, and you'll spend this cash at certain stations in the space ship to buy equally generic upgrades. This is where you actually do get a substantial say in who your character is and what he can do. You can also spend the upgrade points to improve HR-V or any of the weapons you pick up during the game.

Unfortunately, there's no real character or personality in a system that has you spending 200 upgrade parts to buy a 2-percent increase to your critical hit chance. Sure, that type of math may be used under the hood of most games, but it's like the developers at Gas Powered Games didn't even feel like disguising it beneath a layer of science fiction description. They missed a great opportunity to not only to add to the uniqueness of your own character, but also missed out on a chance to reinforce the setting.

The few items of actual loot that you do get are all scripted parts of a mission, so you'll only get the rocket launcher and the cybernetic spine at appropriate points in the story. As with the character skill advancement, the acquisition of weapons and cybernetic parts is entirely in the hands of the level designer. The only choice you have is whether to use a particular weapon or a particular cybernetic part for the considerable boost in combat abilities.

We liked that the game tried to explore the moral question of whether it was right to install cybernetic parts, particularly in light of the big surprise behind the cybernetic soldiers you've been battling, but we wish that the game had offered more incentives and reminders along the way for players who are contemplating trading in their humanity for obvious combat advantages. The doctor on the ship definitely has a bit to say about this issue and there are a few skills that are off limits if you've installed too many components but the game needs to make the payoffs a bit clearer.

Space Siege does a reasonably good job in terms of delivering the atmospheric sci-fi setting, both in terms of visuals and sounds. The character designs are solid and the combat animations are vibrant and captivating. Watching grenades, napalm, rockets and such fly across the screen really helps to create a sense of mayhem and menace that instantly draws you into the action. It can be hard to appreciate the smaller enemies but the amazing alien rhinos, the tank robots and that last key card holder in the officers' quarters are amazingly detailed. On the downside, the ship is just an endless succession of blue and gray hallways and crate-filled rooms. It's impossible to distinguish one level from another and while that may be an artistic choice, it's certainly the wrong one because it diminishes any sense that you're progressing in the game and robs the individual areas of any unique character.

The atmospheric score adds a bit of mood to the game and is well suited to the setting. We also found that the combat sounds, though undeniably repetitive, definitely add a bit of weight to the experience and keep it from seemingly too artificial. The voice acting is passable in most places but the characters are unfortunately forgettable.

Closing Comments
As an action game, Space Siege works, but just barely. The combat looks bright and colorful on the surface and there is no shortage of menacing enemies and massive explosions, but the AI doesn't provide any real tactical challenge, the layout of the levels and missions is remarkably linear, and the range of abilities and weapons is too limited. There are far too few choices in Space Siege for it to qualify for the role-playing half of its genre. Players have the chance to pick a number of generic upgrades and limited skills but the selection still feels a bit incidental to us, at least when compared to other games in this genre. The cybernetic choices are a bit more meaningful but the game's story needs to do more to put those choices up front early on.