Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna – PC – Preview

Dungeon Siege hit
the shelves a while back to critical and popular acclaim as a hybrid action/RPG
that really hit the mark in both genres.  Previously, titles that claimed to be
action/RPG tended to lean to one side more than the other, but Dungeon Siege
adeptly combined the hack and slash action of games such as Diablo with the
strategic level progression and party forming of the Baldur’s Gate series. 
Those thirsty for Dungeon Siege II (to be released sometime in 2004) can wet
their palette this November with the expansion pack Dungeon Siege: Legends of
Aranna.  Microsoft and Gas Powered Games invited Gamezone.com down to a busy
Italian restaurant in San Francisco for a sneak peek of the game, some glasses
of vino, and a few meatballs.

 

Technically,
Legends of Aranna can be called Dungeon Siege 1.5 as it adds more than just new
areas to explore, monsters to slaughter, and new treasure to pilfer.  Legends of
Aranna brings all those, but also includes some new interfaces, dynamics, and
user-friendly controls making it an almost entirely new experience for those of
you who know the land of Ehb like the back of your hand. 

 

Legends of Aranna
takes place shortly after the end of Dungeon Siege on an entirely new island of
the Utraen Empire, an advanced civilization with a shady past.  Within the
Empire, a really ticked-off baddy known as the Shadowjumper has finally been
released from his thousand years of imprisonment and has a chance to stretch his
legs, breathe some fresh air, and wreak havoc on everyone and their mother. 

 

The strength of
the story in the expansion is important enough to keep the game playing
linearly, but Legends of Aranna has been loosened up a little bit from the
original.  Chris Taylor, President/Top Dog/Big Boss Man at Gas Powered Games,
gave control of the expansion over to his friend Ian Lane Davis of Mad Doc
Software for a fresh perspective and some new ideas.  From the number of
improvements Davis showed me that night, it seems as though Taylor knew exactly
what he was doing. 

 

There are many new
features in Legends of Aranna that fall into the “Why didn’t I think of that?”
category.  Chief among them is the new inventory system.  No longer is a
character’s inventory a jigsaw puzzle first made popular in Diablo.  Just drag
large items such as swords into the character’s inventory and watch it push
smaller items such as potions out of the way, saving gamers both time and
grief.  Every RPG’er knows that a fighter with mana potions is like a gamer with
regular exercise.  It just doesn’t needs to happen and Davis knows this very
well (although he did look like he was in decent shape).  With the simple click
of a button, potions are redistributed where they need to be.  Spellcasters
divide the mana potions up evenly between them, and the bulk of the health
potions go to the melee juggernauts.  It is simple additions like these that
make Legends of Aranna incredibly easy to use and takes stress off of weary
adventurers.

 

Other additions to
the game are a sign of things to come in the future editions of Dungeon Siege.
The new pack animal is more than a walking backpack; it can fight and defend
itself.  There is a traditional backpack in the game that increases inventory
54%.  New spells include orb spells that revolve around the caster and magical
land mines that explode when touched by enemies, greatly increasing the power
and strategy of spellcasters.  In addition to the new lands to explore, Dungeon
Siege: Legends of Aranna also has more than one hundred new weapons and
monsters, more than seventy new spells, and never before seen non-player
characters. 

 

Dungeon Siege:
Legends of Aranna will be bundled with the original Dungeon Siege and will
retail for $35.00.   Look for it in November.