Reviewed: February 19, 2004
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Microsoft

Developer
Gas Powered Games
Mad Doc Software

Released: November 18, 2003
Genre: Action/RPG
Players: 10
ESRB: Teen

7
8
7
8
8.1


System Requirements:

  • Windows XP, 2000, Me, 98
  • PC 333 MHz or higher
  • 128 MB of system RAM
  • 1.5 GB available hard disk space
  • 8 MB 3D graphics card
  • DirectX 8.0 sound card


  • Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna is the expansion pack to the 2002 RPG hit, Dungeon Siege. I would have hoped with over a year in development we could have had a full-blown sequel but alas, a new work and another epic quest is all that is in store for us. The original Dungeon Siege offerd several things new to the genre, but at the end of the day it was still a seemingly endless quest of mindlessly beating on thousands of monsters, amassing treasure, and tweaking your characters.

    For this new adventure players leave the Kingdom of Ehb and explore the outer regions of Aranna in their quest to solve an ancient mystery revolving around the ancient Utraean civilization. With a new story, new monsters, treasure, and wonderful locations to explore Aranna offers up plenty of new material and even some new features to further enhance the RPG genre, but once again the gameplay fails to innovate.

    Your adventure will take you through nine amazing realms including a new tropical jungle region. Aranna introduces a new half-giant player character that towers over the party and pummels the enemy with devastating results. There is all sorts of new treasure, weapons, magic items, and spells to discover and a new pack animal, the Tragg, to carry your growing wealth. The Tragg not only carries your extra items but will join in combat and protect your possession to the death.


    Rather than rehash the gameplay of the original, which is relatively unchanged in Legends of Aranna, I will simply direct you to that review for fundamentals. For this expansion pack I will stick to what has changed or been improved upon.

    Most of the improvements have gone into the interface and the controls. Party management has been greatly improved starting with something as simple and potion leveling. Basically, with a click of a button you can equally distribute health and mana potions to the entire party and the game will do so based on who uses more mana (magic users) and who requires more health (fighters). This feature alone will save you a great deal of time micromanaging your inventory.

    You can now issue localized attack orders by holding down the shift key when click on an area. This will move your opponent to the area designated and fight anyone nearby or if no one is there they will start to smash crates and chests. This is a great tool to keep your characters from leaping into a battle they might not be ready for.

    Other party related enhancements include off-screen attack warnings that flash the portrait of any character that is being attacked, even if they aren't in the current view. This is great for stragglers or agressive AI characters who wander off to start some fights. Party members now feature advanced AI that allows them to support each other without your assistance. If one member gets into trouble another will rush to their aid. A good example is a player with Nature magic who will continuously heal the party as they take damage during combat.

    A great new feature is the ability to create a variety of presets for your party formation and configuration and save those to hotkeys. With a little work you can set it up so with just a single click your party changes formation, equips certain weapons, changes from defensive to offensive spells and so on. I never really had more than two or three control groups setup at any given time but I can certainly see this feature having great potential with the more strategically minded gamer.

    Players can now find or purchase backpacks that increase their carrying capacity, and you will need these as there is a lot more cool stuff to find in Aranna. There are new "treasure sets" that are basically rare items like weapons, shields, armor, etc., that when equipped together will give the player huge stat bonuses. There are also "imbued" items that will also increase player attributes.

    Perhaps one of my favorite new features is one of the simplest. The new Sell All button will allow you to quickly sell all items that a player does not have equipped. This can be potentially dangerous but as long as you designate one player or your Tragg as the person to carry all unimportant items you can quickly turn your loot into cash with a single click.

    So basically, the core gameplay has gone unchanged but the developers have tweaked the interface and added a bevy of features to take the chore out of gaming. You still point and click to move, fighting, open doors, chests, and do just about everything else. It's a little repetitious, actually it's a lot of reptition, but there is enough story and new locations to keep you coming back for more.


    Dungeon Siege was the prettiest RPG game I had ever played...two years ago. A lot has changed and the graphics aren't likely to impress as much as they did in the original. Even so, the 3D world of Ehb is meticulously detailed with everything from rocks, trees, and shrubs, to tiny insects that swarm around torches. Everything is animated so trees sway in the breeze, and the real-time lighting casts perfect shadows of your party and monsters. The new jungle levels are breathtaking and the very first set of missions that take place in the frozen mountains looks so realistic you will get a chill down your spine.

    The camera system is handled with perfection. Items that would normally block your view become transparent as necessary, and you have quick and easy control over zoom, tilt, and rotation with simple mouse movements.

    Animation is stunning and the battles are quite spectacular; especially if you zoom in and watch the highly detailed and textured characters and monsters engaged in combat. Collectible items are all conveniently labeled so you can choose what you want to grab or drag a window around them all for automated pick-up. One of the coolest new visuals are the Imbued items that give the character a special "glow".

    The character sheets and HUD interface are perfect. During the game you can quickly choose from the four various skill attacks. These icons serve a dual purpose as they also slowly fill-up as you increase in skill. This gives you instant access to everything you need to know about every skill for every character. Hover the mouse over any skill and a numeric value for that skill will appear. This value uses a decimal system to let you know how close you are to the next level.

    Inventory items are color-coded. Red items cannot be used until certain stat requirements are met while blue items will enhance a particular attribute. This can create some unique chain reactions. You might find some gloves that raise your dexterity high enough to use that sword that raises your intelligence so you can cast certain spells, but if you lose the gloves you lose everything in that chain.


    The music is a perfect blend of wondrous theme music and exciting orchestra scores that enhance the mood of each and every situation. It also takes cues from the area you are in or the current situation. Walk into a dark temple and it gets all creepy; stumble on a dozen skeleton warriors and it breaks out into a thumping combat theme.

    Sound effects are rich, lifelike, and of the highest quality. The ambient sounds of birds, wind, water, are always present and always accurate. Combined with the graphics, it creates a totally realistic experience and immerses you in the game.

    The dialogue remains as campy as it did in the original. Some of the accents are exaggerated and just downright silly, while other characters are reasonably acted out, but certainly not noteworthy. Only certain dialog is spoken, normally if it is quest related. If you are lucky enough to read faster than you can listen you can read the dialogue and click through the voiceovers when they are available.


    Legends of Aranna is a substantial quest that will take you 20-30 hours to complete. Microsoft has wisely included the original game so those who haven't played Dungeon Siege will have another 40-50 quest waiting for them. That's a whole lotta RPG gaming. The campaign mode follows a tightly scripted story and you are free to accept or decline many of the side-missions. There's not a big incentive to replay the game once you have finihsed it. The story will unfold the same every time, but you have full creative control over how you develop your characters and who joins your party. It won’t affect the ending, but the journey may vary.

    There are all sorts of new quests and areas you can experience in the multiplayer portion of Legends of Aranna. It’s really easy to hook-up on ZoneMatch, or you can run your own server or join somebody else’s. Up to 8 players can play online or on a LAN, but dial-up users will be restricted to 1-4 players. NPC’s from the campaign are not available in the multiplayer game and treasure and items will respawn after a period of time. You can also customize your multiplayer experience by setting restrictions on character levels and the level of monsters you will encounter.


    The original Dungeon Siege was a hard sell for me. It was initially spectacular and drew me into a rich and detailed world. Legends of Aranna doesn't really change that core premise but simply offers more of the same. I commend the designers for overhauling the interface and adding plenty of cool features that I expect to see replicated in just about every other RPG to come out after this.

    The biggest thing Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna has going for it is sheer value. With a huge core game and a substantial expansion pack all bundled together for about $30 you won't find a greater RPG bang for your buck. It's definitely worth checking out and will certainly keep you busy until Dungeon Siege II releases later this year.