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August 5th, 2006, 07:20 Posted By: shadowprophet
Delve into a pocket-sized world of dungeons and monsters. New screens and updated impressions!
Via The Grape Vine
August 4, 2006 - The original Dungeon Siege hit the PC back in 2002. Since then it has grown through expansion packs and a proper sequel, titled Dungeon Siege II. The series will branch off from its native platform this Fall, though, with the release of Dungeon siege Throne of Agony for the PSP. The game made its public debut at last year's E3 and showed a good deal of promise, even though the build on display had more than 50% development time left to go.
The team behind Throne of Agony, SuperVillain Studious, has made significant strides since then. To show off the team's progress, publisher 2K games crashed the IGN offices recently with a build much closer to the finished product. Throne of Agony made an impression during E3, and it makes an even bigger one today given the enhancements added by the team since the game's debut. And it's not just spit and polish, either, but a slew of hefty additions in terms of actual content.
Before heading into the realm of specifics, however, pay attention to a few informative tidbits. Throne of Agony benefits from the first two PC entries, as well as the expansion packs, by absorbing all the art assets. This means the first handheld iteration of Dungeon Siege will sport the same high-quality art and look as the PC originals. There's lots of new stuff, too, specifically when it comes to enemy units and environments, but it doesn't hurt to have "familiar" assets to link the Dungeon Siege titles together. And for those worried that Throne of Agony will play like a quick port or half-assed sequel, just know it doesn't. Instead, it plays like a streamlined version of the game you know, with new mobile-friendly additions replacing the elements that developers saw fit to remove. One of these modifications changes the number of characters in your party from six or so to just two. Sounds bad, sure, but it makes sense considering the size of the PSP screen. As such, the camera is much closer to the action. Fans of the series know you once needed zoom out to see your entire party and nearby enemies, and now that's not really an issue anymore since the camera follows you everywhere and keeps the action nice and close.
So, there are two characters down from five. One of these characters is you, obviously, but the second is a constant follower who gains experience throughout the adventure. Known as "pets," these followers help you fight monsters and heal you. They act autonomously, and intelligently from what the demo shows, so there's no babysitting acquired. You only need to pick the right one for the situation. Say, for instance, you know a particular enemy up the road uses harsh attacks; it's a simple matter of selecting a healer pet from your "pet pool" to help you during that one fight. Once the enemy dies, you can then switch back to whatever pet you had before and so on. On the plus side, they all gain experience at the same rate, so even the pets you ignore will always be ready for action.
You can swap pets from within the game, dynamically, much like everything else in the game. All you need to do is define a set of controls, such as the face buttons and D-Pad directions, from a simple menu and the rest is handled in-game. The system works well, as far as the demo can show, anyway. It definitely helps the overall flow of the game since you rarely need to stop and open menus in the middle of a fight.
Apart from that, much of the experience remains the same. Dungeon crawling still lies at the heart of the game, after all, and Throne of Agony has a ton of it. How you access these dungeons has changed a bit, though. Since the PSP lacks the processing power to stream massive outdoor environments, you now go from dungeon to dungeon using a handy "Overland Map."
This map actually looks cool, too. Traveling in Throne of Agony looks a lot like walking through a 3D cartography map, complete with floating text for city names. You'll also see flocks of birds and weather effects. They're simple effects that helps drawn you into the gameworld. You appear as a super-huge character running across the map, of course, and once you get to where you want to go you just hop inside. The game also has a snazzy set of portals littered all over the world, so you can jump in and out whenever you like. These magic doorways boast cool effects and textures, by the way. For now, using portals takes a while in terms of system loading, but it's nothing a little optimization can't fix. Once you get to a town or city, you can walk around and converse with random NPCs to hear narrative highlights or to receive new quests. Every new task you receive is stored in a handy dandy quest journal. It records objectives and details, as well as quest-critical locations so you don't get lost. There's no limit to how many of these missions or quests you take at any given point, but it's probably a good idea to stay focused on a handful. Throne of Agony throws a bunch of story-specific quests your way, along with extra side jobs for you to tackle at your leisure. All of them require a good deal of travel, so by game's end you would have crisscrossed the globe several times.
Go that extra mile and the game treats you to something special. You can actually earn a boat, for example, and set sail to hidden dungeons found only on tucked-away islands. That's a pretty good incentive for completionists and die-hard dungeon crawler's alike. And like every good dungeon, these hold particularly nasty beasts to slay. You can bet they drop terrific loot, though. With so many quests, both primary and secondary, the game should take a good while to finish. Once you do, however, there's always multiplayer. The recent demo didn't have network functionality in place, sadly. But the final build will support two-player wireless cooperative play. This is true of the entire single-player campaign. And while you can't hop in and out whenever you like, it's nevertheless a splendid addition.
Stay tuned for more information. ...
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