Dungeon Siege III

I just finished Dungeon Siege III, after polishing off a surprisingly pretty monster-god.  I'd been playing it over the last three weeks, stopping when the Diablo-style game play got old, then returning when I wanted something relaxing in its simplicity. The game has a lot to love, but the best parts are undermined by limiting design decisions.

The graphics are gorgeous, with vibrant, shining textures and deep colors.  Some of the locations in the game look like they could be concept art, rather than real-time renders. The problem is that the camera is limited to essentially two positions, making it next-to-impossible to get a close look at, say, the little waterfall cutting through the mountain, or the fantastic character designs.  Most of the time, I felt the urge to squint. Oh, and I've been spoiled by open-world games long enough now that it irks the hell out of me when you can't look up and see the sky.

Combat is nice and peppy, with a comfortable attack/dodge/block system that reminds me of Vindictus.  Unfortunately, the abilities and upgrades that you gain over time don't seem particularly distinct, and the four playable characters have very similar power sets (self-heal; damage-focus; defense-focus, AOE).  This is made worse by the flaky targeting system, which will often send your ranged attacks off in a random direction.

As far as the setting goes, I can tell that Obsidian put a lot of effort into writing a history and lore for the world they inherited, but all that setup feels disconnected from the game.  In a linear action game, exposition is damned hard to care about, because it has absolutely no impact on the game.

Some of the reviews I've read complain about the meaninglessness of the loot drops, but, to me, that's par for the course.  When I play a game that has more than 4 statistics to its items (i.e. Armor+5/+15 fire resistance; 2 sockets, blue quality, etc), I know that I have been placed on the Diablo-treadmill.  I do my best not to pay attention to it and just keep what the shopkeepers would pay the most for.  Diablo 2 game me enough item-comparison-obsessing to last a lifetime.

So, I had fun with Dungeon Siege 3, but I can't help but think that the game would have been much better if they'd dropped the Dungeon Siege template and done their own thing.