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Surely you've heard of Dungeon Siege, either by playing the excellent RPG itself, or by watching the rather... unfortunate movie of the same name. We'll ignore that latter thing for the moment and focus on the game, which spawned a sequel, a few expansion packs, and a cadre of dedicated fans. Now the franchise has left terrestrial dungeons and terrain for the vastness that is outer space in Space Siege. Despite the infinity of space you're unfortunately still stuck in dungeons, but those who aren't claustrophobic (and don't mind being beaten over the head with space-clichés) will find a fine action-RPG here.

The End of the World, and Humanity?

Yes, it's the end of the world, and you as Seth Walker are feeling fine. It's a couple-hundred years into the future and we Earthlings have committed the carnal sin that's spawned many a sci-fi movie: we've colonized distant planets and made ourselves some enemies of a very powerful alien race. In this case, it's the Kerak who follow us back to earth, swatting our puny orbital defenses aside before turning the planet into a lump of coal. You're on the Armstrong, the (supposedly) sole surviving ship in the fleet, and all's not well.

The Kerak have infiltrated the hull and the ship's primary defense from this sort of attack, putting everyone into cryogenic sleep and releasing a toxic gas throughout the compartments to kill invaders, hasn't phased them. In fact it really just made their jobs easier, letting them run through the halls while all the defenders doze fitfully. That's the sort of poor design decision only a planet-based engineer could make. Since your cryo-pod is one of the few that weren't ripped to bits by the Kerak, it's up to you to fight them off your ship and save the last remnants of humanity.

In an ironic twist you're more or less asked to shed as much of your own humanity as is, erm, humanly possible to fight the alien menace, hacking off limbs and ripping out organs to replace them with cybernetic implants to give you greater strength, accuracy, and a rather more menacing visage. You don't absolutely have to subject yourself to the apparently painful upgrades (screams are heard as you make your selections), and doing so has some impact on the story. If you want access to the really sweet toys like a massive chain-gun with a VW Beetle-sized ammo canister, it’s off with your arms and legs.

Space is Infinite; Dungeons Not So Much

Space Siege is an action-RPG at its heart, much like Diablo or Dungeon Siege before it. However, the action part of the formula has been ramped up quite a bit, making this game feel much more like a third-person shooter than a third-person RPG. You'll face dozens of enemies in every room. With all the firepower you'll be throwing their way, things can get rather heated. Despite this it is still an RPG, and as you play you'll learn new skills to be activated familiarly by the number keys. There are no real classes; instead your character will slowly progress and evolve into the man you want him to be by upgrading his attributes as you go.

There's an aspect of recycling to the whole thing, as when you kill enemies or scour the corners of dimly-lit chambers you'll find bits of junk lying around. Like a badass cleaning lady, you collect these bits and trade them in at the redemption center for points used to boost armor, weapons, attributes for yourself or your little friend the HR-V, a robotic side-kick that joins your team early on in the game. Unlike the Dungeon Siege games where you were often flanked by a bunch of misfits, here it's just you and HR-V. While this cuts down on the variety, ultimately the simplification is a good move. HR-V more or less takes care of himself, leaving you free to only worry about keeping yourself shooting in the right direction. He doesn't use health kits, so you can hoard them. Finally, should he get destroyed, you just need to find the nearest reconstructions station, push a button and out pops a shiny new one.

His primary advantage really is that bossing around even a handful of people would be too much thanks to poor controls that worked well enough for the earlier games, but not here. You rely on the mouse to both move and shoot, with the left-button sending your character to a location and the right one firing at that location, which feels nothing short of crippling when you're surrounded by baddies. You can press a key on the keyboard to dodge enemy shots, but the game would have benefited from the sort of strafe-while-shooting, gamepad-friendly controls seen in most top-down shooters these days.

Sieging with Friends
 
Space Siege offers a four-player multi mode that you can either play over LAN or online. This takes place on a different ship that also managed to survive the assault. You'll create a new character here already possessing a ton of abilities, attributes, and, if you like, all the cybernetic toys you can implant. Together with friends you tackle a decent selection of straightforward missions that send you out to explore this different ship that looks an awful, awful lot like the Armstrong.

Both Armstrong and its twin are ridiculously dangerous places, completely unsuited for colonization. Areas are littered with explosive barrels and tanks of gas that will go boom with the slightest provocation. This makes for some entertaining ways to dispatch enemies; hit a gas tank just right and it’ll go zipping across the room and take out a battalion of baddies with a big, fiery explosion. Thankfully flame effects are very good here, as are the rest of the graphics, with reasonably detailed characters, environments, and respectably good performance as well.

Dungeons In Spaaaace

Okay, so running through dungeons may not be top on your list of things to do when you get to space, but we can think of a many less entertaining ways to spend your time than a trip through Space Siege. It's definitely action-packed, especially when playing with friends. It's just a damn-shame that Chris Taylor and his cronies at Gas Powered Games didn't get with the times and mix in a proper action-focused control scheme. We can't help but think of the serious can of cybernetic whoopass we could have opened on the Kerak if only we could circle-strafe.

Review by: Tim Stevens