GreasyDogMeat

Good points I suppose. I've never been big on RPG multiplayer so these problems aren't as big for me. As far as the single player portion goes it has been better than the Dark Alliance games.

I'm glad you love the game so much! I don't know about best game ever myself, but it sure beats the **** out of the originals!

I honestly hope you enjoy it. Its not for everyone but if you played and enjoyed either of the Dark Alliance games you will probably enjoy this one.

What are these extra features you are talking about? No comment on replayability yet. I wouldn't mind trying a different character in Dark Alliance at some point. I've only played the original and its sequel once but I enjoyed them. I haven't finished DS 3 yet (I'm playing little bits at a time) but so far I'm enjoying it more so than I enjoyed Dark Alliance 1 & 2. As for DS 3 not being the successor to DS 1 & 2... well what can I say but they used the license to make a Dark Alliance style game. I can see why DS fans are mad, but I loved the Dark Alliance style of action RPG and I'm glad DS 3 is closer to it than DS 1 & 2. Well, both BG: DA 1&2 had Newgame+ modes (a very unique take at Newgame+, too), and if I remember correctly, they both had persistent multiplayer characters. True, but you didn't max out in DA 1 or 2. Supposedly you hit level 30 in DS 3 by the end of the game. I'm not a huge fan of +newgame modes unless you don't max out. The problem with persistant characters in multiplayer is you'd end up joining someones game and either they would be higher level doing all the work or you would be. I know because I did play a bit of couch coop in DA 2 and I ended up doing all the work in someone else's game because they needed help with a boss. I really don't mind the implementation of coop in DS 3, its the camera. While you still had to stay close in DA 2 it was no where as bad as DS 3.

What are these extra features you are talking about? No comment on replayability yet. I wouldn't mind trying a different character in Dark Alliance at some point. I've only played the original and its sequel once but I enjoyed them. I haven't finished DS 3 yet (I'm playing little bits at a time) but so far I'm enjoying it more so than I enjoyed Dark Alliance 1 & 2. As for DS 3 not being the successor to DS 1 & 2... well what can I say but they used the license to make a Dark Alliance style game. I can see why DS fans are mad, but I loved the Dark Alliance style of action RPG and I'm glad DS 3 is closer to it than DS 1 & 2.

Yup, I figured it out. My problem was that I thought I was supposed to 'use' the actual door to the crypt, not the two statues on either side of the door to place the rings.

It's like GTA I heard. I might get bored of it after all. Is it more corny 60s Western style or more "modern", a 'la The Proposition, True Grit remake etc? Its so much more, the world is alive in Red Dead. Unlike GTA where the world exists to be passed through besides a few pigeons to shoot or minigames there are animals constantly doing animal things. I've seen some stunning things just exploring the world. I visited a small farm and watched the people work, one guy was grinding an axe, a woman washing her clothes and a pack of coyotes rushed in to the town and started grabbing chickens and rushing off, the man cursed and started firing at them as they rushed off. Birds fly over head, animals hunt, darkness falls and nocturnal animals come out. Watch out for snakes! The game is, hands down, the best open world game ever. The world exists for a reason and there is always some beautiful sight to see or animal to hunt. No other game has created an open world this worth exploring. This game alone was worth purchasing my 360 for, from the LONG epic single player which has one of the most fantastic endings I've EVER seen in... well anything, to the outstanding multiplayer which has had me investing hundreds of hours into. The tone of the game is closer to movies like Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, True Grit and other more modern westerns than westerns of the past. Most of the people you deal with are bastards, but you will run into some upstanding 1950s style characters like Bonnie McFarland and her family. The sheriff of Armadillo is also a decent fellow. Even the villains are done well though, as you can see their points of view for why they do what they do. The only con that comes to mind is that the morality system is a bit pointless. Just stick to generally being a good guy with an occasional robbery or hold up or the story doesn't make sense. Marston is a reformed decent guy and it shows in the cutscenes. It makes little sense to go shooting up a town executing people and then jump to a cutscene where he's being mr. reformed nice guy. Oh, and there is no swimming. That is a bit dumb too. Water is essentially acid to you ala GTA 3 & Vice City. This is one of the few games that, IMHO deserved a perfect 10 review. The love and care that went into this game is beyond anything on the market. L.A. Noire is also a good game, but its a bad open world game. The world, even far more so than GTA IV, exists to pass through. Don't get me wrong, I think its extremely cool than you can essentially drive down 1947 streets and see the town as it existed, but there is almost nothing to do when exploring the city. The game is best described as a Lucas Arts adventure with an open world. You will shoot bad guys, but the gunplay isn't as good as GTA IV or RDR. The game lives by its investigations, searching for clues and questioning witnesses. A good game to be sure, but not the masterpiece that RDR is. It may be more to your play style though if you have been dying for a modern adventure game.

Anyone who thinks DA 2 is as good as DA 1 is flat out stoned! As for Obsidian fanboys targetting Bioware, some of us probably do but they often get far more resources and time to create great games than Obs yet IMHO Obs usually beats them in what counts. I try to be fair though. I love Bio when it looks like they've actually done some work on their games, like the like Mass Effect series. Its fantastic! When they come out with rushed crap like DA 2 I just wonder... why? Aren't you guys rich? Didn't DA 1 sell enough? Why are you rushing out a sloppy half-assed sequel? Then when that half-assed sequel gets rated as an excellent game and other devs have to work harder with less resources and get slammed because... they aren't Bioware or whatever it pisses me off.

I say it speaks more to the frustration with the rating system. I know Dragon Age 2 in no way deserved the scores it got, so its an easy target. The Angry Joe review pretty much summed it up: "I know all of this game's flaws warrant a lower score, but come on! Its Dragon Age! I just couldn't bring myself to rate it lower!" Not a direct quote, but I'm too lazy to visit the page and skim around to find that part. Its just frustrating to see something get bashed in comparison to something inferior because... what? Because a goodie basket wasn't given out for DS 3?

Manuals are for sissy boys. Real men just dive in. Women ask for directions.

Other than the multiplayer points, it pretty much looks like I'm just not DS' target audience as most of those features I don't care about. -Character creation: It wasn't very impressive in DS 1 and I'd rather have speaking fleshed out premade characters than a character you can design BUT NEVER UTTERS A SINGLE WORD let alone a grunt. -Weapon/Item versatility: Dealing with all that garbage in DS 1 was a massive pain and I hated it. While its true you are stuck with the sword and can't equip a mace or axe etc., I'd gladly lose that ability in favor of the much easier to deal with inventory management of DS 3. -Why should an action RPG have more than a few controllable party members at once? Having up to 8 characters in DS 1 made the game a mess... furthermore an extremely easy 'auto-attack' mess. This ties in with control over multiple characters & party formation points. -More variety of active/passive abilities MUST be refering to DS 2. Cause DS 3 beats the crud out of 1 as far as that goes. Sure DS 3 has more spells, but most of them are upgrades to lower versions. IE you can summon a skeleton, now you are up a level and you can summon a wolf! Nice but not a big deal IMHO. -Less story is a big no-no for me, action RPG or not. The only points I agree with: -Less linear world/towns. For me the other strong points have helped this issue, but the game would have benefited from more open areas to explore, no question. -Camera. Yup... it sucks. At best its OK in single player. Better camera in first game no question. You did at least make sense about why someone might prefer those elements. I just don't think DS 1 was my type of game. Since when am I a new arrival?

I can understand why some old fans of the series might not like the complete change. What I can't understand is why people would be fans of the old series in the first place. I personally loved Fallout 3 and New Vegas despite them being drastically different form the originals. Think of it this way, the series was dead and this new incarnation may result in a sequel more true to the 'beloved' originals, just as New Vegas was closer to the original Fallouts than 3 was. I also find it odd you enjoy '****ty Dragon Age clones. I'm enjoying DS 3 more than DA 2 so far. If Dungeon Siege 3 is a clone/spiritual successor to anything it is the Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance games. I don't doubt that there are fans out there that love DS3 more than the originals. I can't really speak for Fallout / New Vegas series as I never player so I can't comment / compare. However, I don't agree on your logic that if a series is "dead" remaking a new completely new game with zero focus/feedback/research into the original series is the solution. Honestly, why would you bother? Personally, I feel creating your own game (which is what I feel they did here) is the more logical approach. A classic example is a horror film series, originals are always the best but for profits sake it they keep making ****ty sequels. From a consumer standpoint, when you watch a sequel and it sucks, you feel like you've wasted money. If there was never a sequel the movie you probably would have a much higher opinion, but instead for the sake of making a profit the industry loses credibility. That is just my opinion, though. Lastly, I enjoy it because there really isn't any good 4 player + co op's out there at the moment. Its certainly the best release in the recent years, however by modern standards its still a sub par game. I agree that I find it more enjoyable than DA2, I didn't even buy DA2, just played the demo and hated it. DS3 feels like a crappy clone because the story is very similar.. Legion = Warden, need to find more Legion / Wardens etc. and so forth. I've tried to contemplate why Obsidian would choose, of all franchises, Dungeon Siege. My theory is they wanted to make Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 3, that is basically what Dungeon Siege 3 is, except they couldn't get the rights to it and Square had the DS rights standing by. They could have perhaps created an entirely new franchise, but perhaps theres some lingering stigma over Alpha Protocol's reception. Maybe Obs devs actually loved Dungeon Siege, though I find it odd they would take it in such a different direction if they were fans. At the end of the day, and I don't mean to sound rude, I don't care because I've always hoped there would be a sequel to Dark Alliance 2. Now there is! Except its called Dungeon Siege. DS 3 is an action RPG made for me. It manages to go beyond the utterly mindless click fests of most ARPGs, add a story with some actual choice and interaction as opposed to the usual 'read a paragraph of text briefly describing next quest' story of most ARPGs. I get harsh about DS 1 because its entire focus is on something I hate in RPGs: Inventory management. Thats what DS 1 is... an I(nventory)M(anagement)RPG. That was the point of the game, pick up something and compare it to what was in hand. If better equip, if worse toss/sell. Because it certainly is no tactical RPG. You turn on auto attack and click the ground near the monsters and watch them fight. The only tactic that comes up during battles is if its time to push the 'drink potion' button. DS 1 is Uwe Boll and DS 3 is Peter Jackson and the Uwe Boll fans are complaining the new movie has good acting and a thrilling plot.

Hah! Not falling for that trick again. We're no strangers to looooove! You know the rules and so do Iiiiiiiiiii!

I'm on the same side of the fence that I was on when Fallout 3 came out. I loved the old versions and I love the new version. 'Course in Dungeon Siege's case I only have been enjoying the new version. I don't have a lot of pity for DS fans. Previews have been out for ages, the demo was out for weeks that I played multiple times and was a clear indicator the game was nothing like the previous one... which is a very good thing IMHO. Everyone's favorite franchise goes through changes and you either go with it, or you ignore the new versions and move on to something else. Something I've done with franchises that have gone bad (for me) in the past. The thing I keep driving at because I've yet to see a DS fan put in a coherent manner is what was so great about the originals that is lacking in this one? Its all been this game sucks because its not like the original.

I may get overly defensive, but I also find it amusing you don't seem to mind the flood of overly hostile critiques like calling the game a '****ty Dragon Age knock-off'.

I could not disagree more strongly. I hate... Hate... HATE respawning in action rpgs. I loved Diablo 1 & the respawn system in Diablo 2 killed the game for me. Respawn should only exist in coop modes. I tried Titan Quest and gave up on that game because of respawning. Instead of having a save point in front of a boss, like DS 3, if you died you respawned way back and had to hike a mile to get back to the fight and run around and try and scoop up your equipment and learn the boss tactics and die over and over walking back over and over. Respawning sucks! Also, a number of areas from the first game do show up. They look quite a bit different as 150+ years have passed since the first game. Agree with other points but not having echanting/sockets etc. didn't kill the experience for me.

I can understand why some old fans of the series might not like the complete change. What I can't understand is why people would be fans of the old series in the first place. I personally loved Fallout 3 and New Vegas despite them being drastically different form the originals. Think of it this way, the series was dead and this new incarnation may result in a sequel more true to the 'beloved' originals, just as New Vegas was closer to the original Fallouts than 3 was. I also find it odd you enjoy '****ty Dragon Age clones. I'm enjoying DS 3 more than DA 2 so far. If Dungeon Siege 3 is a clone/spiritual successor to anything it is the Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance games.

I think the closest game you could compare DS 3 to is Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 2. I just beat it a few months ago on an original XBox and this game feels like the spiritual successor. Considering Dark Alliance 2 was a Black Isle property I wouldn't be surprised if some of the devs who worked on it also worked on this.

It does feel off. My save game time says I've been playing for just under 5 hours, but its felt longer than that. I do hope the game is at least 20 hours long.

I keep hearing 'bad voice acting', but so far nothing has been cringe worthy. It hasn't been as outstanding as certain games but NwN 2 OC had far worse voice acting.

Will these items be in the normal inventory? It sounds like I've somehow completely missed both. All I have is the 'Raven Ring' and the preorder ring. Its odd because the boyar's dialogue made it sound like I already had the rings EDIT: Figured it out and I feel dumb! You are supposed to place the rings in the two statues on either side of the door, which I didn't even notice, and the rings are not standard inventory items because I had both. I'd been standing in front of the locked double door trying to open it.

I've got the quest to open the Heroes Crypt and it apparently requires two signet rings. Trying to open the door does nothing. Should I have the rings at this point? Did I miss them or are they coming up in quests? As far as I remember I haven't received any rings besides two or three.

What happened to Evolving with this game. They took a DS game, cut all the great features and put ported it. I think that's called Regressing. They did evolve it. -They added a combat system that doesn't suck, the boss battles are actually a lot of fun and even the small ones aren't tedious. -They added an actual story. I'm actually interested in what happens next in this game. What are all these great features people keep talking about in DS1? I'm playing it back and forth between DS3 and DS1 (I wanted to wait until I finished the classics before playing the third, but I just couldn't wait so started 3) and I find DS 1 tedious while DS 3 has me glued to the game for hours at a time. The ONLY thing I can think of that I'd want from the original is the more open game world. Most of DS 3 has been a narrow path so far with few open environments. Everything else is an improvement in DS 3.

I think this game really would have benefited from a behind the character 3rd person view like Dragon Age 2. The game is built for it with direct character control and buttons directly controlling the swings. As for the multiplayer camera I have an idea: I understand why coop buddies are forced to stay close. They need to help the main character with the fights and allowing them to just run off would get both players killed. However, I think the system could be vastly improved. How about allowing everyone to control their own cameras when playing online coop? How do you fix it so people don't wander off and leave the main character to die? Have a circular 'aura' or line around the character that coop buddies have to stay within. They still can control where they look and go a bit further away from the main character but they still have to stay close and help.

I don't watch a lot of sports, but apparently there is a problem in tennis with...