Space Siege review


Space Siege is Chris Taylor’s latest Siege game for the PC. Brought to us by the good folks at Gas Powered Games and Sega, it bears little resemblance to the previous Siege games other than its title. A little off-putting to fans of the original fantasy hack and slash titles, it is nonetheless a solid title in an era where decent non-MMO PC RPGs are few and far between.

The story in Space Siege is rather unremarkable by itself. The Kerak, a crab-like race of aliens have declared war on humanity for the accidental defiling of a planet sacred to them. In retaliation they attack human settlements until they eventually get to Earth. A large scale battle erupts and during the fighting, a Kerak pod breaches the hull of an Earthling space defence station. Seth Walker, a robotics engineer, takes it upon himself to push them back out of his station, but not everything is as it seems...

While rather simplistic and told only in short bursts, the story is enhanced by spectacular writing and wonderful voice acting. For the most part, every character adds to the enjoyment of the story, giving the game a nice bonus. To top it off, Seth is faced with a few decisions over the course of the game—decisions that alter the course of the story and lead to multiple endings. All in all, the rather bland story is masterfully told and comes out as a definite plus, even with the rather weak ending..

Seth Walker doesn’t actually level up. Instead he gathers a pair of skill points for each quest that he completes. These skill points can be spent on Combat and Engineering skills. Much like Titan Quest, skills can only be bought when a certain number of prerequisites have been filled. For example, some skills require that X points have been spent in that tree, that certain skills already be mastered, that certain cybernetic implants be installed, or a combination of the above. Each skill line also has a powerful Humanity skill that only those that forego the use of cybernetics will be able to use. Combat skills increase the power of his melee attacks, give him special abilities, as well as increase his resilience to attack. The Engineering skills affect the effectiveness of his engineering goodies (like grenades, droids and other things), as well as his robot, HR-V (pronounced Harvey).


The bigger they are, the bigger the explosion!

One of the choices that is available is whether to choose to install the cybernetic implants that he picks up. Depending on his choices, these implants will change the skills that are available to him. Each implant also adds a little bonus to his stats, so adding them definitely makes the game a lot easier.

Regardless of the above choices, Seth can be upgraded at the workshops by every first aid machine. Both his armour and weaponry can be upgraded by spending parts (picked up off of dead enemies, found in chests and crates, etc)—defence values, attack power, critical hit percentage, elemental resistance, and attack speed are some examples of what can be upgraded. There are ten weapons that he’ll be able to find including a pair of cybernetic-only guns, and a single really cool melee weapon. There aren’t enough parts in the single-player game to upgrade everything though, so players will need to pick and choose to upgrade only those things that they think will really help them. Parts can also be used to create scientific gadgets for him to use against his foes.

Not only can Seth be upgraded, but his robot, HR-V, can be too. HR-V is a little outdated service robot that Seth salvages early in the game. HR-V can be outfitted with a trio of weapons and can be used for a variety of tasks—he can moved into guard position, tossed into a fray to draw enemy fire, or expended as a rear guard when retreat is necessary. He is Seth’s only constant companion and can be easily rebuilt if destroyed (costs next to nothing to do, too). To top it all off, the little guy has his own little quirks—he’ll attack any sanitation bots on sight... not because he is programmed to, but because he doesn’t like them.

Combat in Space Siege is a point and click affair. Click to move, right-click an enemy to open fire, hit a number key to activate an ability, or a function key to use one of HR-V’s abilities. When held down, the scroll wheel can be used to rotate the camera, as can the arrow keys. The single mystery here is why Gas Powered Games left out WASD controls, but it is easy enough to learn to play without them. All of HR-V’s abilities can be assigned to the function keys, but Seth will need to be a little more selective when picking his skills. Both gadgets and combat skills take room on the bar, so some choices will need to be made based on his build.

There are lots of things in the environment to destroy. From crates to explosives, they are everywhere—in fact in some parts there are too many explosives. These can be great tools to help destroy larger groups of enemies, or to simply watch Seth come to a not so glorious death. Setting off explosions can be a lot of fun—the PhysX engine does some fun stuff here! Unfortunately, the hordes of explosives can get rather annoying after a while... especially when enemies start to use them too.

Graphically, Space Siege underachieves. While crisp, the graphics are not stunning in any way. The biggest disappointment comes in the form of really weak lighting—why in the hell is the damaged space station always so well lit? It would have been more interesting had the station been suffering from more darkness, like the world of Bioshock. Otherwise, all the models look decent, and the game does really perform well on even a moderately powered rig (Vista rating: 4.0), but more graphic options would have been nice to play around with for those with stronger rigs.


Tossed like a feather pillow in a low gravity....bmp

The music helps offset the damage that the lighting does to the atmosphere, but doesn’t entirely negate it. I found it to be really enjoyable and never felt the need to mute the game at all. All the lines were delivered convincingly and help make the story come alive. Kudos are definitely deserved here.

The game clocks in at around fifteen hours for a first playthrough, which is the perfect length as it neither feels rushed or too long. There is definitely a challenge to be found here depending on Seth’s build, but even at its most difficult, there is little penalty for dying—Seth simply returns to the last save spot and had to repair HR-V. In a fortunate twist, Seth cannot respawn while fighting bosses, so some challenge does remain. The boss death cutscenes are certainly worth the effort to see!

There is a multiplayer component to the game that is totally apart from the single player campaign. Here the player gets to design their own character: they start with forty skill points, no HR-V, and all the implants to use as they wish. Multiplayer is done in mission format with a definite order to them (beating one unlocks the next, etc) and the difficulty can be adjusted for groups that want a bigger challenge. For those that like the mechanics, multiplayer can be a blast on either a local LAN or through GPGNet (the developer’s online service). Unfortunately, characters are really only able to grind parts to upgrade their equipment and not actually advance, but this is only a minor complaint.

So, how does this fare against the Dungeon Siege games? It is really unfair to compare them—one is a hack and slash game that has a fair bit of loot mongering going on, whereas Space Siege is more of a cinematic adventure. For those that were expecting Dungeon Siege in space, this game will surely disappoint. For those without these preconceptions, it is bound to entertain. With multiple endings, an engaging storyline, a decent level of customization, and a fun multiplayer mode, Space Siege is sure to be a wise investment.