ds article update

content/articles/reviews/dungeon-siege.md

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ game_release_year: '2002'
 game_developer: 'Gas Powered Games'
 ---
 
-Two years after Diablo 2 and two years before Sacred, Chris Taylor took a shot at the hack & slash formula with his studio Gas Powered Games, under the Microsoft wings. The result was Dungeon Siege, a hugely successful cross-over that was influenced by and still influences many games. When it came out in 2002, I remember clicking my way through the crystal caves and the fortresses before getting bored yet again right before the ending. With my retro win98 PC back in place, let's take closer look at an unconventional approach to the hacking and slashing of the early 2000s. 
+Two years after Diablo 2 and two years before Sacred, Chris Taylor took a shot at the hack & slash formula with his studio Gas Powered Games, under the wings of Microsoft. The result was Dungeon Siege, a million selling cross-over that was influenced by and still influences many games. When it came out in 2002, I remember clicking my way through the crystal caves and the fortresses before getting bored yet again right before the ending. With my retro win98 PC back in place, let's take closer look at an unconventional approach to the hacking and slashing of the early 2000s. 
 
 ## 1. World Design
 
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ The medieval fantasy world with bits and pieces of steampunk might not be too co
 
 Your party travels on foot: there's no town portalling of any kind, and there's no horse to increase travel speeds. However, there is a donkey for rent that can haul the precious items you collect to sell of in the next town. Yet that donkey has (purposely?) one of the stupidest AIs I've ever seen. If one of the party members - say, the donkey - can't follow, you're required to click on it and point it in the right direction, leaving your party uncontrolled in the front. This got annoying fast, and in the end, I kicked the mule out of the party and left the useless items on the ground instead. 
 
-The engine responsible for the atmosphere of the Dungeon Siege world did its best to emphasize lush forests, creepy crypts, and icy caves. There's a lot of variety in between chapters, but little in the chapter itself. Sadly, _mundane_ is all that I remember after a few weeks of playing. Compared to Diablo's grit and Sacred's charm, DS doesn't stand a chance - unless you're a polygon geek. 
+The engine responsible for the atmosphere of the Dungeon Siege world did its best to emphasize lush forests, creepy crypts, and icy caves. There's a lot of variety in between chapters, but little in the chapter itself. Sadly, _mundane_ is all that I remember after a few weeks of playing. Compared to Diablo's grit and Sacred's charm, DS doesn't particularly stand out in world design - unless you're a polygon geek. 
 
 ### Graphics
 
@@ -74,9 +74,9 @@ Veteran hack & slash players will be amazed when trying to distribute points aft
 
 ![](/img/games/dungeonsiege/inventory.jpg "The inventory and the character screen are all the same. Says enough?")
 
-Next to the four basic skills, you have your run-of-the-mill attributes: strength, dexterity, intelligence. Equipping items require a certain amount of a certain attribute. The trouble is, my primary character was an archer, that automatically raises ranged combat and of course dexterity. There are "secondary" attributes: sometimes, strength would go up too. However, many armor pieces had quite high strength requirements. This forced me to wield a sword for a few hours to bump up strength - which made him useless in fights. The medium difficulty gave me a lot of trouble as an archer without many companions in the first half of the game. I don't like hit-and-run strategies, but they were needed to survive. In the end, I got tired of it and switched to easy. 
+Next to the four basic skills, you have your run-of-the-mill attributes: strength, dexterity, intelligence. Equipping items require a certain amount of a certain attribute. The trouble is, my primary character was an archer, that automatically raises ranged combat and of course dexterity. There are "secondary" attributes: occasionally, strength would go up too, albeit at a _much_ slower rate. However, many armor pieces had quite high strength requirements. This forced me to wield a sword for a few hours to bump up strength - which made my character useless in fights. The medium difficulty gave me a lot of trouble as an archer without many companions in the first half of the game. I don't like hit-and-run strategies in these kinds of games, but they were needed to survive. In the end, I got tired of it and switched to easy. Indeed, that is possible in-game, without having to start over again. According to forum posts I've read, this also alters the amount of XP distributed, and _might_ alter drops. I didn't see a any of that. 
 
-If you dislike choosing and putting a lot of effort into a single build, this is the game for you. The companions you'll drag along with you each are either fighter, archer, or one of the two mage types. In the end, in a single game run, you'll have experienced it all, instead of having to build a specialized ice sorceress or whirlwind barbarian in Diablo. 
+If you dislike choosing and putting a lot of effort into a single build, this is the game for you. The companions you'll drag along with you each are either fighter, archer, or one of the two mage types. In the end, in a single game run, you'll have experienced it all, instead of having to build a specialized ice sorceress or whirlwind barbarian in Diablo. The downside of this system is micromanaging your party. While in combat, quickly switching to another spell means clicking, clicking, and more clicking. There are two "quickslots", as seen in the screenshot below, and besides switching from damaging to healing spells, I didn't use them very often. 
 
 ![](/img/games/dungeonsiege/crystalcaves.jpg "We rescued the archmage Zed from this Crystal prison.")
 
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ If you dislike choosing and putting a lot of effort into a single build, this is
 
 Thanks to EAX, the sound effects perfectly complement the games' moody engine and color palette. Muffled effects in caves, splashy zaps and icy frost spells: it's all there, and it's executed well. I also particularly like the beginning background music that makes me roll up my sleeves and go for it. Alas, after a few hours, the music never manages to catch my attention again. 
 
-Every NPC encounter is fully voiced, without the funny tones of Sacred. The cut-scenes are also voiced by a narrator but never last that long. In all, having squeezed everything out of the `500MB` installation is quite a feat (well, there aren't many NPCs and they don't have much to say...). Nothing to complain on sound design in general!
+Every NPC encounter is fully voiced, without the funny tones of Sacred. The cut-scenes are also voiced by a narrator but never last that long. In all, having squeezed everything out of the `500MB` installation is quite a feat (well, there aren't many NPCs and they don't have much to say...). Sound design in general is pretty well done, although I wished the music track was as good as the first hour in. 
 
 ### Cinematic
 
@@ -96,8 +96,7 @@ To show off the 3D engine, cinematics are all in-game and quite fluent. But exac
 
 ## To Conclude
 
-Dungeon Siege is not quite a typical hack and slash game: you control a party, there are few attributes/skills, and they're all automatically accumulated. Furthermore, your party by default automatically attacks enemies on sight, so when things go well, there's little for you to do but press a hotkey or two to grab the uesless gear. After about ten hours, I simply gave up: the game more than overstays its welcome. I've finished it once in 2002 and played until halfway the goblin fortress. After dreading the next and the next and the next encounter, I decided my time would be better spend trying out Dungeon Siege II: they say it fixed a lot of DS1's shortcomings. 
+Dungeon Siege is not quite a typical hack and slash game: you control a party, there are few attributes/skills, and they're all automatically accumulated. Furthermore, your party by default automatically attacks enemies on sight, so when things go well, there's little for you to do but press a hotkey or two to grab the uesless gear. To put it bluntly, it feels like you're watching a marathon of Lord of the Rings extended edition movies instead of playing a game where thought must be put into correctly building and equipping your character. After about ten hours, I simply gave up: the game more than overstays its welcome. I've finished it once in 2002 and played it again until halfway through the goblin fortress. After dreading the thought of encountering more and more of the same mobs, I decided my time would be better spend trying out Dungeon Siege II: they say it fixed a lot of DS1's shortcomings. 
 
 Only one way to find out!
 
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