Dungeon Siege Preview @ UGO

UnderGroundOnline has posted up a preview of Gas Powered Games’ upcoming Dungeon Siege. Check it out:

What’s not only unfamiliar but also entirely refreshing is the way in which DS goes about presenting its fairly conventional setup and setting. When you first load the game, you’ll be asked to create your character (a simple procedure involving choosing gender, hairstyles and clothing colors), and then you’ll get one of those tried-and-true “Game Loading” screens with the progress bar on it. The kicker is that this is the one and only time you will see this screen while playing DS. After that point, the game world can take you from fields to valleys and into underground mazes that makes the Mines of Moria look like a Sunday picnic without ever once breaking up the action with a load screen. This sounds like a common sense feature that every RPG should have, but when you’ve spent your entire gaming career waiting for different areas to load every time you enter them (as anyone who’s ever played a computer role-playing game before undoubtedly has), the first time you enter a dungeon and traverse its multiple levels without even a hiccup in the proceedings is really almost a revelation. What’s even cooler is that every creature in DS recognizes this fluidity, and acts accordingly.