Jul
29
2005

Gameplay First – The Dungeon Siege 2 Example

2005 is a great year for gamers as a whole, with the release of the highly-touted Xbox 360 headlining the news (and, consequently, the temporally inferior PS3) for the brutes of the gaming crowd and new graphics card technology and big-name game titles for the intellectually elite [Ha.] PC gamers. Far and wide the most important event of 2005 is the release of Gas Powered Games’ Dungeon Siege 2, the sequel to the relatively under-appreciated original game of the same name, one of my top titles of all time. It is only through my striking ability of clarity, along with my tendency to avoid any type of “fanboyism” that I can say that the under-appreciation of the original game was quite well-deserved. The game was able to present the user with an absolutely gorgeously organized array of colored pixels for its time but, alas, the game was more of a visual spectacle than a well-designed gameplay-centric phenomenon.

Yeah, it was basically a mildly interactive screensaver. And I say this with love.

Not content to be just another roof housing cheap imitation game developers, Gas Powered Games instantly set to work on making the sequel to their beloved Dungeon Siege franchise (while plotting the mind-blowingly sexy Supreme Commander, of course). I’ve personally been following the development of Dungeon Siege 2 since the moment it was announced, taking in each newly released screenshot and interview with a bit of my inner-fanboy emerging with every new screenshot pixel or interview letter.

However many years later, and Gas Powered Games makes the announcement I’ve been waiting for: it went gold. And take a look at those screenshots (Or the ones from my DS2 gallery)… Wait, what has Gas Powered Games doing doing all these years? What the hell? This game isn’t new. What the hell. They didn’t change anything. What the hell!

What you’ve been absorbing is the best example of a game being released where the development company has all the resources of every other game development company around and uses them to… make a better game? That’s right. Almost three-four years in development under the guiding powers of the infamous Chris Taylor (of Total Annihilation fame), Gas Powered Games now prepares to release the sequel to their Dungeon Siege franchise for the video gaming consumption of rabid gamers everywhere. And in these three years in development, the graphics engine was hardly touched at all. Sure the textures are crisper and some shader effects were thrown in, but the graphics engine for Dungeon Siege 2 is essentially the same one we all saw in the first game. This is one of the best instances I’ve ever seen where a developer has actually decided to divert their focus from the much criticized “graphics over gameplay” path that a lot of developers take, and instead focus almost all of their time trying to make their game world seem more alive through details while simultaneously spending time to make the actual gameplay perfect. Three years in development, and we get what Chris Taylor says “is the closest to perfection I’ve ever come on any game I’ve done!” Bold words from a game designer said to revolutionize the real-time strategy genre with Total Annihilation.

And here’s where the point comes in: gamers are already up-in-arms about Dungeon Siege 2. And not about the developer’s immense focus on detail and gameplay, but rather about the developer’s lack of time spent upgrading the graphics engine. Comments I’ve seen from average gamers across a number of sites chastise Gas Powered Games (though, not directly of course, that would require backbone and thought) for releasing a game in 2005 that looks “so bad,” yet go on to complain about the original game being a “screensaver.” The nerve of Gas Powered Games! What were they thinking when they were following the ideal that so many critical editorials and articles express their fears that games are becoming so technologically advanced that the gameplay begins to suffer. What on Earth were they thinking in actually spending time trying to perfect their new game’s gameplay instead of focusing on visuals?

And there’s the beauty of this industry folks: graphics make the game. Despite whatever article on any game development, game review, or game-related website or periodical may say, at the end of the day, a game simply cannot be released these days unless it’s using a shader model higher than any graphics card can support, unless it is taking advantage of HDR lighting, lens flares, per-pixel lighting, physically accurate shadows, mega-detailed textures, and super-shiny rough wooden surfaces (because that’s totally realistic, dude). Nobody wants to play a visually par game anymore; hell, take a look at Battlefield 2. A ridiculously popular game, yet, it’s released months before it should have been so buyers can function as beta testers, and with requirements that alienate anybody without the latest and greatest graphics cards. The video game industry is an industry well-versed in gamer hypocrisy, and the developers acknowledge it when they release games like Battlefield 2, Half-Life 2 (it’s not a good game, I’m sorry), and DOOM 3.

If gamers really do mean it when they say that they would rather have a visually sub-par game with excellent gameplay, then let’s all put our money where our mouth is. Buy games like Dungeon Siege 2. Reward the developers for releasing a great game and focusing on what really matters to gamers everywhere: the gameplay. I will be buying Dungeon Siege 2 as soon as I possibly can, and not only to support the developer’s focus on gameplay, but because I think their laser-like focus and precision during the development of Dungeon Siege 2 has resulted in one of the best action/RPGs in gaming history being released on August 16th, 2005.

This entry was written by Trent Polack, posted on 7/29/2005 at 7:28 pm, filed under Gaming, Programming. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Trackbacks are closed, but you can post a comment.
  • Irongrave
    EXCELLENT article.

    This is so true of games these days.

    You have to wonder, once we hit photorealism in games, what will all these studios that put out games with graphics over gameplay do?

    Your comments on Battlefield 2 are DEAD ON. And on top of things, THEY ROLLED BACK THE DAMN PATCH THEY RELEASED TO FIX THE PROBLEMS.

    They had a hotfix for a hotfix!

    Let's hope Unreal Tournament 2007, Huxley, and Gears of War aren't all eye candy and no substance.

    Let's face it... graphics are impressive, but they don't make the game.

    Gameplay alone can make a good game, but gameplay, story, AND graphics can make a GREAT game.
  • It is indeed the whole package that counts, and my extremely negative portrayal of Half-Life 2 is done for a very valid reason: it's a decent game, but it's not the greatest thing to ever happen to the gaming world.

    I'd much rather an honest-to-god fun game start raking in the awards and recognition it deserves, rather than a decent game with cool physics and graphics. I'm currently playing through Psychonauts, and I must say this is one of the most "fresh" games I've played in a very, very long time. And you know what happened as a result of it? The publisher went bankrupt, which wasn't entirely due to or even the fault of Psychonauts, but it's a good example of a publisher that took a chance on a game like that.
  • I don't think I'm capable of writing a response to your comment. I tried, but even I could not muster up the words for expressing how idiotic that comment was.

    Bravo, Kieron. You win... the prize?
  • Kieron Saputier
    This is one of the most subtle trolls I've seen. Working in a sophisticated bluff about liking DS 1 (absurd!), criticising DS2 (or is is praising? Nothing like clarity. NOTHING like clarity.) but all the while the whole point of the "article" is to denigrate Half Life 2 (not as good as we'd hoped but still good). Bravo!
  • Half-Life 2 was a fantastic game. Why can't you just admit it, mittens?
  • Threw up a fairly long article about Half-Life 2: http://www.polycat.net/?p=1067

    Keep the HL discussion there, preferably.
  • Anonymous
    One of the best sequels I've encountered was Europa Universalis 2. The graphics were pretty much the same as EU1 (and other Paradox games of that genre), but the gameplay was expanded immensely. I almost didn't get EU2 because I looked at the box and thought "I've already got this game" but then I saw it on sale and went ahead and bought it. Best decision ever. I have high hopes DS2 will be a repeat of that though it's still a game where you are heavily outnumbered by your henchmen. If the henchmen AI is good, you have a screensaver. If it's gimped, you have Guild Wars.
  • At least you actually put why you like it into words, but had you read this comment, you could've seen that I do in fact plan to write-up an editorial on why Half-Life 2 is not a good game. It is certainly a wonderful technical achievement, but a wonderful game? Not quite.

    I'll write up my reasons for saying such in an hour or so (after I get an early dinner).
  • JTait
    1. You make a case a good case of the hypocrisy of gamers, in that we always espouse gameplay first but complain when a game is released with subpar graphics. However what you fail to do is explain why Dungeon Siege 2 will be anything more than the "mildly interactive screensaver" of the first. Everything I've seen seems to suggest that the game still mostly boils down to deciding when to drink a potion, although admittedly I haven't followed the game very closely since I thought the first was a waste.

    2. I can see someone making a case that Half-Life 2 is overhyped and merely just a great game as opposed to "best game evar omg lolz 1111!!!11". To say it's not even a good game however is absurd. Given that you give no reasons for not liking it I can only assume that shooters arn't your thing and that Half-Life 2 didn't bring something to the formula that would change that opinion. (Note: it did bring some new stuff to the shooter formula, maybe that wasn't enough to interest you)

    3. Why I think Half-Life 2 is a great game:

    A. Economy of Design: The game starts out entirely uninteractive, then you have the ability to move, then to interact with NPCs and listen to conversations, then you get a melee weapon, then a pistol that you use for a while to get comfortable with shooting, then you have a vehicle sequence where you still frequently have to dismount and use the skills you've already developed, then you get the grav gun and a level that teaches you how to use it, etc.

    What I'm getting at here is that the game starts out simply and keeps adding additional layers on top of the gameplay elements you've had time to master. Each level adds a new gameplay element that continually keeps the experience fresh, exciting and challenging. The games pacing contributes to this as each level lasts just long enough for you to master the current challenge and then a new layer is added on top and you are given time to master it while still using previously mastered layers.

    When you actually count up the number of layers it's remarkably few. The game acheives diverse gameplay by letting the different layers interact with each other and allowing the player to decide how to apply the layers he has mastered to a given situation. Rather than giving you a bunch of stuff to do all at the beginning of the game, Half-Life 2 instead carefully doles out new gameplay that builds upon previously mastered gameplay. This all goes back to what I initally titled this: Economy of Design creating diverse and interesting gameplay with only a handful of gameplay elements (or layers).

    B. Immersion/Atmosphere: This is partially the result of extremely vivid graphical technology and partially the talent Valve (and a couple other developers like the defunct Looking Glass Studios) has for creating incredibly immersive worlds.

    Look at the game Thief, you rarely feel as if you are just playing a game instead you feel as if you are Garret and you really are creeping through a fat nobleman's mansion. Looking Glass was able to acheive that despite very primitive graphic technology. What exactly it is that creates that immersion I can't really verbalize but I can say it is definitely present in Thief and is definitely not present in more pedestrian first person games such as Medal of Honor.

    Half-Life 2 has very advanced graphic technology, but that can be a hindrance as any flaws in the way characters move or in texturing or something along those lines becomes much more noticable than in a game where the graphics are quite poor. To a certain extent this is the case in Half-Life 2 because the graphics are not perfect, they are close but the inevitable flaws are all the more noticable. Even so, the game still acheives that same immersion that Thief does, and almost all other games don't.

    The moment you step out of the trainstation and see the citadel. When you stand on top of the dam at the end of Water Hazard and can see Ravenholm off in the distance. When you explore the abandoned buildings on the coast. These moments all feel real, it isn't just a game your playing you actually feel like you are there. The number of games that acheive that effect are very very few but Half Life 2 is one of them.

    C. I'm getting tired of writing at this point but there are numerous other, less high level reasons why I enjoy Half-Life 2: the shooting feels exceptionally solid, the AI behavior is intelligent, the levels are very well paced, designed and never just a shooting gallery. There's more but I'm done for now.
  • anon//
    I love it when people proclaim how great a game is and then assume everyone else must love it too.

    In my opinion Dungeon Siege had repetitive game play, a boring and dull story at best and the interface mechanics were severely lacking. Now that I have had time to play through the second one for my job I can safely say I feel the sequel is even worse.

    But who cares it’s just my opinion and I guess that’s the point
  • THINK OF THE CHILDREN.
  • I'll probably throw up an entire editorial on why Half-Life 2 is not actually a good game.

    By the time you're done reading such an article, you will agree. Or you will die.
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