Space Siege Demo

The top-down hack-and-slash genre is dominated by giants like Diablo, but there are other decent games waiting for you out there as well. Dungeon Siege obviously comes to mind when the subject is raised, because it comes pretty close to Diablo in multiple ways, even if it does not surpass it. The mechanics are mostly the same and everything else feels familiar, except for the fact that it is not as cinematic or as intriguing as Blizzard’s creation.

Space Siege is created by the same developers as Dungeon Siege and it is basically the same concept, only with an entirely new setting to drive the gameplay. Hence, everything takes place in space now and aliens are the main cannon fodder this time around, while you get to wield powerful futuristic weapons and equip your character with bionic parts in order to make him stronger and more resilient.

Speaking of which, there are no classes and you cannot customize your character at the beginning of the game, because you are stuck with the one forced upon you by the developers. Hence, you have to play the role of Seth Walker, a combat engineer who must tackle an entire alien invasion mostly by himself. Although you get an android companion that can be customized, it doesn’t talk and it may as well be a walking gun turret.

Along the way, you can improve your character by acquiring new skills and abilities, although it is also possible to equip new weapons, which are upgradable as well. Not only that, but you can modify your body and add cybernetic implants too, including robotic arms and legs. This affects your humanity level, on the other hand, but since it doesn’t affect you, the story, or anything else, there’s nothing stopping you from becoming 100% machine by the end of the game.

The game moves and feels pretty nice, although the camera is a bit cumbersome to operate and it may take you a while to get used to it. You can observe that the level designers put a lot of work into the environment, since every area is highly detailed and full of interesting objects. Unfortunately, the levels do seem to repeat themselves after a while, which is probably because of there are only so many ways you can design a corridor before you go full circle.

In the end, Space Siege is definitely not a bad game, because there are worse examples out there. However, it’s not something you would want to replay multiple times either, nor does it feature any kind of memorable mechanics. Hence, if you are looking for a cheap and temporary thrill to fill ten hours of your life, then you probably won’t regret choosing Space Siege over something else, but you won’t celebrate the decision either.