Space Siege First Look Preview

The obvious out of the way first – Space Siege, the upcoming sci-fi action RPG from Chris Taylor, the man behind PC classics Dungeon Siege, Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander – is indeed set in space. It also features a siege, and a pretty big one at that. You see the Kerak haven’t taken too kindly to humanity’s exploration of the universe, and have decided to, well, wipe us out. And they almost manage it, with a brutal and devastating invasion of Earth. Only a few city-sized ships escape. One, the Armstrong, carrying the generically named Seth Walker, aka, you, is under siege from the Kerak. So, as you’d expect, humanity’s fate lies in your hands. Good job you’re a battle-hardened solider with access to super powered robot upgrades then.

Space Siege is the result of Chris Taylor deciding to do a sci-fi version of Dungeon Siege, just better. But it also has an interesting hook. The ship’s AI has decided that the only way to beat back the ferocious Kerak attack is to fuse everyone with cybernetic upgrades. But our Seth doesn’t fancy that for the entire human race, and instead volunteers himself to go it alone, Terminator style, and clear out the Kerak infestation from within the Armstrong itself.

Doesn’t sound particularly interesting or unique, so far, right? Well it gets better. As you progress through the game you’ll get the opportunity to upgrade your body with increasingly powerful cybernetic modifications. “What’s wrong with that?” I hear you cry. “I quite fancy some super-powered cyborg action.” Well, the downside is the more you upgrade, the more of your humanity you’re handing over in exchange, and the more your appearance changes to reflect that.

This would be a mere afterthought if you just had to sit through a few lines of dialogue with Seth moaning about his lost humanity. I mean, who cares what the main character’s moral conundrum is? All we care about is taking that bad ass gun we’ve just grafted onto our arm out for an energy beam spin. Well, looks like Chris has thought of that, and has implemented a game mechanic to make you think twice before handing over your organs.

This comes in the form of a humanity score, which is essentially a meter showing your human/robot status. So you can max out the upgrades and tear a rather large hole through the game, or you can keep the mods to a minimum and get a different story, a different ending and a much harder challenge.

Sounds a bit like the Light side/Dark side thing from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to me – which also had different endings depending on moral decisions you made throughout the game. And so, well, perhaps Space Siege’s hook isn’t that unique an idea. But that doesn’t stop us liking the sound of it. I reckon most players will go full cyborg during their first play through, and, if they enjoyed themselves, will go back and try to finish the game while retaining their full humanity.

Space Siege looks a lot more casual than Chris’ other games. That TA and SC, two of the most hardcore real-time-strategy games around, and Dungeon Siege, a popular but not massive success, are Space Siege’s predecessors, is perhaps somewhat ironic. But when you think about it, and when you speak to Chris Taylor himself, it makes perfect sense. Gaming is changing. The rules are changing. Chris reckons super complicated hardcore games are on the way out. And he believes simpler, quicker, more action oriented games which gamers actually finish (Space Siege will take roughly 15-20 hours to complete), are on the way up. What we have here is the result of this realisation.

And you can see that in some of the game’s mechanics. When you die you re-spawn ala BioShock, so you won’t see a game over screen anywhere in Space Siege. The game won’t allow your character to fall off ledges or bridges into the lower bowels of the Armstrong either, instead putting up invisible barriers to make sure players won’t suffer annoying, frustrating deaths. And the combat is yet another effort to wrap dice-roll based shoot-outs in a real-time skill-based blanket (see Mass Effect and Tabula Rasa).

Chris says that lots of games suffer because while they appear to be 3D they are in fact one dimensional. He highlights this by showing off Space Siege’s multi-layered levels. So one second you’ll be on a bridge that peers down towards an endless black pit of doom, the next you’ll be lower down in the ship, with a sense that you’re actually underneath that bridge and not just somewhere else on the Armstrong. An interior section he showed off had Seth motoring his way through various Kerak in an area that had varied levels, with the combat spread across them all. It looks a lot better than fighting on a flat plane anyway.

Talking of looks, I wasn’t massively impressed with Space Siege’s graphics. I know it’s early days, indeed Chris made a point of mentioning it, and there’s some lovely physics, with grenades bouncing off walls, pretty explosions and impressive lighting, but nothing made me say “wow!”. I was especially disappointed by the Kerak, which looked to me like a really basic Alien/Tyranid hybrid, and not in the least bit frightening. That’s not to say the game won’t look incredibly polished when it’s released. All I’m saying is that at this early stage the game’s graphics aren’t blowing me away.

While Space Siege is a PC game right now, I’d bet my house on it coming to the consoles, in particular the Xbox 360. It just looks well suited to a pad, much more so than RTS Supreme Commander, which we revealed was coming to Microsoft’s next-gen machine back in October. Add to that the fact that the four-player online coop campaign, specifically designed for online play, doesn’t sound like a bad fit with Xbox LIVE, and you’ve got a home banker right there.

Will Space Siege turn out to be any good? It’s too early to call, and we’re waiting on some hands-on time before we start to cast judgement, but with such an impressive track record behind him, you wouldn’t expect anything other than high quality gaming from Chris Taylor’s talented fingertips. Now… where did I put that bionic eye?

Space Siege is set for release on PC sometime in Summer 2008.