Editor's nook...

First Looks

Woo! A few days ago, I got to play a demo of Siege. Now, it wasn’t exactly the game, but the demo did shed light on some of the features that a player would normally use. You should be able to pick up your own copy of a demo pretty soon. It’s supposed to be attached to the August 2000 date issue of Computer Gaming World (in news-stands and mailboxes on 4 July).

I also peeked at the discussion boards or forums that will be available on the website. So far, everything’s OK. I’m not sure exactly when they’ll be open to the public, but when they do, I hope that you will take to reading the discussion boards as well.

Let's see, so do you want to hear about the demo? The artwork is the same as what’s used in the game. I really dug the artwork. The “look and feel” is pretty consistent all throughout. For instance, when you’re dressing your character, you still feel like you’re in that time period because of the art.

If you’re fashion-conscious, you can choose the hair color of player character and his clothes. If you don’t like the standard clothes, you can buy and sell items as you please. Also, you can layer on clothing or armor. If you load up on armor though, your Restriction attribute goes up. This makes sense because you’re dragging around the weight of the armor. You’re not going to be as agile as before.

The interface is fairly intuitive. There aren’t a zillion buttons to remember. Click and get your attributes or your map or your journal. There’s a really nice blue amulet to the right that measures mana, and another meter for your health. And if you pick up a magic sword or a cloak, your attributes automatically change.

I stomped around the castle (and its levels). I had on “X-Ray mode,” which allowed me to see through walls. Outside, little rats were scurrying about. I tried out a few spells on some attacking Dire Wolves and then went inside to beat up a friendly NPC. Now, normally, you wouldn’t beat up the nice townsfolk because they usually have important information to do with the story, but, hey, this was a testing environment.

This particular demo didn’t have anything on the main Siege story, so you’ll just have to wait before I can tell you anything on that.

Til next time,
Sande