Destineer subsidiary MacSoft has announced plans to ship its Macintosh conversion of Dungeon Siege on April 25. The game has reached Gold Master status, and is now in production, according to MacSoft.
A fantasy role playing game (RPG) with an emphasis on combat and action, Dungeon Siege employs a graphics engine that doesn’t require levels to “load,” so you don’t have to wait to get into the action — the 3D engine loads new scenery and content continuously.
Dungeon Siege takes another break from the traditional RPG experience by not requiring users to specify extensive characteristics about their character or party at the outset. While you have some basic control over how your game’s main character appears, his or her ability and skills will improve over time depending on how you want them to and how they need to be to solve the tasks at hand: As a battle-scarred warrior of immense strength, for example, or a spell-casting wizard, or an arrow-slinging archer. You can add new characters to your party as circumstances and funds sometimes allow, assembling a group of up to eight characters to explore the world together.
In addition to a lengthy single-player mode, Dungeon Siege sports multiplayer support to enable you to go head to head or together in a traveling party. You can play over LANs and through the Internet, and game matching is provided through GameRanger.
One of the best-selling PC games of 2002, Dungeon Siege was originally developed by Gas Powered Games, a game developer founded by some of the original talent behind the popular real time strategy game series Total Annihilation. It was published for the PC by Microsoft Corp. The Mac version’s development was handled by Westlake Interactive, and is one of the first titles to appear under the MacSoft label since Destineer acquired the company from Infogrames in January. MacSoft also recently released Master of Orion III. The company’s roster for 2003 also includes Unreal Tournament 2003, Halo and other A-list Mac games.
MacSoft’s Dungeon Siege requires a G3/450MHz or faster; Mac OS X 10.1.5 or higher; 16MB 3D graphics acceleration; and 256MB RAM. The game’s suggested retail price is US$49.99.