Gas Powered Games and Microsoft have done themselves proud with the release of Dungeon Siege II. If you thought Dungeon Siege was great, you will be blown away by the sequel. Whenever a sequel to a game is released, there is always a bit of uncertainty that follows. You can put to rest all of those doubts because Dungeon Siege II is the only RPG to play right now.

In Dungeon Siege II there are three types of game play: single player, multiplayer (over a LAN) or online play. There are also three difficulty levels to choose from depending on your own individual skill level: easy, medium or hard. The character development supports this in every way with more character types to choose from than the original game. There are different races, each with different strengths and weaknesses, which keep to the general mold of most RPGs.

The thing to note about character types in DS2 is that the developers have tried very hard to create character classes that match the hybrid mold as much as possible; casters that can fight and fighter classes that can drop their weapons and cast a firebolt if they have to. This is an element of RPG characterisation that is being explored in quite a few games on the market at present, and DS2 delivers it without a flaw. This does not, however, overshadow the option for players to mold their characters as a single class type if they so choose.

For this review Dungeon Siege II was played over a LAN in multiplayer mode. Keeping to the tradition of RPG games, the storyline usually gives the characters a purpose and the party direction. That doesn't mean that the style of gameplay is restrictive in any way. Whatever characters you play and whatever decisions your party makes, there are several different outcomes that can be played out. To support this, the environments and levels in DS2 are huge with many areas to navigate and adventure.