Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony

Like it or not, the PSP is home to a mountain of ported-over console games that don't receive a lot of extra lovin' to make them appealing for the handheld crowd. The upcoming translation of PC-hit Dungeon Siege, however, seems to be a wholly new, overhead action RPG, recreated from the ground up to be a completely new experience... with a little trimming here and there to pack it all onto a tiny disc.

On the PC, Siege put you in control of a custom-made character, ready to traverse deadly underground passages and all that good Lord of the Rings type of stuff - you'd also have an entire posse of computer-controlled friends following your every move, ready to lash out at whatever monsters might be lurking in the shadows. For the PSP, you're limited to just two premade heroes (a battle mage or hefty warlord) and only one helper character to bring up the rear. Some may see this as horrendous corner cutting, but we sure didn't mind being able to hop right into the action with ready-to-go warriors.

The point of the slimmed-down party (other than storage issues, natch) is to streamline Siege for the handheld, but there are still plenty of ways to leave your mark. After you've caved in enough troll skulls or whatever, you decide which class your character journeys on to. For example, the battle mage could either go light or dark, then keep powering up along that path - there are six choices in all for both heroes. Unique skills, like dual-wielding for the warlord and the battle mage's elemental magic attacks, follow suit.

Brett Elston

A fomer Executive Editor at GamesRadar, Brett also contributed content to many other Future gaming publications including Nintendo Power, PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazine. Brett has worked at Capcom in several senior roles, is an experienced podcaster, and now works as a Senior Manager of Content Communications at PlayStation SIE.