Desperation will lead a man to do strange and ill advised things. Eating your deceased and frozen friends after surviving a plane crash in the mountains comes to mind, and while no actual cannibalism occurs in Space Siege, it is not that bad of a comparison. I had a strong desire to click on things until they died while collecting their leavings to pimp out my character; watching too many Diablo III videos will do that. In spite of a lackluster demo, I ran out and bought Space Siege and got only part of what I asked for. There is a lot of clicking on generic looking aliens which I would describe as adequate and no more, but no depth behind it, and none of the obsessive loot gathering that made the previous Siege games suitable Diablo clones.

Space Siege occupies an unfortunate middle ground between much superior games. On the action RPG side, there are dozens of titles, most notably Dungeon Siege 2 and the exceptional and apparently rampantly pirated Titan Quest. On the just plain old action side sits Shadowgrounds and Shadowgrounds Survivor, two excellent low budget isometric shooters that are both very good ways to kill a weekend. Space Siege does its best to balance the two sub-genres, with RPG-like character customization minus all that pesky ‘looking at stats three menus deep into a cumbersome UI.’ The tragedy here is that it is this tightrope act that keeps the game from being any more than clichéd and average. One step toward Diablo-ness would add in actual equipment instead of identical upgrade parts that are little more than currency to buy stat bonuses and abilities, thus removing all the excitement of stumbling upon a new weapon. Falling off towards full on action would at the very least allow moving while shooting, adding strategy to combat that, as it sits, is a simple contest of firepower. Space Siege is either an extremely streamlined action RPG or an average top down shooter with control issues; neither of which is very appealing.

There are some attempts at character customization that work marginally well. The player is given the option throughout the game to install cybernetic parts at the expense of his humanity. I saw no reason to cling to my fragile flesh, and went all out cyber, suffering no penalties for it; the choice has a very positive effect on the combat and no noticeable negative impact on the story, but at least there was the option to be a prude for no good reason. The same is true for special abilities: ability points are handed out after story events, and not as a part of a leveling system. There are quite a few choices to be made along two different ability trees and the best powers cannot be reached without planning ahead. The loot/currency system does not fare as well, and actually ends up interfering; there was more than enough loot available to completely power up both my character and my robot sidekick, overcompensating for any mistakes I made choosing powers. I took a very balanced approach, which I realized half way through was not the best idea, but it didn’t matter. By the end, I was a cybernetic killing machine with a mute robot badass lackey, suffering no real bonuses or hindrances from past decisions.

Space Siege fails because it cannibalizes better games in a half-hearted way. If it had chosen a single genre to rip off, it would have fared better. The game isn’t terrible, there are just easily obtainable, much better alternatives. As much as I hate boiling game choice down to simple economics, here is the formula: Space Siege is currently $50. For that price, you could get Titan Quest Gold, Shadowgrounds Survivor and a six pack of Guinness. I’m no financial genius, but 40-plus hours of better game play on top of several pints of stout sounds much better than the eight hours of so-so genre straddling I just endured, minus the benefits of alcohol.