Now more than a year and a half since the release of DS, Microsoft Game Studios has shipped the Dungeon Siege expansion pack: Legends of Aranna. With all the time that has elapsed between the releases of DS and its expansion, one has to wonder if anything significant was added to warrant gamers to spend their hard earned holiday cash on it. And the answer is, "that depends." It depends upon your original feelings for the game, as this really isn’t an expansion per se but more of the same with a few minor changes, think of it as the original plus a pack of mods.

To start with, there’s the obligatory new single-player campaign, which takes 15-20 hours to complete. Unfortunately, there is no way to import your party members from the original game, which is pretty odd in light of the fact that Microsoft bundled the original game with the expansion, (which was a good move that I wish others would follow). This seems like a form of punishment to those die-hard fans that actually have kept their characters around hoping for an expansion.

Legends of Aranna does offer up some new features that are worth mentioning, starting with a few new spell types that add to the fun, such as orb and transformation spells. Orb spells allow a magic user to cast an orb of a certain element (ice, fire, etc.) that circles around the caster attacking any foes within range with spells based on the orb’s elemental damage type. These orbs will last a predetermined amount of time based on the spell’s level and enhance mage survivability quite a bit. The second new spell type, transformations, may be even more fun as they can turn your once "wimpy if attacked" magic user into a formidable melee combatant such as a rock beast or scorpion. This can be quite handy if your melee types have been wiped out and you need to quick-change in order to protect a healer character.

Taking a page right out of Diablo 2 is the inclusion of treasure sets and imbued magical items. Item sets are comprised of 3-5 pieces for each set. Each set piece will bestow additional stat bonuses, skills, etc. to the character wearing them. However, when all the pieces to the set are collected, then the set as a whole will endow additional bonuses. Imbued magical items have properties that increase your skills. After a bit of time, your characters will become so powerful, that you will realize there really is not much need to have carry a +1 skills weapon or a just a plain weapon of the same type.

By the time you’ve played the game for 4-5 hours, you may have wish for a sudden death or even a hint of danger. Characters will become so powerful in their own right that your party will be mowing down mobs indiscriminately with little need for your input, other than pushing keys for mana or health potions in order to replenish your charges.

To enhance character control, you are able to now record and control up to ten different combinations of spells and or actions to take by your party. Using the CTRL key and number keys a lá most RTS games, you are able to switch casting combinations on-the- fly. Examples include placing your summoning spells on ctrl 3, orb on ctrl 2 and healing on ctrl 1 and the like. This allows you to place non-active spells on ctrl keys so that now you won’t have to click on a mage’s inventory and then click on his spell book in order to change the active spell. Other developers should take note of this feature as it allows much more flexibility in combat for your party by having the ability to cast up to 20 spells instead of just one or two favorites, adding to the tactical feel of party combat immensely.

Two new party loot features have also been added, and are certainly worth noting. The first is the addition of a new type of pack animal: the Tragg. Even though the Tragg cannot hold as much loot on it as the trusty ol’ pack mule, it’s far more aggressive in its defense of the party and of itself. You can even tell the Tragg to attack. Although I for one don’t know about the wisdom of sending all your hard fought loot that’s on your packbeast back into battle. The second loot feature is the "Sell All" button. Now, there’s no more pulling one item at a time and selling it to the vendor. Nope, now you can sell your whole backpack with one little click of the mouse. You can also customize this feature by telling it what to sell, i.e. "sell all but potions and scrolls" and whatever other combos you can come up with. However, just in case you do make a mistake when selling, vendors will resell the items back to you at the price they paid you for it.

Although it’s been a year and a half since the original’s release, the graphics for Aranna are still excellent, even outshining some of today’s current releases. The only problem was that on the system that I tested Aranna with, which is Nvidia-based, the game would lock up on loading. After downloading the latest drivers on the Nvidia website the game ran smoothly with no hiccups, but I would interested to know if others had the same type problems.

The biggest complaint I had with the original DS was its sheer linearity, which has not changed at all with the Aranna expansion. Part of the delight in playing an exceptional or even a good RPG is the amount immersiveness of the environments and the ability to explore, which lets gamers in essence create their own stories. Aranna fails miserably to on both counts as you are basically led down a strict path which turns the game into a rail- shooter clone of Diablo 2. With a graphics engine this well done, one can only wonder how well the game would have been if there had been a whole world to explore, rather than what amounts to a one-way street.

Almost as irritating as the linearity of Aranna is the sheer amount of crate busting involved. Heck, I was almost reduced to tears trying to figure out why the majority of the gameplay should be devoted to busting crates and urns with not much time spent adventuring. If crate busting had been a skill like combat magic is, characters would be level 50 in it far in advance of any others. The over-reliance on crate busting, along with the slower pace of party combat, contributed to the snail-like pace of the game. This is certainly not a good sign for a game that wanted to be a Diablo 2 killer. After all, Diablo 2’s frenetic pace has earned it legions of rabid fans.

To sum it all up, I would only recommend Aranna to die-hard fans of the original Dungeon Siege. It’s just too slow and monotonous with all the crate busting to hold anyone else’s interest for long. There are better action RPG games out there such as Diablo 2 or the Icewind Dale series. Here’s to hoping that Dungeon Siege 2 will be a more enjoyable experience than the Legends of Aranna expansion is.