Dungeon Siege

13. January 2025 /
  • Information
  • Original Soundtrack

Year: 2002

Type: Original Soundtrack (OST)

Composer(s): Jeremy Soule

Number of tracks: 41

Rating

★★★★★

Buried underground

This is the music review of
Legends of Aranna (2003).

If only I could enthuse about Dungeon Siege, the first work by Chris Taylor's studio Gas Powered Games (later Wargaming Seattle), which sweetened my life so much with the first Supreme Commander . I would love to say that I had countless hours of fun with the action RPG back in the distant year 2002 - but I didn't. At least not really.

Because even if I were to claim to have played Dungeon Siege I wouldn't go so far as to say I 'played' it. In fact, I only lasted two or three hours before I got bored with it. That said, I have more experience playing the thing than some others. At this point, I'd like to tell you a little anecdote that I unfortunately wasn't involved in:

It was a LAN party, one of the first that my brother had attended with his buddy Marvin and to which I, as a little brother, was of course not allowed to go. In addition to various shooters, everything that was remotely multiplayer-compatible was shoved into the drive. This included Dungeon Siege, which one of the LAN participants - let's call him Mr. T - had brought along.

Since in Dungeon Siege we embark on the adventure as a group in the best pen & paper style, the computer takes control of the companions in the single player. Multiplayer is therefore easy to implement, but with an average playing time of 30 hours, the game is more suited to long-term gaming than a time- and space-limited gaming interlude.

However, this role-playing game had a great trick that we usually only know from MMORPGs these days: /follow. With this command, for example in WoW , our character simply follows the selected person. Handy if you have to leave your PC for a moment and are heading in the same direction anyway. Meanwhile, Dungeon Siege went one step further! Because not only do our heroes run after a person by command, no, the computer also takes control and uses weapons, abilities and potions - and quite competently too.

And so, according to the story, after a few bumpy first few minutes, the party following Mr. T suddenly seemed much more coordinated and as though they were sticking to his verses. Sentences such as “Wow guys, you're doing really well now!” are said to have been uttered. What Mr. T hadn't noticed was the fact that his teammates had long since gone downstairs for dinner and he was having a private party, completely absorbed in the game. It would almost be sad if it wasn't so funny. For this reason, the phrase “/follow” is deeply etched in my memory and the story amuses me, my brother and even Mr. T to this day.

Let's move on to the soundtrack. Like what feels like half of all scores from the early 2000s, it comes from the disgraced American Jeremy Soule (more on this in About Cancel Culture) and is in the same vein as that of Neverwinter Nights. In fact, the score is so similar that I'll briefly revisit my earlier conclusion:

Even if [...] the score for Neverwinter Nights is the 32nd entry in his impressive videography, the music here still feels a little too formulaic. Every artist has his or her own style, of course, but the elements such as distant drums that build suspense with dark winds and strings are something I've heard better before - whether because of more moving melodies or nostalgic romanticization, I can't say. To me, hardly anything about Neverwinter Nights stands out from the crowd.

About Neverwinter Nights

If we replaced Neverwinter Nights with Dungeon Siege, I could save myself a lot of writing and you reading - but that would be too easy. After all, the album is not a carbon copy, but differs in a few essential points. Firstly, the number of tracks: although the Dungeons & Dragons-role-playing game has 66 tracks, the 41 tracks from Dungeon Sieges are significantly longer and the score is even half an hour longer with a runtime of two hours. However, according to the fan wiki it is only an OST on paper because it was never officially released.

In fact, many short pieces were cut together in this version, which I find both a shit and a shame. Because not only are the individual songs sometimes up to nine minutes long (I hate that), but they also mix up motifs and emotional worlds. So, as with Fortress Kroth a heroic onslaught can be followed by a harp melody and then boring ambient noise, which of course drags the overall rating down. Conversely, I don't see it as my responsibility to break down each track individually and talk about time codes when this is the unofficial 'official' form of presentation.

Der andere Punkt, der Dungeon Siege of Neverwinter Nights The other point of difference between Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights is the fact that the former manages to be even more boring. I don't know what it is. Is it me? Can I only listen to game music from the 2000s with nostalgic glorification, or is this score just not 'that good'? The lack of highlights would certainly speak for this. All in all, this album falls even more into the category of ambient-leftovers - which is a shame.

This is particularly disappointing for me as a connoisseur of Soule's other works, because set pieces from other albums appear again and again: the strings from Star Trek: New Worlds (Glacem, Subterranean River), the brass from Supreme Commander (Goblin Caves), the percussion from The Elder Scrolls / Guild Wars (Dragon’s Lair), the action from Knights of the Old Republic (Commander Gom) or the magical feel of Harry Potter (Flooded Dungeon, The King, King Konreid) - they all remind me of brilliance that I find lacking here.

The only ray of hope is the main theme, which jumps out at us with its dramatic strings and trumpets and gets quoted in other tracks such as Ice Bridge, Drums or Miscellaneous. Unsurprisingly, we hear it most clearly in Dungeon Siege and the Credits. I like the speed and the relentlessness with which the digital orchestra rushes forward. But in the end, this theme promises more than the score can ultimately deliver ... which is probably largely due to the way it is presented. Sequenced, the album could certainly thrill me more, but it remains one of Soule's weaker works. But does this also apply to the ex Legends of Aranna expansion?

Nostalgia warning

The rating of the individual tracks is purely subjective and clearly colored by my own experience with the game. You can find out more in the article About Nostalgia.

  • Original Soundtrack

Legends of Aranna

  • Information
  • Original Soundtrack

Year: 2003

Type: Original Soundtrack (OST)

Composer(s): Jeremy Soule

Number of tracks: 17

Rating

★★★★★

In short: yes. Legends of Aranna, die Standalone-Erweiterung, die Ende 2003, also anderthalb Jahre nach Dungeon Siege is not one of Soule's big hits and therefore fails to live up to my expectations. Like the main game, there is only one entry for the score of Aranna in the fan wiki, which is why I use the term OST (original soundtrack), but it is not an officially published soundtrack.

Sounds confusing? Good! Because in addition to the fact that the tracks are again made up of different fragments, according to the the wiki, the track The Dead. Den gibt’s dafür in diesem YouTube-Video zu hören und, ausgehend von der Länge der Stücke, ist er auch nicht irgendwo fälschlicherweise hinzugezählt worden … deshalb taucht er jetzt in meiner Liste auf. So faul ich auch bin, da greift meine Pedanterie.

Where was I? Oh yes, music. By and large, it is on a par with that of the main game, even if thankfully none of the pieces break the five-minute mark. Only the nice action pieces Arhok and The Haunted Ruins, the ominous The Skull of Cicatrix, the soulful The Ultreans and the Easter Egg track The Secret Disco Theme, der mit seinem 60er Club-Feeling dezent aus der Reihe boogiet. Für seine Zeit sicherlich ein vorzeigbarer Score, reicht die Qualität heute leider kaum noch an die gewohnten Standards. Wie ein Wein, der etwas zu lange im Keller gelegen hat.

  • Original Soundtrack

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