Dungeon Siege vs Vaporum: Lockdown
Dungeon Siege
Dungeon Siege is a classic dungeon crawler that predates the first Torchlight but not the Diablo series. In this game, you play as a humble farmer who sets off across a 3D fantasy world, battling against hordes of enemies as the storyline unfolds. The most interesting part of this game, back in the day, is that it's a dungeon crawling game that is set above ground and surprisingly not in dungeons. In some way, it is more like certain parts of Diablo 2 and also Path of Exile.The game also has an interesting take on loot and inventory management. You'll get a ton of loot as befit a dungeon crawler, but the thing is you have a very limited inventory, even with a pack mule, and no vendors nearby enough to sell your loot to. So, you'll likely end up throwing most stuff on the ground just so you can move on. Dungeon Siege even allows you to assemble up to a party of 8 characters to aid you in your journey.
However, Dungeon Siege is a really old game and as such, the Steam version does have its fair share of glitches. You may experience constant crashes and installation difficulties even if you're running a top-notch desktop set-up. Some players have also mentioned that the ending of the game was cropped off somehow and that this version of the game doesn't include its expansion or a multiplayer option.
All in all, Dungeon Siege is among the top 5 classic dungeon crawlers back in the day and if you are interested to give it a try, you can get the game for as low as $1 during a Steam sale.
Vaporum: Lockdown
Vaporum: Lockdown is a first-person, dungeon crawler featuring old-school grid-based dungeon-crawling gameplay with real-time combat, fun Sokoban-like puzzles, cool steampunk-themed setting, and an intriguing mystery to uncover. In this game, you play as a scientist, Ellie, who’s trapped within a locked-down facility called the Arx Vaporum filled with murderous robots and mutated creatures. Will Ellie be able to escape the place in one piece? What will she discover as she makes her way through Arx Vaporum?In terms of gameplay, you’ll be moving Ellie, the protagonist of the story, one grid at a time. Turning to face a certain direction before you can say turn a corner also requires an extra tap of the keyboard. However, this also means that you can actually move like a crab in this game if you’re sure of the path you’re on. Like most dungeon crawlers, Vaporum: Lockdown comes with devious traps, enemies and puzzles. Traps in this game can be rather easily avoided as long as you got the timing down right.
The interesting part about this game is that combat plays out in real-time here, unlike any other old-school dungeon crawlers we have experienced before. This means that it is entirely possible to loop a sequence of “move and attack” when facing something stationary so you can avoid getting hit at all. However, this also means that more mobile enemies can be trickier to slay – it all boils down to timing really.
There are also fun Sokoban-like puzzles in this game. Most of them involve having you to move crates around to fill holes in the ground, block danger from the path you want to take, or even to serve as paperweights on metal pressure plates. For hardcore treasure seekers, the game even has several hidden compartments that an inquisitive explorer might be able to find, each of these alcoves usually come with some nice rewards. There is a sufficient variety of loot, and you can get better gear as you progress.
Being a prequel of the highly-successful Vaporum, Vaporum: Lockdown definitely does the original game, and the Vaporum universe as a while, proud. Besides the few new features here and there, the gameplay is generally similar to the original title and hence, would be instantly familiar to fans of Vaporum. The storytelling here is great as well, offering so much more lore than before, and of course, the fantastic atmosphere here will pull you right into the fumium-obsessed world that Ellie Teller lives in.