Time for a little siege – review of the game “Besiege”

Is it easy to build machines that cause death and destruction? Catapults, trebuchets or ballistae do not seem so complicated, and the structures of the famous Renaissance man from the city of Vinci, although quite advanced, have nothing to do with modern machinery. However, appearances can be confusing, and we can find out about it quite easily.

Several trained engineers are required to operate this device

Besiege is a game about, as you can easily guess after the introduction, creating combat machines. We play the role of a constructor, whose task is to create a device to wipe out incoming enemies from the face of the earth, or to perform another assigned task. We receive unlimited resources to achieve the goal, and the only limits are our imagination, unrelenting physics and sometimes a clearly defined area on which our work can grow to the maximum. The multitude of elements and the great freedom of combining them mean that you can really let your imagination run wild.

The production from Spiderling Studios presents us with a number of challenges that we have to overcome to unlock new locations full of new missions. The tasks we are faced with require the creation of a new device almost every time that allows us to destroy enemy forces or structures, transport certain things or travel a dangerous path. It is in vain to look for a deeper plot here, we just follow orders, and these, although very similar to each other, require a completely different approach each time. However, if we get bored with the implementation of the imposed goals, we can always use the editor and create our own challenges, play in a sandbox that allows for free creativity, or try to play with other players in a multiplayer madness. What like what, but you can’t complain about boredom.

I am not such an orc

Mechanics Besiegeseems quite simple. We have a lot of elements sorted according to their purpose, which we connect with each other with single clicks, starting with a small block, which is the heart of our machine. Unfortunately, the descriptions of the parts that we can use are limited only to the name and indication of the activation key, if the selected ingredient has any abilities, so we learn how they work through trial and error, and full understanding of their potential comes after many failures . The aforementioned physics does not help either. The structures are extremely fragile, a shot from a disposable cannon sometimes breaks quite a large part of the machine, opponents armed with bows can quickly deprive us of any illusions about domination, and the steering wheels work very chaotically, making your driving attempts end up with something resembling convulsions. Add to this such flavors as the possibility of the machine breaking under too heavy armor, the wheels falling apart when hitting a fragment of a recently destroyed turret, or component parts tearing off when you twist or stretch the rope too much, and we have a picture of the game with a fairly large threshold of entry.

Work work!

Visually Besiegeit looks nice, although quite sparingly. Buildings, vegetation, game and opponents, consisting of rather simple blocks, are full of details, as are all the components of the machines we construct, which makes the whole thing look like a fairy tale. The apparent idyll, however, is brutally destroyed when living creatures meet the blades or projectiles of a deadly arsenal, because they seem to pay tribute to Quentin Tarantino’s films and can spew really absurd amounts of blood. It only takes a moment for the natural colors of the murderous device to turn red, and the corpses lying everywhere, disturbing the ride, only complete the picture of the horror movie. However, beyond the goal of the task, full of buildings, trees, shrubs and rocks, we are surrounded by an endless void, undisturbed by even the mountains looming in the distance, merging with a single-colored, unnatural ground. The whole thing therefore gives an intriguing impression of a simulation serving only to test the new ideas of a crazy engineer. Acoustically, we will not experience any special fireworks. In the background we play with calm, slightly sleepy music, the opponents screaming as if from a distance while dying, and the sounds of the guns do not make too much impression. Only the sounds of the bodies being crushed or blown up seem to be more emphasized, which gives a rather grotesque effect. and the sounds of the guns are not very impressive. Only the sounds of the bodies being crushed or blown up seem to be more emphasized, which gives a rather grotesque effect. and the sounds of the guns don’t make too much impression. Only the sounds of the bodies being crushed or blown up seem to be more emphasized, which gives a rather grotesque effect.

The game from Spiderling Studios, through a high entry threshold and illegibility requiring the player to use the trial and error method very often, makes this title not for everyone and probably many can simply bounce off it. The sloppy controls combined with ruthless physics do not help either, but if you have enough patience, are creative, inquisitive and love to construct complex mechanisms, I heartily recommend you try to become the new Leonardo da Vinci!