Oh dear. Gas Powered Games has set loose a demo for their upcoming sci-fi action RPG. Space Siege, so named because it's a follow-up to Dungeon Siege and not because it has anything to do with the unlikely activity of laying siege to space, looks pretty underwhelming so far.

The Dungeon Siege games, which actually had nothing to do with sieging dungeons, were widely criticized for being too streamlined in a genre that's already streamlined, thank you very much. It would seem the lesson Gas Powered took from that criticism is that Space Siege needs more streamlining. So there's no treasure to be found out here in space. Instead, there are only piles of generic "upgrade materials" that you scoop up with the Z key, and then spend improving your guns, or buying health potions. Also on show in the brief demo are wonky crate physics, deadly explosive canisters, the plasma sword from Halo, and a control scheme that's the exact opposite of how I want to play in a cramped space dungeon.

Instead of the promise of loot, a staple of action RPGs, Space Siege offers...well, from the demo, I'm not sure what it offers. There's a skill tree and a set of abilities, each divided into combat and engineering tabs, but no word on how those work. Somewhere along the line, you get a robot sidekick called an HR-V. He's not in the demo either.

Instead, you get a taste of standard-issue combat and some sort of nonsense where you replace your legs and your arm with robot parts to avoid being Too Human. Oh, the irony. I'm not sure what a robot arm and robot legs do in Space Siege, but a computer voice nagged me into swapping out my real arm and legs. So, off they go, and now I look like some half-assed Terminator vacuuming up "upgrade materials" when I'm not busy holding down the right mouse button to attack. Here's the part where I'd normally say something about this is only a demo, so the full game might be better.

See for yourself by going to the official Space Siege page and...oh, wait, no sign of the demo there. You'll have to grab it on someone else's bandwidth, like here, here, or here.