You don't have to be a military expert to draw the conclusion that attempting to lay siege to an area the size of infinity is going to be a logistical nightmare, although such an attempt also carries the equally similar problems of it being physically and practically impossible. Nitpicking aside, Space Siege's name is little more than a reminder of the heritage of the game; think of it as the futuristic offspring of Gas Powered's previous Dungeon Siege series, only set in space and featuring a plethora of angry, human-hating aliens. On second thoughts, scrap the Dungeon Siege comparison, as comparing Space Siege to its sibling games is a privilege that it doesn't quite deserve.

Abandoning the standard fantasy world of magic, elves and swordplay usually favoured by point and click action games was a bit of risky decision, but admittedly quite an intriguing one, especially given Gas Powered's previous track record. The prospect of playing a similar sort of game with a different set of rules could have led to something memorable - so it's a real shame that from the start you never get the impression that Space Siege is little more than filler, a game you're playing simply because you have nothing else to occupy yourself with.

It hardly gets off to a flying start as far as the story is concerned, not exactly the most important feature but one that's often overlooked and, in this case, lacking any concerted effort to make you care about what's going on. Set in the future, Earth is attacked by an alien species called the Kerak, leaving only one surviving ship unscathed, which carries the last human survivors. As they break through the Kerak invasion fleet the ship is boarded, leaving you as the only qualified man (i.e. not dead yet) left to wipe out the alien invaders and save what's left of humanity. The End. Don't expect to invest much interest in either the characters or their situation, as you'll give up caring once the intro has stopped playing.

This sets the scene well enough though, a last ditch attempt to fight off an aggressive alien force in order to save mankind - it's certainly not original but it could have been epic in scope. The fact that the word 'Space' is in the title would also indicate that space is something you would expect to see a lot of, maybe even getting the chance to fight the Kerak on their own homeworld. Why not? After all, Dungeon Siege took you through all kinds of varied landscapes. Sadly, the innards of your giant spaceship is all you'll get to explore - dark, cold, grey and depressing. With such an unimaginative and linear environment to explore, it's down to the combat and standard RPG progression to stop the tedium from setting in.

Here you'll happen upon one of the games most bizarre design decisions; it's resistance to abandon the point and click control scheme so favoured by the genre. While such a method of attack might work well when you've only a sword for comfort, in a game where your main weapons fire projectiles, using the mouse to navigate and attack can be mildly frustrating more times than it should be. You can't move and shoot at the same time, which means that when the Kerak occasionally decide to use ranged weapons of their own, you have to disengage from shooting them and quickly click somewhere to move out of the way. Now, imagine doing that while simultaneously trying to gun down three or four separate aliens who are coming at you with melee weapons. There are abilities and the added bonuses of using grenades or even a robotic assistant to help alleviate the burden of this continuous and frustrating killing, but the fact remains that the control system was the one thing Gas Powered really should have reworked. A mouse and keyboard style set up would have worked wonders for the game; in fact, I'm amazed this wasn't the first thing that was focused on.

Don't expect the rudimentary role playing elements to help either; this is a stripped down version of what role playing games are, which when you consider that hack and slash RPG action games already tend to be lightweight in their role playing element, doesn't hold bode well. There is no character creation tool, you can't grab loot from the bodies of your fallen foes and there are only two skill trees for you to level through, the subsequent abilities of which never seem to affect the game in any noticeable way. You don't even have an inventory! Instead, defeated aliens deposit 'parts', various alien giblets that you can vacuum up and then spend on workbenches dotted throughout the ship, building yourself new med packs and grenades or upgrading your existing weapons and armour in the areas of damage, critical hit chance, increased armour and so on. These customisation options might add a little incentive to the proceedings but with a distinct lack of any real noticeable changes once you've acquired them, you may be left wondering what the point was.

A similar sort of problem affects the much vaunted robotic enhancements that you can attach to yourself, giving you the opportunity to replace various fleshy limbs with those of far superior robotic appendages. You're warned throughout that continually upgrading these devices will gradually erode away your humanity until you're nothing more than a cybernetic killing machine, which is supposed to have some dire consequences, although exactly what is something that the game seems to like to keep to itself. This is yet another feature that feels as though it was rushed through with out any real consideration. Even the graphics manage to look dated, although they're hardly helped by the utterly bland level design, the only crowning achievement of which is the occasional bout of mindless silliness by the somewhat impressive physics engine, something you'll only appreciate by blowing up one of the hundreds of exploding gas canisters left in practically every corridor. Rounding the whole package off is a typical collection of sci-fi sounds and music, not to mention a voiceover cast who share Gas Powered's inability to resonate an ounce of excitement about the game.

It's difficult to find something good to say about Space Siege. It does have that 'just once more go' addictive quality to it, buried somewhere deep beneath its many flaws - a trait that all hack and slash action games seem to have regardless of their quality - but beyond that there's very little here to recommend. This is a shame, as you get the impression that someone high up wanted this game out on the shelves as soon as possible, and as a result the whole thing feels rushed, lacking the high production quality you'd expect from a big budget game of an established series. Here's hoping that if there's ever a Dungeon Siege 3 (or indeed a Space Siege 2), Gas Powered can return to form and pull something spectacular out of the bag - they'll need it after this.

Reviewed by Kieron Giacopazzi for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).