“…at the end of every play session, you will still want to come back, and that is what makes Besiege so good.”
Besiege is a physics-based medieval contraption building game by indie developers Spiderling Studios in which you must construct a number of siege weapons and mechanisms in order to complete various nasty tasks. Generally, these involve either destroying something, defeating an army, getting yourself or an object from A to B, or simply killing innocent yet infuriating livestock. Often you will have to try and do more than one of these at any one time, but in its current early access build on Steam, the game is very much showcasing them individually in order to give players a taste of its range.
Simple though Besiege is, it is not without an incredible amount of fun even at this stage. You are completely free to build whatever you want out of the tools and resources provided, and you can complete each stage of the game in an infinite number of different ways because of this. Need to get from A to B for example? You could create a driveable vehicle, or perhaps you would prefer a flying machine? Hell, you could take the time to build something that will walk there if you like; the game is totally open and allows you to let your imagination run wild.
You have a pretty exciting arsenal to choose from in Besiege too. Cannons, flamethrowers, spinning saws, spikes, fire balls, boulders, bombs… there is a lot of firepower to choose from here, and plenty to get excited about. Combine these with pistons, suspension, wheels, wings, propellers, you name it, and you can show the folks of medieval times how they should have done it! Disclaimer: you can’t, but you sure will feel like you could!
Despite being an in-development title, Besiege is incredibly polished already. The look of the game could easily fool you into believing that it was already complete. The fire looks incredible, the scenery looks perfect, and on top of this the mechanics all seem to work. It is a strong positive then that you can get a few hours of play out of what is on offer already, but there are numerous levels which have yet to be released as yet. It’s pretty fair to assume then that there is going to be plenty to do once this game is finished! It looks as though there is plenty of space left to add more parts with which to build your death machines too, so people playing the early access version of the game now have a lot to look forward to.
In a way, Besiege appears to be inspired by some of the big name titles of recent years in its design. Taking the free form construction element of Minecraft, but without the mundane tree punching and pixelated everything, and the build-your-own aspect made popular by Kerbal Space Program, but without the space bit, Besiege adds in that little dose of Michael Bay and its own, personal look and feel to give you something which almost any game who has a spare half an hour to play could enjoy. It is the sort of game which you can play a stage of quickly if you don’t have loads of time, or can keep playing for hours and still not get bored. That’s got to be pretty close to perfect in terms of reaching a wide demographic.
It is unfair however to straight up compare this game to any other; it is inherently unique. While inspirations are obviously in there, the developers of Besiege have created something that has not been done before, and deserve their due credit for that. They have also created another game which can be added to that growing list of semi-educational titles. It is a game which makes you think, and requires you to be creative, in order to beat its various challenges. There is plenty of science in there too, alongside strategy and design. It does all of this, and manages to be super fun too. Who doesn’t like exploding sheep, exploding buildings, or exploding everything?!
It is fair to say that Besiege is going to become increasingly popular amongst gamers as time goes on. It is already up there in the Steam top sellers despite being in early access, and as its presence grows through previews, YouTube, Twitch, forums and the like, it is going to do well for its developers. And it deserves to as well. There is a lot to this essentially simple little game. Hours of fun, humour and creativity await. Laughter is guaranteed. Probably some swearing and teeth-gritting at times. But at the end of every play session, you will still want to come back, and that is what makes Besiege so good. Accompany that with a polished design, wide open gameplay and the promise of plenty more to come, and you are on to a winner.
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