Dungeon Keeper 2

The Good
Dungeon Keeper 2 inverts the typical game setting, allowing the player to harness the forces of darkness and defeat the good. You do this in several ways including providing lairs to attract monsters, planting traps, and tunneling into the Hero Domains.

The story revolves around collecting crystals held by the Heroes, which would be better off in your taloned hands. Each level begins with your selecting another province on a map to attack. An omniscient voice tells about the current situation and what obstacles you may face and then you can begin building your dungeon.

Using imps, magically created creatures, you carve your dungeon out of the rock and then designate certain areas to be a room. Rooms include lairs, torture chambers, and combat pits. The rooms you have determine which creatures enter your dungeon. As you acquire creatures you have to ensure that they have a place to sleep, food to eat and money. They can also be motivated with a slap.

Most levels have the general objective of slaying all the hero creatures; some are more specific- requiring you to capture certain areas. A few are timed which provides a good challenge.

The game’s graphics are dated, but still very serviceable. The predominant dungeon view is an overhead shot, fully 3D and rotatable. You can also possess creatures and explore your dungeon first hand. While this is nifty and you can see how different creatures perceive the world, this isn’t that useful. There are certain actions that can only be handled in the First Person Perspective, but nothing vital. In the Possessed mode, you can also fight, but DK2 works poorly as an FPS.

The omniscient voice I referred to earlier provides hints and warning messages and provides some comic relief. The voice has a hollow, ominous echo that works well. Each room has unique sounds, the traps sound great, combat effects are fully realized. The AI is largely good, but I noticed that the enemy AI in the FPS mode was not as good as the overhead view.

The Bad
For me the biggest weakness in DK2 is its incompatibility with Windows XP. Some people have been able to run it, but since I’ve upgraded I haven’t been lucky.

I found some of the earlier levels to be too easy and starting from scratch every time was a little old. I also wish I had more control over the creatures in my dungeon.

The Bottom Line
It's a demented Sims or Majesty for the dark hearted.

The Good
Dungeon Keeper 2 is all about being the bad guy-- instead of being a hero on a quest to kill the evil Hoozabugub, be the evil Hoozabugub and torture, slay, and corrupt those pesky heroes that keep invading your domain!

The game begins with controlling your Imps, little magical fiends, to build and dig tunnels. When you find magical portals, troops will start arriving, like Goblins and Warlocks. Build them places to sleep, train, practice their magic, etc, and they'll get happier; more and more powerful minions will come to do your bidding, and your domain grows...

This game is brimming with humor and style. Every creature has a unique resting palce it makes for itself-- it's hilarious seeing the Mistresses lock themselves up in an Iron Maiden for the first time. (That's not all, those girls will torture themselves and each other when they have nothing else to do). You can torture hapless heroes, control an army of Bile Demons, and lead attacks on heroic citadels. When you build a casino and one of your creatures wins the jackpot, everyone in the casino will start dancing along to a tune that comes out of nowhere-- each creature has a unique dance animation. Any game that makes goblins disco gets points from me! On top of it all, you can slap your minions when they misbehave, and the results are just hilarious. You never run out of slap points either-- you're the boss here!

An interesting feature is taking possession of your troops. When you do this, you can control them from a first person perspective. This feels like a first person action game in itself (albiet a sub-par one, as the graphics were designed for viewing from a distance). Other fun spells add interesting touches to the game, all with funny results.

The Bad
While the game had loads of potential, it really didn't utilize it all the way. The campagins feel rather bland and the mutliplayer map selection is incredibly limited. This, unfortunatly, stifles the replay value and quite sadly stops it from becoming a classic in my book.

The AI is also incredibly, nightmarishly hard. While this may be viewed as a good thing, I have yet to win a single deathmatch against the computer (the default campaigns are mostly scripted, you're not fighting other dungeon keepers, so this dosen't come into play). Ouch!

The Bottom Line
Dungeon Keeper II, while falling short of being a classic, is still a wonderful game that'll keep you playing for a good few weeks. Keep it on your hard drive, and return to it every now and then for a fun play and a good laugh.

The Good
There's no clear reason why I prefer the first Dungeon Keeper - I just do. The second installment in the series is indeed a wonderful game - witty sense of humour, great 3D/sound engine, excellent scenarios - everything you'd expect from a game of this caliber.

The Bad
Problem is, it doesn't retain the charm of the first game, nor is the introduction sequence equally immersive. The first game is one of the games I like most, and while this game is by far technically superior, it simply lacks the qualities and innovasion which made the first game what it was.

The Bottom Line
A wonderful game most people find extremely solid and likable.