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
Oh no! Another 3D game! I hate 3D games! Uh...hey wait a minute...this one's actually playable...hmm and no bugs either. Wow, if they managed to make a 3D game without bugs...then boy it's worth a try!

For some stupid reason, I thought Dungeon Keeper had to do with Dungeons and Dragons...which is why I bought it in the first place. Although I should've known from all the hints and clues starting from those 2 idiots on the cover art...ah...some mistakes turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

This is the first kind 3D RTS I've played. Some idiot on another review said this is a C&C clone? Either he's never played C&C or didn't pay close attention, or I'm the one who's blind. Either way, unlike C&C, in this game you actually welcome any additional difficulty or additional enemies that come knocking on your door - Bring it on!

A lot of RTS games are quite irritating when if comes to difficulty. To them (C&C, AOE, etc.), difficulty has to do with the enemies starting with additional resources, but less on actually difficult AI. In Dungeon Keeper 2, you don't have to worry about sudden sneak attacks early on the game that suddenly flattens your empire.

This game is all about tactics and strategy in the pure sense. In this game, your more of a "governor" than a military chief. Like other RTS, its a combination of building prowess and military might. Most RTS's focus on military might where buildings are just a means to an end. In Dungeon Keeper 2, its the other way around. Military might is mediocre compared to the importance of buildings. Your survival practically depends on your analytical mind of arcitectual engineering. You have to plan and place rooms as if your were a city planner. You have to maintain a balance of the various different rooms (buildings) you build that will eventually support your hellish armies. You can create various traps and defenses to defend your domain from enemy attack, while commanding your own troops to do what they were payed to do. The good thing about attacking in this game, you don't have to watch your troops 100% of the time. For some strange reason, I'm not complaining that I don't have full control over my troops...this coming from a military control freak. They must've done something good.

Another thing is that in relation to the story line (which isn't bad but needs work), I've discovered that there are bonus units you can have. Like priests and Dark Angels. Unfortunately for my IQ level, I failed to get them, but the game continues. So I had it a little difficult compared to those who followed the plot.

Last but not least, the game has a positive...er evil sense of humor. I really love that torture chamber. The cut scenes are so funny! My favorite is the monster using chickens as a double stick.

The Bad
Well, once in a while, I would wish for smoother graphics as those goblins and imps look kinda weird sometimes. But that would mean an introduction to whole hell of bugs, so I'm happy regardless.

I think the tutorial or certain special abilities need further explanation. It took me forever to find out you could actually convert enemies without killing them in the torture chamber. No one told me you had to heal them! Why would anyone want to heal a prisoner while he's being tortured? Little things like that would be nice to know.

The FPS (Possessed Mode) is kinda awful, playable but if you don't have to, don't use it. That's probably what the developers had in mind in the first place...wouldn't want to change the game more exiting as a FPS than an RTS.

The Bottom Line
You know, having horns may not be a bad idea...

The Good
I haven't played the original, so I can't make a comparison, but I can say that I am not, as a rule, a fan of RTS games. This one made me forget that. Every once in a while a game comes along that addicts me, usurping all my attention for several days or weeks. This is one such game.

The graphics, the sounds, the music, the cut-scenes - all deserve high praise.

I love the theme, though I was a little disappointed to be so often fighting fellow evil "Keepers" instead of good guys from above. I understood the game was to be about play evil vs. good, but more often it was evil vs. evil.

The campaign was great, with each mission growing progressively harder. Some levels took me several attempts to beat, building on what I had learned the previous time, and bringing me back more eager than ever each time anew. The campaign doesn't overwhelm you, though, since each new level introduces a new monster, room-type, trap, etc. Your knowledge base grows as you play.

The first-person aspect was well handled, I must admit, and sometimes quite important to victory. But contrary to all the other praise, it was my least favourite aspect of the game, and something I avoided as often as possible. I hated the inability to command the rest of my troops, monitor my torture victims and cast spells when I was in 1st person mode.

The Bad
I already mentioned the evil vs. evil aspect in the above section.

While the My Pet Dungeon concept really appealed to me, you have to build your own challenges in (I made up a random table using dice to determine when heroes would appear). Also, in the My Pet Dungeon mode, if you torture and convert an enemy, that enemy type is no longer available to come rampaging through your dungeon. Somebody messed up an "if-then" clause in the C code there.

I hated that mana was limited to 200,000. With the size of my dungeons, my mana was usually at that level, and it became almost pointless capturing enemy mana vaults or converting their tiles to yours (though I guess it does limit their mana).

The campaign was huge, but I wish it was even huger.

The Bottom Line
A wonderful and unique concept very well executed.