Dungeon Keeper 2

The Good
There is simply nothing out there like this game. Well, that's not true -- Black & White and Startopia come close -- but DK and DK2 were first. It's a RTS, it's Sim Dungeon, and more! And the evil narrator who advises you as the game goes on is wonderful, dryly funny when you're doing well to downright threatening when your game is going poorly...

The Bad
It's got a sharp learning curve, and demands careful perusal of the manual. Even then, you can have fun in the "My Pet Dungeon" mode, that lets you tunnel around and learn as you do.

The Bottom Line
The game is basically a real-time-strategy game, viewed isometrically, with some interesting twists thrown in by the ability of you, the Dungeon Keeper, to add traps to the tunnels you dig. You must recruit creatures through Portals you capture, and mine gold to pay them, and build rooms to house, feed, and entertain them while you get them to achieve your nefarious goals.

The Good
Idea is very good and people who liked DK1 will love this. Graphics are good and some jokes are funny!

The Bad
It's just a C&C clone. Every misison is the same build everything from scratch!

The Bottom Line
Be the lord of the dungeon.

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.