Product Description
If
you built it they will succumbProduct InformationCreate the most wicked
loathsome underworld imaginable. Dig out yourunderground kingdom.
Populate your dungeon with a variety of beasts suchas the Skeletons Dark
Elves Trolls and evil Warlocks. Prepare them forbattle with training
rooms workshops and magical libraries. With the helpof the dreaded
reaper conquer your enemies and expand your empire in your questto
defeat the King and invade the land heroic good.Product Features Build
the Dungeons of Your Darkest Dreams First construct a nightmarish floor
plan. then direct your Imps to dig out the tunnels rooms and chambers
for your new home. Slap them around if they are not working fast
enough. Infest Your Dungeon with Vile Beasts Discover a portal so evil
creatures can find their way into your domain. Mine gold to pay their
wages build places for them to rest in and a hatchery where they can
feed. Put Your Minions To Work For You Construct training rooms to
improve the fighting skills of your dungeon dwellers a library where
they can research and learn devious new magic spells and a workshop to
create new traps to thwart encroaching do-gooders. Battle the Forces of
Good Fulfill your strategic role as the evil overlord leading your
wicked hoards in combat against those righteous heroes. Cast
devastating spells to crush your enemies and support your minions. Or
join the action at dungeon level by possessing your creatures and
battling from a first person perspective using special spells and
abilities. Entertain the Creatures of Your Dungeon Keep your minions
happy by creating casinos where they can drink and gamble. Or build a
pit arena where they can gain combat experience or sit back and enjoy
the fights from a ringside seat. Torture Chambers are popular
attractions for those who like it rough.Windows Requirements
Product Details
- Amazon Sales
Rank: #2730 in Video Games
- Brand: Electronic Arts
- ESRB
Rating: Rating Pending
- Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98,
Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP
- Format: CD
- Dimensions:
.6 pounds
Customer
Reviews
A fascinating idea that doesn't
quite reach it's full potential
I bought Dungeon Keeper 2
a few years on budget out of curiosity and at the time it struck me as
being quite a fun game. I completed it, then decided to sell it, as it
didn't grab me *that* much. About a year later I thought back to it and
realised how much I would like to play it again, so I bought it again
and worked my way through the campaign.
Dungeon Keeper is a real
time strategy game with an obvious difference. You play on the side of
evil and try to crush the sickeningly pure and good inhabitants of the
Sunlit Kingdom. But there is more to the game than simply a change of
side. In most Real Time strategy games you have control over your
minions and little control over the terrain. In Dungeon Keeoer 2 the
opposite is true. You can dig out your subterranean kingdom any way you
see fit. You can build a few large rooms with few corridors, or you can
build mazes of corridors and many small rooms; whatever strikes you as
being a good strategy. However you have little control over your
inhabitants. If you build a room it will attract a certain type of
creature. Workshops attract Trolls, Libraries attract sorcerors, Combat
Pits attract Dark Knights etc. But you can't order anyone to actually do
anything. Of course they like to keep busy, so Trolls will toil ion the
Workshop and Sorcerors will research Spells in the library but the only
way to force someone to do anything is to physically lock them in a
room.
Strategically Dungeon Keeper is potentially rich. Gold
is mined as a resource and is in only limited supply. Your creatures
demand payment and higher level creatures demand a higher wage. If you
run out of money your hard trained creatures will leave your dungeon in
anger, so there is certainly pressure in completing a mission before
your gold reserves run out. A dungeon with many corridors may make it
harder for invaders to wind their way to your vulnerable dungeon heart
and make good areas for boulder traps, but may result in your creatures
having to walk too far to get to lair, hatchery or treasury. Obviously
the converse is true. Many large rooms make areas accessible to your
creatures but leave you wide open to enemy encroachments. No strategy is
really the "right" one most of the time, and missions should not be
thought of as a puzzle with only one solution.
Aesthethically
Dungeon Keeper 2 is great. The graphics are good at conveying stone
passages and gold seams, and you may feel feel a hint of gold fever as
you zoom in to your treasury laden with chests overflowing with gold
coins. The presentation is all quite tongue in cheek though so expect
smiles rather than chills when you survey your realm. The voice acting
is uniformly good and often amusing; the Troll with make a goofy annoyed
sound when picked up and hearing the Goodly Folk describe you as a
"foul fiend" is amusing. The music is excellent too. Although synth
infused it contains a menacing ambience to convey your dungeon and
Gregorian chant style music to denote the Heroes.
However there
are some faults to the game. As I said Dungeon Keeper 2 is *potentially*
strategically rich. Some missions simply need you to crush a rival
Keeper and that isn't actually all that difficult. Simply build a
dungeon, train them up using Training Rooms and Combat Pits and when
your army is large enough and well trained enough just plant a call to
arms flag on the dungeon heart and they'll destroy it. For me the game
is at it's best when your dungeon is on the defensive as this is where
your arsenal of traps comes into use. There is much strategy in
placement of traps. Some can be used in harmony with others for greater
effect. A freeze trap by itself for instance isn't much use but in
conjunction with a lightning trap it can be brutal. Establishing killing
zones laced with traps is an under utilised aspect of the game. Which
is a shame as it's the most satisfying. Too often you're expected to be
the attacker and this is where the game tends to play too much like a
standard real time strategy game.
The spell list is curiously
unsatisfying and limited too and some spells you might use only a couple
of times in the game.
Of the game modes the Campaign is probably the
best, as there are a wide variety of mission styles to complete. There
is a Skirmish mode but the AI is too passive and most maps just require
you to build up an army and unleash it. There are a few exceptions, but
they are too few and far between.
However it's worth pointing out
that it's rated Mature for a reason, mainly for the Mistress character.
Her cries of ecstasy as she is being tortured on her own equipment
certainly might meet with the disapproval of some family members if they
hear it. Perhaps a pair of headphones would be recommended when playing
this.
Overall a highly enjoyable and unusual strategy game that
unfortunately could have improved upon. Still highly recommended.
What a great game, playable on XP too!
There were complaints from
fellow reviewers who could not play this game on current PC with Windows
XP. I decided to try this game (distributed by Sold-Out) anyway because
I do have a Win2000 system sitting around. But first I tried it on my
most up-to-date WinXP gaming system, which isn't anything to brag about.
I don't know what Sold-Out did but the game works fine on my gaming
rig. This game comes with the most recent 1.7 patch. Everything runs
smoothly and the game is fun. It's quite unique because you get to play a
"bad-guy." Remember that this isn't simply a strategy game, it is also a
tycoon game too, because you have to worry a lot about the happiness of
your denizens. The big CON is that the graphics are really out-dated by
today's standard and the fact that DK3 isn't pending production anytime
soon, which is really sad.
System:
Core 2 Duo E6300 w/ 1GB
RAM
ATI x1900GT
WinXP
Wonderful
nostalgia
I used to play Dungeon Keeper
years ago and when I got a new laptop recently I wanted to relive this
game. I bought Dungeon Keeper 2 and it is all the fun and addiction I
remember. The game itself is great, it is hilarious, fun, and oh so
addicting. It's hard to stop playing and the difficulty is just right to
remain enjoyable. If you like strategy games, or are one of those
people (like me) that tends to root for the bad guy, you should buy this
game!
I did have some compatibility problems and the game kept
crashing and freezing up my entire computer, or else it would just shut
down altogether and I would lose my progress. It's unfortunate that the
game doesn't translate well to newer machines, but I still think it's
worth it to play. I just have to save my game every two minutes :/ .
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