DUNGEON KEEPER 2
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Genre |
RTS / God |
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System |
P II |
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Year |
2000 |
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| Developer |  |
The first Dungeon Keeper came out in 1997 and received some rave reviews, not least from the ineffable Charlie Booker in PC Zone. The acclaim was, perhaps, a little overdone, as Bullfrog made their customary mistake of leading you in gently then pushing the learning curve asymptotic, while the final half of the levels became rather samey. Clearly learning from the success of the third Populous, DK2 reaffirmed that Bullfrog, even without Molyneux, was still on top of its game.
THE GAME
“It’s good to be bad.” The game’s motto says it all. You play the role of the Dungeon Keeper, the largely disembodied master of an underground realm, populated by the noble and, sometimes heroic knights of the upper world and their allies, as well as the infernal creatures of the night, whose Lord you aim to be. Over 20 levels you seek to recover the parts of the fragmented Gem, the reconstruction of which will give the holder power over all the realm. And eternal dominion!
As with the original game
and in very similar fashion to its near contemporary,
Each room serves at least one function, whether it is attracting a certain creature to join you, keeping your people amused or out of trouble, or else adding to your offensive and defensive powers. Your library is particularly important early on, as it attracts Warlocks, who’s greatest asset is research, discovering new spells and rooms for you to put to work in the cause. Some spells are designed to help in battle, such as lightning, tremor, turn-into-chicken, or heal. Another allows you to create new imps, while another gives you temporary sight in an otherwise hidden area. One of the best is the possession spell, which allows you to take direct control of one of your minions, seeing the action from its own first person viewpoint. You can thus enjoy the details of your dungeon, watching your population go about its business (the torture chamber being one of my favourite venues), or else take part in battle personally, using the creature’s particular skills as you wish, rather than leaving it to the AI. This feature was also present in the original game, but it wasn’t a lot of use. Here it is occasionally required, and often desirable.
Another room which becomes more important as you progress is the Workshop. This attracts Trolls (though some other types can work there as well) and here they can construct all manner of traps and barriers. Ranging from the simple wooden door, to the secret version which appears to your enemies as just another wall; and from an alarm to the lethal lighting trap, you can position them around your dungeon to protect you from enemy incursions or to lure and trap the opposition into a killing ground.
A mention for the technical aspects here. The graphics are fantastic, allowing for a little ageing now of course. The animations of the characters in third person view are excellent, even fully zoomed in, and the ambience of the dungeon, with its walls, flickering torches and lichen encrusted walls, highly immersive. Where they really stand out, however, is in the first person view, particularly the lighting and water effects. The spells aren’t half bad either. The characters are polygon based, though smart programming means each one is only constructed from a few, rather than dozens or hundreds. This means they are a little wooden in close up, but without a helium cooled Cray, you couldn’t expect much more.
Anyway, what’s the point of all this? Each level has an aim, usually the death of the local hero, or, of occasion, a rival keeper, in who’s possession is a part of the Gem, which you must wrest, via the offices of your Horned Reaper (the most powerful creature of all), from the cold, dead hand of your victim. Having done this 20 times, you are rewarded with … well, you get there and see what you make of it!
THE LEARNING CURVE
With fifteen rooms, fifteen creatures (plus fourteen “good” guys), twelve spells and sixteen buildable items, there’s a lot of ground to cover and Bullfrog does a superb job of pacing the introduction of new elements. The first few levels give you new rooms and therefore new creatures in sensible amounts, until by the time you have access to virtually the whole panoply, you know what you are doing and can be given more complex and difficult assignments.
One variation is in the amount of gold available. A finite resource, once it’s dug and consumed by your building plans or creatures, the only way of finding more is by killing enemies, unless you can build a casino, in which your slaves will fritter away their time and their money, which comes back to you in bucketsful. Unless, of course, you are flush, in which case you can set your casino to pay out, thereby improving the morale of your denizens. By the way, should someone win the jackpot, immediately possess one of the creatures and watch the dancing in the casino. Inspired programming!
Some of the levels are harder than others, or perhaps it’s just the way I approached them. Just as in Populous, the Beginning, there are always many ways of skinning the cat and the way you attack the problem can have huge ramifications on the eventual outcome. You can be cautious, building up mana (with which you power your spells) so that you can throw heal and lightning around in battle, digging all the gold and gems you can, all the while training your creatures to the highest possible level before unleashing them on the enemy. Or you can be daring, sending in small raids to kill and capture the foe, before converting them in the torture chamber, or committing their corpses to the graveyard, in the hope of a Vampire rising to join your band. The latter strategy may, however, alert a superior force to your presence, resulting in your swift demise, while the former may allow the enemy to reach its maximum strength, or, in the case of a couple of the timed levels, escape your clutches entirely.
AND SO…
First time I played, I got stuck on a level despite several attempts and cribbing from a Strategy Guide. After a week or so of frustration, I dropped it and moved on to something more amenable. Second time I loaded it, I lost it again in a C:\format and couldn’t be bothered to work my through the levels all over again. Third time round, I went all the way, level after level, until I was done. Took about two weeks and that was playing far more than I should have done. At least three evenings were just lost to the game. To be fair, by the time the last three, pretty massive levels roll around, you shouldn’t have too much trouble, unless you haven’t been paying attention. All three require some tactical thought, as brute force will get you nowhere. Rather like Populous (again), the carefully nurtured experience and learning process make the denouement seem perhaps a touch on the easy side. Which it most certainly isn’t.
All in all, one of the better games, certainly in this genre.
ALSO…
Multiplayer. Haven’t tried it myself, as it requires a disc per machine and I wouldn’t dream of burning a copy (ahem!), but if the skirmish mode is anything to go by, it should be a scream. If I can get the new laptop to run it, I might just try.
