Your dungeon is full of yoghurt. (Dungeon Keeper Gold (PC))

Member Name: Mutalisk

Product:	Dungeon Keeper Gold (PC)
Date:	21/07/09 (59 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: entertaining, a lot to it, possession tool, good interface, well though-out, humourous, EVIL.

Disadvantages: dated graphics, simple at heart.

A pretty standard re-release of the original, Dungeon Keeper Gold is just the original game, bundled with a few more levels, (ThE dEePeR dUnGeOnS) and a map editor, which was already available for official download at the time of its release.

The basic premise of Dungeon Keeper is somewhat self explanatory. The antithesis of the goody-two-shoes idea of knights vanquishng demons, you get to be pretty damn evil. Take control of hordes of vile creatures from the netherworld, imps, demons spawn, vampires, dark mistresses, bile demons and warlocks to smash the human threat.

The tricky part is attracting sufficient monsters to your dungeon in order to adequately defend and attack. This is achieved by researching and building rooms which are likely to attract such creatures. (the bigger the room, the more likely the things are to come.) There are such functional rooms as the Lair, Hatchery, Library and Training room, and many more advanced rooms such as the Torture Chamber, Graveyard, Temple and even...a Casino?!

Other necessary activities include mining for gold, keeping high levels of morale, breaking up fights in your dungeon, spellcasting, making defenses and laying traps in your dungeon for unsuspecting interlopers. The interface was pretty new in its time, an isometric grid for laying down rooms and such, but also rotatable. The graphics are fairly dated but are still passable.

Whilst the combat is a little bit lacking (All you can really do is drop your creatures close to the enemy hordes and expect them to attack,) a really great and innovative aspect is the "Posession" spell, in which you can literally take control of any one of your minions, which brings up a whole new First Person Shooter interface, complete with the myriad spells and abilities specific to that unit.

There's a lot to learn with this game, and the first few levels give pretty good tutorials, the whole game narrated by the a man named Richard Riddlings, who, despite the comical name, has possibly the most evil voice in existence, and comes up with some pretty classic quips. (There is a lot of humour here.)

Interestingly enough, whilst it is possible to convert the human units to your side using the torture chamber, the humans are not actually playable. I guess Bullfrog just wanted the emphasis to be on evil.

It has really good multiplayer capabilities, and can support up to eight players at a time. It can be played online too, but the system with which online networking takes place is a little antiquated as you might expect, fast and reliable as it may be.

Although there is a lot of micromanagement in the game, the themes are still a little unoriginal, attack, defend, recover, build. A new and since untouched genre of Real time strategy, Dungeon Keeper is an important artifact in the history of gaming.

The Gold Pack itself however, is only really worth buying if you are Fanatical about Dungeon Keeper and really need the new levels.

Summary: An excellent game and a strategy classic.