Old Games I Still Love: Dungeon Keeper 2

Still such an amazing game!

Now, this game is widely considered a classic and for good reason, it is among my most favourite games of all time so how could I not make a blog post on it. Made by one of my favourite dev studios the ever venerable Bullfrog (Theme Park is something I'll have to look at one of these days again.) I played it before the first Dungeon Keeper game as I'd picked it up as part of one of those big old game collection boxes (yes I know, games used to come in boxes, almost unheard of on PC these days!) The ones that used to have about a dozen or two dozen games in that I'd picked up because of a few of the other games inside it not really aiming for Dungeon Keeper 2 itself. I was hooked the moment I installed it because not only was it an original concept but pretty damned well executed too!

In most games, especially at the time you were always playing as the heroes, the knights in shining armour, the good guys for lack of a better description. In Dungeon Keeper 2 you play as the titular Dungeon Keeper with the task of building and maintaining your dungeon and it's monstrous inhabitants whilst keeping the heroes out, them minions do love their chicken. That alone was interesting enough to have me delving deeper like a gold hungry imp! The RPG elements also helped keep things interesting, every minion under your command for the most part had a level from 1 to 10 often gaining impressive abilities along the way.

The Dungeon Heart!

A typical game of Dungeon Keeper had you plopped into the map hovering above the ominous heartbeat of your dungeons core with a little bit of gold, a handful of loyal worker imps and usually access to a single creature portal. Then you'd be tasked with digging out the various corridors and spaces to place your rooms, which in turn would allow you do do more things like research or training your creatures. The types of rooms you had would also determine which evil beings would be drawn to your dungeon to work for you. Now, unlike most 'RTS' games save for a couple of exceptions you had no direct control over your creatures for the most part, they'd wander the twisted halls of your lair eating, drinking, training or if they were disgruntled, punching each other.

For the most part your influence over the world and your minions came down to giving orders and hoping they would be followed with your disembodied hand not only able to cast spells to help your minions and hinder your foes. In particular one amusing thing was a right click on a minion would give them a swift backhander usually making them slightly unhappy but compelling them to work faster (well you are playing as the evil overlord so it's to be expected!) The spells also allowed the one exception to the largely 'hands off' control, the possession spell.

This spell was honestly surprising to me, as you could literally cast it and jump into direct control of the chosen minions body. Turning the game into a first person action game after a fashion as as you could move around your dungeon, seeing it from ground level but also attack and form groups with your other minions. On some levels this was almost required but for the most part it was just a fun little addition.

The mission or level select screen.

The campaign I think deserves a special mention as I personally think it's pacing was spot on, each mission usually introduced a few new things at a time like a new room, creature or concept. As such it never felt overwhelming and I always found myself looking forward to what I would unlock next, an extra layer of motivation to beat that level. There were of course secrets to uncover, even a couple of hidden levels however there was one thing that kept me playing long after the campaign had been completed.

My Pet Dungeon, my favourite mode!

The 'My Pet Dungeon' mode was what I wiled away countless hours in building that perfect dungeon lair without the threat of attack unless you chose it to be so. There was still an objective to this mode earn points by building things and completing objectives to unlock more 'Pet Dungeon' maps. The sheer variety of rooms and minions on offer was quite impressive everything from Casino's and Fighting Pits to Temples and Workshops, all of which were put to use by your 'loyal' minions. Warlocks and vampires would pore over ancient texts in your library for researching new spells whilst trolls and bile demons crafted nefarious traps in your workshops.

Initially I was going to write a separate section for all of this but I realised it can all be tied up into one, atmosphere. This game has oodles of it and it just works so well with each aspect complimenting it. The biggest contributor is the 'advisor' character whom guides your evil deeds, voiced by the extremely talented Richard Ridings who just pulls it off so well. The graphics, whilst by today's standards are a bit primitive they still work due to the almost stylised look, everything is slightly crooked and off angle giving your evil abode a charmingly unsettling appearance when paired up with the lighting. The sound design in general is impressive at least in my opinion, from the steady thump of your dungeon heart to the slightly creepy ambient sounds it really rounds out the evil package gloriously.

For the longest time the only hint of us getting more Dungeon Keeper was the Dungeon Keeper 3 teaser that was in Dungeon Keeper 2 itself. As Bullfrog vanished though the IP was claimed by EA who turned it into, well let's just call it a disappointing mobile game and leave it at that. Evil Genius was pretty close to the Dungeon Keeper playstyle and is another game I still genuinely love but it still wasn't Dungeon Keeper which made me oh so happy when some plucky indie dev's took it on themselves to craft a spiritual successor in War for the Overworld (yet another game I will have to make a blog post about!)

All in all, I still love this game despite it looking it's age these days, it still has a place on my hard-drive even now.