"Aint it nice killing the goodies?"

Ah now wasnt dungeon keeper something that the fans excpeted to be extremley brilliant what with it being Peter Moneluxes (excuse the spelling) final flirtation with Bullfrog. Man that guy can really deliver the goods when it comes to it.

Dungeon Keeper was the prodcut of over 2 years hard work and sacrafice. It was a game that would combine the best parts of many games. Civilisation 2, Magic Carpet and even theme park in a way. It wanted to bind together the most popular aspects of many games. Whether it managed that or not its still one hell of a game.

Lets start with what your basic task is. Your a lonley Dungon Keeper down in the depths of the earth wanting to build together a sanctuary for evil creatures to rip apart the good people coming from the land. So you start out pretty simply with the few Imps that your higher upers have given you. You order them to dig tunnels in the earth looking for something to help your fight againt Evil. And what happens. You stumble upon a portal which allows evil creatures in that are willing to do your bidding...for a price. And thats where the brilliance begins. From your earning your very first creature to making a enemy keepers dungeon fall back to its earthly origin is great fun. What you have to do of course is build certain rooms to house your creatures. For example, you need a Lair for every creature in the game so that they may have a place to rest. You need a hatchery, again for everyone to eat food. They do this by tearing chickens apart in case your wondering. Youll also need things like training rooms so your creatures can become even stronger and you need more elaborate rooms such as Torture chambers to attract the kinkey Dark Mistresses. You also need Libaries to research new spells to help your minions fight the other keeprs and the goody 2 shoes Lords of the Land. Lets go back to the Imps.

These little guys are basically the backbones of your dungeon. They collect gold, dig into the dark earth, claim land for your own use and capture rooms. You start off with only about 3 or 4 depending on the level but as you can imagine more are very helpful. The thing is that if you want more you have to cast a Create Imp spell which costs a bomb of money. Start digging for gold and you might just be able to afford a couple of Imps down the line. Its little details like this that really make a game fun. Oh and dont even think about getting caught up in the Online gameplay unless you have a heck of a lot of spare time (and a decent internet connection).

Graphics.
At first you might think the graphics are nothign special. Yes they have their little details and all but nothing that we havent seen before. However if you have a fast enough pc you can swith it onto High resolution mode and oh my god its brilliant. Everything is extremley crisp and looks perfect. From the widness of the Bile Demons to the wise and large Dragons. Perfection. Of course on Low res its still good graphics but it cant compare to High res mode.

Sound.
The sound is perfect. From the fun of slapping your minions about to get them to work harder (seriously) to the nice digitised sound of the Lord of the Land threatening you. The sound is as good as you could get.

Gameplay.
Ah the most important part of a game ever. Does it actually match up in the enjoyment of playing the game. Well the answer is a very resounding YES. It can get a little boring...If you play it for 3 hours non stop. Its better playing dungeon keeper in little hourly bursts instead of sitting down for a mad session. Oh and do what you should do with any game out there. Dont stop just becaus you got bored. Stop playing while you still enjoy the game. Oh and theres nothing more fun than training your creatures up to level 10 and possesing them to rum a mock from the creatures brain.

Overall a solid purchase well worth buying since you should be able to pick it up quite cheap nowdays.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/06/00, Updated 10/06/00