Review

DK2's distinguishing characteristic is, well, its character. There is no mistaking DK2 for anything but DK2, and for its novelty alone it deserves full marks. Unfortunately, the game's character, sense of humor, and unique and clever presentation couldn't keep me engaged for the whole ride. But take that fact with the following: I have begun to suspect that mine is simply not a constitution that is compatible with real-time 3D strategy games. At least, not any among those that I have played. Nevertheless, I recognize the genuine and jovial nature of Dungeon Keeper 2, and admit to having enjoyed with it small moments of fun more pure than in most games of any type that I have experienced.

The fun originated almost exclusively from the fact that DK2 is a game of influence, rather than direction. Your dungeon dwellers go about their business and serve your interests only so long as they're sufficiently encouraged to do so, and it's your responsibility as the player to affect their environment so that they stay encouraged. I like that. Most 3D RTS games fail miserably at unit control. DK2 solves this by essentially eliminating it altogether. No direct unit control may not technically be 'good' unit control, but it's also not bad unit control, and that goes a long way towards keeping the game enjoyable. I'm actually over-simplifying though; there is, in fact, some direct unit control, in the form of picking them up and dropping them down. What the units do after you put them down is still mostly up to them. The other smart thing that Bullfrog did with regards to units in the game was to provide a means of selecting units through a 2D menu. A categorized listing of your available dungeon dwellers is at the bottom of the screen. Click on their little pictures in order to pluck them unceremoniously from the dungeon, and then place them where you wish.

In terms of game design, I can identify two significant flaws. The first of which is the map view, which suffers from the same deficiency as do most 'tactical' views in 3D strategy games: namely that you can't do anything with it. The other major problem surfaces during combat, when large numbers of units are engaged. The problem is actually due to the fact that your spell usage is conducted through the 3D dungeon view. When several dozen units are clumped together in combat, it's particularly sloppy trying to select the specific unit you want as the target of a spell. This might have been remedied by the ability to queue spell commands when paused, but alas that is not the case. As a result, spell casting during thick combat is fairly inefficient and frustrating.

The ability to possess any of your dungeon dwellers is fun, but sadly it's use is mostly detrimental to the management of your dungeon. Sure, it's necessary to possess a skeleton to take out a fear trap on occasion, but otherwise, possessing a creature mostly prevents you from doing all of the other things that improve your odds of success. During combat, I can't think of any reason why you'd forfeit the ability to cast all of the spells available to you, or to manage the location of your forces, in favor of possessing a single creature in a crowded room.

If I wasn't such a game whore, and didn't have dozens of other games waiting to play, I think maybe I'd have a good time with the pet dungeon mode. In it, I could do what I really wanted to do often in the missions: possess a creature and just wander around the maze of my carefully crafted dungeon, watching the many different kinds of vile and malevolent creatures, all hustling about in perfect harmony. The single-player missions never afforded me that luxury.

At any rate, while I personally didn't get attached to this game, I wouldn't be at all suprised to see RTS fans get their itch scratched by DK2.