Dungeon Keeper 2
Encyclopedia
Dungeon Keeper 2 is a strategy game
developed by Bullfrog Productions
and published by Electronic Arts
in 1999 for Microsoft Windows
. It was released in Europe and North America in June 1999. It was the sequel to Peter Molyneux
's Dungeon Keeper
and predecessor to the canceled Dungeon Keeper 3
. Molyneux did not have an active role in the creation of the Dungeon Keeper 2, though many of his ideas lived on from the previous game. Like its predecessor, players take the role of a dungeon keeper, building and defending an underground dungeon from the would-be heroes that invade it, as well as from other keepers. In the game's campaign mode, the player is charged with recovering the portal gems from each area in order to open a portal to the surface. This was charged as a setup for the sequel, where the gems would be used to invade the surface world and defeat the faction of goodly heroes.
The most immediate change from Dungeon Keeper is in its graphics; the world is now fully 3D
. Where monsters were previously sprites
, they are now 3D models. Several rooms, spells, and monsters were changed, added or removed, as were many game mechanics. For example, if a creature is dropped into the middle of a melee, it is stunned and vulnerable for a few seconds before getting up to fight. One major feature of the game is its "My Pet Dungeon" mode, which features sandbox-style play where players have a nearly unlimited amount of time to construct a dungeon uninterrupted, and wherein heroes only invade the dungeon if the player chooses to allow it.
The game plays quite similarly to its predecessor, however gameplay is more streamlined with less micromanaging and elimination of unnecessary information. Examples include the removal of the "kill enemies"/"beat them unconscious" switch (creatures are always knocked unconscious - the behavior can't be changed) and the creature statistics panel, which provided all sorts of generally irrelevant information like blood type and luck. The creature combat experience was also moved to display as a circular "progress bar" in the creature's "health flower" over their heads, removing the need to find the information in the panels. The colors, music and sound in Dungeon Keeper 2 also tend to be brighter and more vibrant; the original Dungeon Keeper was generally darker and "grimier" with more serious overtones. Dungeon Keeper 2 tends to be much more tongue-in-cheek
with various fourth wall
-breaking jokes. An example of the change in mood is when a creature hits jackpot in the casino. This releases a flurry of stardust springing from the room, while the game blasts Disco Inferno
and the creatures in the casino dance around. The fact that this casino (together with the fighting pit) replaced the eerie Scavenger's Room from Dungeon Keeper solidifies the altered mood.
Like the original, Dungeon Keeper 2 places the player in the role of a malignant overlord bent on world domination. The player must conquer all the underground lands in the kingdom to recover the portal gems, which can be used to open a portal to the surface world so that it can be invaded by evil. The kingdom itself takes the form of a large table containing a 3-dimensional map where the player clicks where to attack next from the highlighted regions - this is quite similar to Dungeon Keeper's world map with mainly graphical improvements. There are 20 main levels in the campaign. Some levels have multiple methods of attack allowing the player to choose which method and sub-region they prefer.
At any stage, as in the first Dungeon Keeper, the player may choose to "Possess" one of his creatures. The player then sees through the creatures eyes and controls its actions, in a style similar to a First Person Shooter.
Gameplay is overseen by "The Mentor", an anonymous evil sounding male, voiced by Richard Ridings
, just as in the original Dungeon Keeper, who tutors the player in the early levels and provides hints and advice throughout the game as well as general notices such as "It's payday" or "Your dungeon heart is under attack!". He also provides occasional humorous messages such as "One of your imps does a great impression of you. He can even do the ears". The Mentor also provides a sometimes humorous monologue at both the objectives and debriefing screens for each level about the level goals and the characters involved. He also points out the movements of rival keepers and the king on the world map.
After completing a campaign level, the player receives a short movie before the debriefing screen which contains a joke based on the game.
Other than the campaign, the game also includes multiplayer and skirmish modes, as well as the sandbox mode, "My Pet Dungeon". My Pet Dungeon levels assign the player a goal such as "gain 10000 points" where points are gained by building, casting, claiming, slapping and just generally managing the dungeon. Once the player completes the objective they are then allowed to choose to keep playing on for as long as they like. The sandbox mode includes a "Hero toolbox" where the player can grab Hero characters and drop them in their dungeon for their minions to kill. The toolbox also includes a slot machine-like device for changing the skill level of the characters in the toolbox. The interface panel also gains a "force an invasion" button that causes a team of heroes to emerge from a Hero gate and attack the player's dungeon.
The skirmish mode enables the player to fight against computer bots. However, the difficulty of the bots is not particularly high, as the AI tends to have limited decision making and contingency planning abilities, but the bots are still generally challenging under favorable conditions, specifically, a sufficiently large quantity of land to build perfectly square rooms and a large quantity of nearby gold or gems
Though not as highly rated as its landmark original, Dungeon Keeper 2 successfully transformed the series into true 3D
. Reviews varied highly, with some criticism about the lack of new features compared to its predecessor, Dungeon Keeper
. IGN was among the highest raters of the game, awarding a score of 8.9 and the editor's choice award. Many reviews cited the lack of a fully supported multiplayer mode. While the CD-ROM
release of the game contained only four multiplayer maps, this problem was later rectified in an online patch increasing the number of maps to a dozen. One of the most praised aspects of the game was the variety of game types included, the My Pet Dungeon freeform sandbox mode, the linear campaign
mode, and the somewhat limited skirmish mode along with the previously mentioned multiplayer mode.
Strategy game
A strategy game or strategic game is a game in which the players' uncoerced, and often autonomous decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome...
developed by Bullfrog Productions
Bullfrog Productions
Bullfrog Productions was a UK computer game developer that was founded in 1987 by Les Edgar and Peter Molyneux. The company achieved recognition in 1989 for their third release, Populous....
and published by Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
in 1999 for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. It was released in Europe and North America in June 1999. It was the sequel to Peter Molyneux
Peter Molyneux
Peter Douglas Molyneux OBE is an English computer game designer and game programmer. He created the God games Dungeon Keeper, Populous, and Black & White, among others, as well as business simulation games such as Theme Park and more recently, the RPG series Fable.Despite the success of his games,...
's Dungeon Keeper
Dungeon Keeper
Dungeon Keeper is a strategy video game released developed by Bullfrog Productions under Peter Molyneux and released by Electronic Arts in July 1997 for the PC in which the player attempts to build and manage a dungeon or lair while protecting it from 'hero' characters intent on stealing the...
and predecessor to the canceled Dungeon Keeper 3
Dungeon Keeper 3
Dungeon Keeper 3: War for the Overworld is a cancelled PC strategy game developed by Bullfrog Productions for Microsoft Windows. Dungeon Keeper 3 was set to be the next installment in the Dungeon Keeper franchise where the slogan “Evil is good” set the series apart from conventional games...
. Molyneux did not have an active role in the creation of the Dungeon Keeper 2, though many of his ideas lived on from the previous game. Like its predecessor, players take the role of a dungeon keeper, building and defending an underground dungeon from the would-be heroes that invade it, as well as from other keepers. In the game's campaign mode, the player is charged with recovering the portal gems from each area in order to open a portal to the surface. This was charged as a setup for the sequel, where the gems would be used to invade the surface world and defeat the faction of goodly heroes.
The most immediate change from Dungeon Keeper is in its graphics; the world is now fully 3D
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
. Where monsters were previously sprites
Sprite (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
, they are now 3D models. Several rooms, spells, and monsters were changed, added or removed, as were many game mechanics. For example, if a creature is dropped into the middle of a melee, it is stunned and vulnerable for a few seconds before getting up to fight. One major feature of the game is its "My Pet Dungeon" mode, which features sandbox-style play where players have a nearly unlimited amount of time to construct a dungeon uninterrupted, and wherein heroes only invade the dungeon if the player chooses to allow it.
Major changes from Dungeon Keeper
- The dungeon heart now stores a limited amount of gold; in Dungeon Keeper (particularly the Deeper Dungeons expansion), if the player ran out of gold before building a treasury, no additional gold could be mined and stored.
- Spells are now cast using manaManaMana is an indigenous Pacific islander concept of an impersonal force or quality that resides in people, animals, and inanimate objects. The word is a cognate in many Oceanic languages, including Melanesian, Polynesian, and Micronesian....
, which is automatically replenished over turns, based on the amount of land or mana vaults a player owns. Previously, they were cast using goldGoldGold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
. - Dropping creatures onto the ground stuns them for a while, unlike in Dungeon KeeperDungeon KeeperDungeon Keeper is a strategy video game released developed by Bullfrog Productions under Peter Molyneux and released by Electronic Arts in July 1997 for the PC in which the player attempts to build and manage a dungeon or lair while protecting it from 'hero' characters intent on stealing the...
, where they could immediately begin to move again. Different creatures remain stunned for varying amounts of time, Bile Demons for example take several seconds to haul themselves off the floor whereas Goblins will push themselves back up almost immediately, and imps are not stunned by dropping at all. Creatures are not stunned if dropped in a Combat Pit. - Imps no longer require training to gain levels; they gain experience from performing their duties in the dungeon.
- The training room only trains creatures for the first four levels; further levels can be attained in the combat pit (to level 8) or through combat.
- The scavenger room was removed, and two rooms were added:
- a casinoCasinoIn modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...
that can be used to improve morale or funding - a combat pit, for training creatures to a higher level than the training room can.
- a casino
- The horned reaper is no longer a typical creature: it may instead be summoned for a very large amount of mana. "Horny" will then go on a rampage, destroying anything in his path for a short time.
- Many creatures were removed, and many were added. Notably absent are the dragonDragonA dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
s and demon spawn, replaced by a relatively weaker fire salamanderSalamanderSalamander is a common name of approximately 500 species of amphibians. They are typically characterized by a superficially lizard-like appearance, with their slender bodies, short noses, and long tails. All known fossils and extinct species fall under the order Caudata, while sometimes the extant...
. The game has a greater reliance on humanoid creatures. In the first game, the only evil creatures to possibly be humans were undead, mistresses and warlocks (none of which were obviously human). But in DK2, not only have the warlocks and mistresses become obviously human, but rogues and black knights have been added. With the removal of creatures like the aforementioned dragons, the spiders and beetles etc., this results in the dungeons changing shape from the beast-inhabited dens of the first game, to more civilized-appearing settlements in the second. - Many of the spells were redone, and can be upgraded after all basic spells have been researched.
Gameplay
As in the original, the player takes on the enigmatic form of a large floating green hand which moves around the map picking things up, dropping them, casting spells and interacting with specific items. The game interface is blended between a large panel at the bottom of the screen and interactive items in the world. For example, the buttons to select which room, door or trap to build or spell to cast are in tabs on the panel and are then dropped into position in the world. Locking and unlocking doors or activating items is done by clicking on the item in the world. Disabling imprisonment of enemy creatures is done by clicking a metal bar next to the prison door, barricading it closed.The game plays quite similarly to its predecessor, however gameplay is more streamlined with less micromanaging and elimination of unnecessary information. Examples include the removal of the "kill enemies"/"beat them unconscious" switch (creatures are always knocked unconscious - the behavior can't be changed) and the creature statistics panel, which provided all sorts of generally irrelevant information like blood type and luck. The creature combat experience was also moved to display as a circular "progress bar" in the creature's "health flower" over their heads, removing the need to find the information in the panels. The colors, music and sound in Dungeon Keeper 2 also tend to be brighter and more vibrant; the original Dungeon Keeper was generally darker and "grimier" with more serious overtones. Dungeon Keeper 2 tends to be much more tongue-in-cheek
Tongue-in-cheek
Tongue-in-cheek is a phrase used as a figure of speech to imply that a statement or other production is humorously intended and it should not be taken at face value. The facial expression typically indicates that one is joking or making a mental effort. In the past, it may also have indicated...
with various fourth wall
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
-breaking jokes. An example of the change in mood is when a creature hits jackpot in the casino. This releases a flurry of stardust springing from the room, while the game blasts Disco Inferno
Disco Inferno
Disco Inferno is a song by The Trammps.Disco Inferno can also refer to:* Disco Inferno , a 1976 disco album recorded by The Trammps featuring the song* Disco Inferno , a band formed in the late 1980s...
and the creatures in the casino dance around. The fact that this casino (together with the fighting pit) replaced the eerie Scavenger's Room from Dungeon Keeper solidifies the altered mood.
Like the original, Dungeon Keeper 2 places the player in the role of a malignant overlord bent on world domination. The player must conquer all the underground lands in the kingdom to recover the portal gems, which can be used to open a portal to the surface world so that it can be invaded by evil. The kingdom itself takes the form of a large table containing a 3-dimensional map where the player clicks where to attack next from the highlighted regions - this is quite similar to Dungeon Keeper's world map with mainly graphical improvements. There are 20 main levels in the campaign. Some levels have multiple methods of attack allowing the player to choose which method and sub-region they prefer.
At any stage, as in the first Dungeon Keeper, the player may choose to "Possess" one of his creatures. The player then sees through the creatures eyes and controls its actions, in a style similar to a First Person Shooter.
Gameplay is overseen by "The Mentor", an anonymous evil sounding male, voiced by Richard Ridings
Richard Ridings
Richard Ridings is a British actor and is best known for his portrayal of Allan Ashburn in the ITV television drama Fat Friends, and for playing Bernard Green in the BBC1 comedy-drama Common as Muck. He trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.Ridings was born in...
, just as in the original Dungeon Keeper, who tutors the player in the early levels and provides hints and advice throughout the game as well as general notices such as "It's payday" or "Your dungeon heart is under attack!". He also provides occasional humorous messages such as "One of your imps does a great impression of you. He can even do the ears". The Mentor also provides a sometimes humorous monologue at both the objectives and debriefing screens for each level about the level goals and the characters involved. He also points out the movements of rival keepers and the king on the world map.
After completing a campaign level, the player receives a short movie before the debriefing screen which contains a joke based on the game.
Other than the campaign, the game also includes multiplayer and skirmish modes, as well as the sandbox mode, "My Pet Dungeon". My Pet Dungeon levels assign the player a goal such as "gain 10000 points" where points are gained by building, casting, claiming, slapping and just generally managing the dungeon. Once the player completes the objective they are then allowed to choose to keep playing on for as long as they like. The sandbox mode includes a "Hero toolbox" where the player can grab Hero characters and drop them in their dungeon for their minions to kill. The toolbox also includes a slot machine-like device for changing the skill level of the characters in the toolbox. The interface panel also gains a "force an invasion" button that causes a team of heroes to emerge from a Hero gate and attack the player's dungeon.
The skirmish mode enables the player to fight against computer bots. However, the difficulty of the bots is not particularly high, as the AI tends to have limited decision making and contingency planning abilities, but the bots are still generally challenging under favorable conditions, specifically, a sufficiently large quantity of land to build perfectly square rooms and a large quantity of nearby gold or gems
Reception
| Publication | Score | Comment |
|---|---|---|
IGN IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment... |
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GameSpot GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which... |
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PC Gamer PC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries... |
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| Compilations of multiple reviews | ||
Game Rankings GameRankings is a website that collects review scores from both offline and online sources to give an average rating. It indexes over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 games.GameRankings is owned by CBS Interactive... |
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Though not as highly rated as its landmark original, Dungeon Keeper 2 successfully transformed the series into true 3D
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
. Reviews varied highly, with some criticism about the lack of new features compared to its predecessor, Dungeon Keeper
Dungeon Keeper
Dungeon Keeper is a strategy video game released developed by Bullfrog Productions under Peter Molyneux and released by Electronic Arts in July 1997 for the PC in which the player attempts to build and manage a dungeon or lair while protecting it from 'hero' characters intent on stealing the...
. IGN was among the highest raters of the game, awarding a score of 8.9 and the editor's choice award. Many reviews cited the lack of a fully supported multiplayer mode. While the CD-ROM
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
release of the game contained only four multiplayer maps, this problem was later rectified in an online patch increasing the number of maps to a dozen. One of the most praised aspects of the game was the variety of game types included, the My Pet Dungeon freeform sandbox mode, the linear campaign
Campaign setting
A campaign setting is usually a fictional world which serves as a setting for a role-playing game or wargame campaign. A campaign is a series of individual adventures, and a campaign setting is the world in which such adventures and campaigns take place...
mode, and the somewhat limited skirmish mode along with the previously mentioned multiplayer mode.