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[Tomekk]

Basic Info:
-Made by:Bullfrog Entertainment (Peter Molyneux ^^)
-Published by:Electronic Arts
-Genre:Real Time Strategy(with RPG and FPS elements)
-Release Date:July, 1997.



Review:

Game Intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N5ODEGR1KQ

Intro:There are 2 words, in which I could sum this review up: Peter Molyneux.
You might ask why? He's one of the greatest game designers ever, and when there is a game that he designed, that's got to be a good game.
Dungeon Keeper is one of the very few games that allow you to be evil. And by evil i don't mean a criminal or an assassin but "Da Lord of a friggin' Dungeon"!
For it's time this was a very unique and addiciting game, today it might seem "old" too many, but just give it a try, you'll have loads of fun!

Story and Plot:Well, there's not really much story, apart from you being a Dungeon Keeper. Your main goal in the missions, is to destroy the very irritating do-gooders(mostly humans) and other Dungeon Keepers. This adds a nice variety to the game, and in later levels you'll be fighting both of them at the same time.

Graphics:For the time the graphics we're average, but it's a 3D enviorment with 2D monsters. It works quite well tough, and the camera is very flexible.

Sound & Music: There isin't much music in the game, but the sound is good.

Gameplay: By now, you probably think this is gonna be an average game. But no! The gameplay is the best part of the game! It's so good i don't know where too start! At the start of the game you get a Dungeon Heart and some imps. The Dungeon Heart is the essence of life in your dungeon, if it's destroyed you die, and your monsters are banished to the realm of darkness. Imps are the main workers of the dungeon. They dig tunnels, make rooms(paving the floor, and building stone walls), and collect gold and "stunned" enemies.(Who you can put in prison then torture them).
Unlike in other RTS games, you create rooms instead of buildings. The bigger, the better. Rooms range from treasure rooms to living quaters, from libraries to temples. And like in the UFO and Master of Orion games, there's a research system, which allows you to gain access to spells, new rooms, all from your library. There other rooms as well such as the workshop, in which you create traps, doors, etc.. In the temple you can sacrifice creatures, gold, and small chickens for various outcomes. Another interesting thing is that your dungeon is very "realistic". By realistic I mean it's kind of alive. Creatures go to eat, do their jobs, fight enemies(altough not as effectively as with your help). And even have fights between eachother like normal humans: spiders hate flies, witches hate vampires etc.
A really cool feature is the ability too control monsters. This means that you zoom into their point of view(like an FPS), use their abillities and make them a more effective fighter.
And here comes the most unique feature in the hole game. Your hand! No seriously this is so funny and useful in the same time! It's useful because you can pickup your monsters with your "hand" and drag them to a specific room or into combat, you can also carry gold to your treasure room and chickens too your minions, or too in the middle of the combat. It's funny because right-click does a slap. Yes that's right!Don't like a monster?Think your imps are slow? Or do you have a bad guy in your dungeon? Slap him! This hurts but makes your creatures more effective, and is pure fun.

Overall:Dungeon Keeper is a unique, fun and addicting game. Besides, in how many games can you play as an Evil Lord?

Easter eggs:
Birthday Wish

Play the game on May 3rd (or set your computer clock to May 3rd). Skip the opening cinematic and a screen will come up that wishes Simon Carter a happy birthday.

Developer Greetings

Hold the left shift button and type "FECKOFF" or "SKEKSIS" and you will get a message from the developers untill you release the shift button

Game Outro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn2moM8i2Mo

5/5 Stars

Feel free to leave comments, questions and suggestions! Ohh and please click on my eggs ^^

[Dave]

Nice one, it's a good review, I think it could be increased a bit, especially the sound and the introduction part.
I remember I was impressed by sounds of spells and fights, also there were many secrets, hidden levels, easter eggs and special heroes...and the Horny Reaper!

[Blood-Pigggy]

It is a great game, but I think you're undercutting Bullfrog here. It was their talent that allowed Peter to create his visions.

Most of the time Bullfrog employees actually had to wrestle with Peter to tone down a game's scope in order to have it deliver something wholesome, this was the case with Populous, Syndicate, Magic Carpet and Dungeon Keeper.

Then he left and went to a team that really didn't know what it was doing (Lionhead) and things got out of hand because Molyneux went back to his old habit of promising things he couldn't deliver on, this time without a team that could actually implement the gist of his ideas without the game becoming overbearing or toned down from its original design document to the point that it was completely dull and generic a la Fable.

Great game, but I think the credit goes to the underlings at Bullfrog.

[Tomekk]

Will do. :worried:

[fettoswe]

I would have been fun to see bullfrog vs lionhead in a game making fight. If it happends I will bet all my money on bullfrug :thumbs:

[twillight]

There are helluva more easter-eggs out there for this game. Let me start to expand the list already given here:

1) Greets II :: Start the game with the command parameter -alex. While playing, press and hold down both Shift keys and type JLW.

2) Birthday Wishes
jan. 13: Mark Healey
marc. 21: Jonty Barnes
may. 3: Simon Carter
may. 5: Peter Molyneux
nov. 13: Alex Peters
dec. 1: Dene Carter
If a birthday and a full moon falls on the same day, the birthday-wish doesn't appear.

3) Multi-player mode vs. CPU
Start the game with the "-1player" command line parameter to play against the CPU in multi-player mode..

4) All creatures, buildings, and traps Type please give all at the main menu. (seems to be red herring)

5) Cheat mode
Use the spell to transfer yourself into one of your minions during game play in the dungeon. Press [F12] while in the minion to display the cheat menu. Use the mouse to highlight a cheat. Alternatively, use the spell to transfer yourself into one of your minions during game play in the dungeon and press [F11]. The screen will flash to confirm correct code entry. To use a creature's spells, press [Keypad Enter] and select a spell. Additionally, press [Keypad Enter] at the main screen during game play for another cheat menu. Unlimited free creatures can be created by using the "Place Creature Mode" option. (seems to be red herring)

6) Play the game on a Full Moon (depends on your computer's clock). A hidden level will show up on your world-map! (this level can not be completed in my version, so I strongly wait for the game being abandonedware).

7) Hidden screen
Finish the 7th scenario with the enemy "Lord of the Land" imprisoned / tortured (must be alive, unconverted).

8) Don't forget to plug in and activate your printer. A higher being is watching your every move! (It seems disabled in the gold-version. The messages aquired on level 9, 14 and 20. You can read them in the level-files directly with a notepad.)

9) hidden levels and things
These can be aquired through finding miscaleanes while playing. The hidden levels can be played anytime after the bonus is found, and they can be used more then once.
- there is transfer creature on map 4, 7-16 (but after level 9 you can just use the bonus levels for this purpose)
- there is a hidden level bonus on map 8, NE-corner
- there is a hidden level bonus on map 9, at the end of the "labyrinth" that leads from the west part of the map to north. The room it is in, is very heavily trapped.
- there is a hidden level bonus on map 15, in the center of the area. Need bridge to aquire it.
- there is a hidden level bonus on map 17, at the south.

10) sacrifisal-system:
- imp: -x$ cost per new imps.
- troll + dark mistress + bile demon: horned reaper
- 2 bile demon: all your units turn to chicken
- chicken: most of your chickens blow up
- horned reaper: „the gods ar angry” (all your creatures become angry, but the function doesn't seem to work)
- Gold: Try it and see
- 3 spider: bile demon
- ghost: all your chicken die
- vampire: „the gods are angry” (all your creatures become diseased, but the function doesn't seem to work)
- fly + spider: warlock
- 2 flies: research finished imediatelly
- 2 beetle: manufacture finished immediatelly
- beetle + spider: dark mistress

11) Run the game without CD:
Edit the INSTALL_PATH in the KEEPER.CFG to point to the game directory. If, for example, you installed the game to C:\KEEPER, that's what the INSTALL_PATH should read.

12) To send harassments, press ALT + F1 to F8 keys. (F6 doesn't seem to work)

13) To get a hidden message from Jonty Barnes in the game, you must get a Hatchery, a Temple and the Chicken spell. First, sacrifice more than 16 chickens into the Temple pool. Then, point your mouse cursor over the Chicken spell to show its tooltip box and have fun reading.

14) febr 29: the game can not be runned (depends on version)

15) First, grab a chicken drop it in your treasure room. Pick it up and drop it in your lair. Pick it up once again and drop it in your training room. Pick it up again and put it in your hatchery. Pick the SAME one up and place it in your library. Now it is invincible. Put it as close to lava as you can get and let it wander in. If it doesn't, then get another and do the stuff over again. Now, smack it (don't worry, it is totally invicible). After doing this, posess it. It is your invincible, super powered chicken. Now you can control it around, and it has lots of randomly generated abilities. (seems to be red herring)

16) There's nothing like a whole coven of those vixens getting whipped at the same time, I'm telling you! (The game will actually tell you "Stop that, you'll go blind!" if you leave the cursor over the "occupied" torture chamber for too long.) (I remember this working, but I could not reproduce it in the gold-version - and I've deleted the other)

[twillight]

There are some bugs associated to this game.

First, in big fights the game can slow down a LOT, especially if you fight in the FPS-mode.
Also the game seem to freeze down and/or quit regularly, so save periodicly to avoid any losses.

The transfer creature special only works, if you start the next level IMMEDIATELLY AFTER you used that special in a certain level. This means you may not load another game, or quit the program.

On the Moon-level a "barbarian" is promised to you, but never appears. I don't know if there is a connection to this, but I finished the Moon-level after the 6th scenario, and on the 7th I got as one of the first arriving creature an ork (at the end it was L10, and as I never put him into the training-room, can be it arrived like that), who gave me immediatelly the ability to build barrack.

Also on the first bonus-level it is promised to you to transfer a creature. Sadly that seems not possible by either way winning the level (it offers two alternative solution).

The Horned Reaper and Vampire sacrifises do not work properly (nothing happens except the words "the gods are angry" appearing).

The intro-outro narration from level 6 to level 19 is slipped. L6's ending can be listened at the end of L7, L7's at L8, ..., L19 at L6.

When a vampire of yours die, then returns (natural ability of the vampire above level 3 to resurrect itself on the cost of loosing a level), your "original" vampire is technically dead for good. So if you have a "resurrect creature" special item, you can immediatelly have a L9 and a L10 vampire!