Review by: Pete Hines
Published: August 13, 1999

The legacy of Dungeon Keeper (DK) has yet to be determined. We are only just now beginning to see the effects it has had on the gaming industry. Certainly, it’s hard to dispute the highly original concept it brought forth and the unique style of gameplay that captured many an imagination. Dungeon Keeper 2 (DK2) expands on the original with a variety of new features and gadgets, a revamped interface and a brand new look. At the same time, the core elements remain largely unchanged and will be quite familiar to anyone who experienced the original.

A quick recap is in order for those who have been under a rock for the last couple of years. Dungeon Keeper put you in charge of your own dungeon with the goal of destroying goody-two-shoes heroes out to save the day. You built different types of rooms meant to attract the forces of evil to your dungeon, where they eat, sleep, train and fight for the cause. The key to success was a well planned dungeon that attracted the most powerful creatures possible by meeting their needs and was also easy to defend against incursions from heroes and opposing dungeon keepers. You could research spells to help your cause, convert captured enemies to your side and build a variety of devices to help defend your domain. The main resources in the game were gold that was mined and collected by your minions and mana, which was a reflection of the size of your dungeon.

In the sequel, you are trapped in the underworld with all the other dungeon keepers. Your goal this time out is to obtain special gems that have been given to the many lords of the land, each of whom owns a part of the kingdom. Each mission pits you against one of these lords and his forces. Defeating the lord earns you the gem and brings you one step closer to making it to the world above. Since you’re not the only one trying to gather these gems, you may find yourself running up against other dungeon keepers who have designs on beating you to the surface. If you want to win, it’s better to kill first and ask questions later, because anyone you see who doesn’t work for you is probably out to get you.

Graphically, the game has managed to both greatly change and stay the same. Everything is much more vivid because, this time, the team built in 3D hardware acceleration support from the start. The creatures look more realistic, although there’s still a bit of jaggedness to some of their features, and when you zoom in, you’ll notice the detail drops off a bit. Still, the improvement over the software-oriented original is tremendous and the hardware-accelerated patched version considerable. Despite the improvement, the title still has a familiar look and feel, and none of the old rooms have changed all that much in appearance. In fact the dungeon on the whole has an updated, but not revolutionary, look to it. This holds true for most of the elements in DK2, where things have taken a step or two forward without executing any giant leaps.

The interface has also been changed and been given an all new look. Three-dimensional tiles will fall from the top of the screen to draw your attention to a new event, such as a new type of creature entering your dungeon or a newly researched spell. You can view the action from any number of angles and levels of zoom with the camera controls that can pan, pivot, zoom in and out and more. You can keep track of your minions easily with an information screen that show you exactly what they are doing at any given moment. This menu also enables you to grab creatures in your hand for placement in other parts of the dungeon using the creature icons, so you don’t have to seek them out in the dungeon individually.

While combat is much more organized than before because creatures aren’t situated in big piles, it’s still really hard to tell who is attacking whom. For larger and more important fights, I slow things down to try and keep things under better observation, but I still get frustrated from not being able to tell exactly what’s going on. DK2 comes with a handy reference card that lists all the various hot keys available. The manual does a decent job of explaining the basic elements and the campaign is set up as a kind of tutorial, introducing new concepts and game elements slowly over the first few missions to help newcomers along and introduce new items to veterans. Experienced players will find they’re easy enough to finish quickly, so you don’t waste your time on beginner’s level stuff.