On the left hand side of the screen is the control panel where you can manage the different tasks within the dungeon. There are different panels that represent different items. For example, one of the panels is the Rooms Panel. From the rooms panel you can decide which rooms you want to build and, as the game progresses, new rooms appear in the panel to build. When the game begins there is a treasure room and a Lair Room because these are the first two rooms you need to build. You need a treasure room to store all your gold and you need a Lair for your evil creatures to live in. Once your treasure room is created you will need to create some other basic rooms, such as hatcheries (for food), Libraries, and Training rooms. You build training rooms to make your creatures stronger to defend your dungeon. You build libraries to let your creatures learn new spells and new trades. Once you have all the basics built, you need to build a tunnel to the portal, which is the means by which all evil creatures enter you dungeon. There is always a portal in every dungeon and can be found by using the overhead map.

The whole point to building a dungeon is to attract evil and to fend off heroes and adventurers. You do this by building armies that attack these adventurers as they wander into your dungeon. You also can set up traps and locked doors to prevent them from penetrating certain areas. When an encounter happens inside your dungeon, your creatures will attack and kill the intruder or capture them and put them into your prison (if you have built one). There are different weapons and spells in the game that are at your disposal to use. Some of them involve combat and others involve other aspects of your dungeon.

At any point during the game you can check the status of any creature in your dungeon by requesting information on them. There are different statistics kept for each creature telling you information such as their health, hunger, intelligence, and a number of other things.

You almost could think of Dungeon Keeper as a SimCity type game in a dungeon, except with intelligence. This is where Dungeon Keeper separates itself from those types of games. The artificial intelligence of everything in the dungeon is amazing. All the creatures seem as if they have their own personalities and will even fight each other if they are not friends.

This review only gives a glimpse into the world of Dungeon Keeper. One of the more interesting features is the ability to take control over one of the creatures in the dungeon. By doing this, your view changes to a first person perspective from which you can move around the dungeon as if you were in it. It has much the same look as the 3D shooters out there except that your dungeon is very much alive. You can watch your Imps digging out tunnels or see your chickens being hatched in the Hatchery. When taking over a fly, your view is distorted as if you were actually looking through the eyes of a fly. During more intense battles, it is better to take over a more powerful creature and use their different weapons in battle. Wizards throw fireballs that radiate light as they travel down corridors, representing the best dynamic light seen in any PC game today!

Dungeon Keeper also comes with the ability to play multiplayer games. This can be done over a modem, serial cable, or through an IPX network. You also can play multiplayer against the computer, who will assume the roles of anybody that does not play. The ability to play against other people offers another challenge to the world of Dungeon Keeper. There are different options for playing multiplayer, but the main focus of the game is to overtake the other Keepers by killing their Dungeon Heart. The winner of the game has the ability to torture the loser to rub it in.

For a game being in hiding so long, it became evident that it has been well worth the wait. With its unique gameplay and superb artificial intelligence (not to mention the highly detailed graphics and dynamic lighting), Dungeon Keeper is aiming to be the hit of the summer and possibly the hit of the year!