shadowcat's Full Review: Dungeon Keeper 2 for Unix\Linux
The game's premise: you are the overlord of a subterranean dungeon, who must attract minions and keep them happy, collect gold and jewels, and destroy the poor deluded heroes who happen to wander too near. Occasionally rival dungeon keepers make the mistake of infringing on your rightful territory, and of course they must be shown the error of their ways.
The game has a series of progressively more difficult scenarios, with specific tasks to accomplish. The first few scenarios, especially, do a good job of gradually introducing new types of creatures and things you can do, which you might miss if you play only the other mode. That other mode, "My Pet Dungeon", allows you to build in peace, and drop in wandering heroes if you think your creatures need a bit of excitement, and is particularly satisfying if you're stuck on a hard scenario or don't want to worry about progressing quickly (most of the scenarios have time limits). Once the scenarios are completed, the game has limited replayability, but I still dig it out again now and then for a fond hour or two of dungeon-keeping.
You begin the game with a few imps, which can be created at will and eagerly dig out rooms and gold. After you've built a lair for creatures to sleep in and a hatchery where they can eat young helpless chickens, trolls, goblins, and salamanders may start coming in. As the game progresses, you can build jails, where forgotten prisoners starve and turn into skeletons; torture chambers, where Mistresses can convince prisoners to give up precious information about their forces; and graveyards, where those unfortunate prisoners that died in the process of being tortured go to eventually rise as vampires. More characters still await you, and the scenarios will direct you how to attract them and keep them happy.
One particularly fascinating aspect of the game is the ability to possess a minion, which leads you into a first-person version of the game where you can see through its eyes, recruit other creatures to join you, and direct its actions. This is the best way to lead attacks, as otherwise minions have a distressing tendency to wander off, and smacking them will only go so far.
There's nothing like coming home after a stressful day to a dungeon full of imps to smack, prisoners to torture, gold to mine, and virtuous heroes to slaughter. If you have an inner demon yearning to be free, give this game a shot. It's in the bargain bin by now, and more than worth the $10 to experience the glory of being an overlord of the underworld!
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