Dungeons
At all times, literature, films and games convinced the audience that evil (despite all their negative essence) should be at least charismatic. Evil attracts, evil excites blood, evil pronounces immortal winged phrases, evils are expensive shoes, evil never lacks in pretty witches – after all, in hell, as you know, the company is more interesting.
Game Dungeons This stereotype runs safely-in its performance, the evil turned out to be incredibly boring, not at all mysterious and some kind of unsophisticated-focus. That is, as it usually happens in real life. But knowing the initial idea of the Germans from Realmforge Studios (Clone legendary Dungeon Keeper , whose fans are already tired of asking for something from Electronic Arts ), we can say with confidence – they are by chance.
And with another important quality of this evil genius – ingenuity – the Germans turned out to be completely seams. Here almost everything in one form or another is copied with Dungeon Keeper 2 – a dungeon that needs to be expanded, equipped and populated by various creatures. Periodically, people-heroes descend here, who can cause irreparable harm to the so-called dungeon's heart, and then the game is the end. Small ridiculous muzzy are replaced by small funny goblins, but they just dig the walls, producing gold and gnawing a place for new rooms. Here you can build libraries, weapons and prisons, place traps. You are free to look at what is happening from above and from behind the shoulder of the evil keeper, who can personally visit entrusted premises.
The plot is also similar: the former lord of all the dungeons (that is, us) was seated in his post that similar to the porn actress of the demoness Calipso, and now the player will have to regain the throne, gradually going deeper and deeper, conquering new dungeons along the way. As in Dungeon Keeper, progress is displayed on a global map, and the conquered areas in the same way change their flowering green look for ash red. In place, even a goblin-advocate, which, to the best of strength, is caustically commenting on what is happening.
According to rumors, initially the Germans turned out to be so similar to DK game that they, frightened by the accusations of plagiarism (although they can be easily presented now), decided to make a sharp feint with their ears and redraw the concept. As a result, the whole complex system of relationships with subordinates went under the knife. Peter Molinjo (the author of the original game), recall, all these vampires, goblins, trolls, spiders, Varlocks, dark ladies, thieves and other races had their own values, their own attitude towards each other and to us – as the owner. We were forced to feed them with chickens, take into account preferences (sorcerers love the library, but hate vampires) and monitor their mood, carefully acting by the method of whip and gingerbread. And all this-so that at the right time they meet competitors and sugary heroes with dignity.
And in Dungeons, the opposite is true: the monsters that we call with the help of special pentagrams are deprived of their opinion, like members of the party in power: they are equal to the bull terriers, who are on the command of FAS!»Stupidly rush to the enemy who is nearby. But for some reason their attitude towards you and their needs appeared among the heroes. Every man descending into your dungeon (and they go from different portals in different ends of the card, and you can close the portals and open it yourself). One wants knowledge, the other – treasures, the third – weapons, the fourth – fights, and thieves love to hack traps. As a rule, everyone has several needs at once, and we must satisfy them: arrange chests with a gold in the way, pentagrams with monsters, put traps somewhere, build libraries and arms rooms.
The more satisfied the heroes, the more they accumulate the so -called “soul energy”, which we just need. Satisfied, under the severity of the loot, they are already in a hurry to the exit, but we should not allow this: we need to catch up and beat the hero to half to death, after which the goblins will take the unfortunate to a pre -built prison, where precious energy will come out of him drop by drop. To pull it out more and faster, in the later stages you can build torture tools. Energy is needed to increase the level of their monsters, order new workers and call on a guard who protects the heart of the dungeon.
There are two more types of resources: the gold to which we build the whole situation and which we fill the chests for the heroes, and the glory that determines the ability to build something according to an individual order. Glory increases as we decorate the dungeon with all kinds of bonfires, torches, cells with bones, coffins and the like “beauties”. Heroes see all this, admire, share emotions with each other, and the glory of our catacombs is growing. Otherwise, tourists can get bored, offended and hasten to smash the “heart of the dungeon” without a break for inspection of sights.
Finally, the ubiquitous RPG elements appeared. In DK for role -playing games, a dark lady with a whip was responsible, and in Dungeons, the whole routine fell on our evil shoulders. The role of the custodian of the dungeons has grown significantly – he constantly has to personally run around the catacombs and distribute cuffs to enemies or fry them with magic. Here the game resembles the usual action-rpg: we use skills tied to hot keys, and collect golden. In honor of this, the keeper has parameters (strength, dexterity, intelligence, physique) and three branches of skills: one increases the power of attacks, the other opens powerful spells, the third – optimizes construction, reducing, for example, the cost of buildings.
But even such a strange mixture of Taikun, strategies and action-RPG could also be interesting, but then another native and public quality brought up the Germans-attention to the details. The idea of decorating the dungeons turned out to be profanity: to the heroes to the light bulb that you have here from a real human bone inlaid with gold. Therefore, we randomly hang on the walls everything that is hanged to get access to a more advanced library.
The needs of the heroes are simple, like their behavior: they do not go to church, they do not need an underground casino, they themselves cannot escape from prison, they have no personal enemies and friends, they do not need to be sacrificed, converted to skeletons and arbitrarily lure to your side (such a task is found only in the plot). Very soon the process is put on the stream. The main thing is to track where the heroes come from, to build arms and libraries, more chests and traps are more complicated to satisfy the requests of people as fully as possible. And then cheat them in full near the passage to the heart of the dungeon, where even the most satisfied and curious heroes are soon or later. And as soon as they find themselves there, we force everything around the pentagrams that with a certain frequency spit out new portions of slugs, rats, skeletons and other creatures.
There is no need to wait for special tactical diversity in such a situation. The complexity of the passage of missions is determined only by the number of clicks and time spent on performing the same actions.
Only the special prisoners that the game throws from the routine: to capture the remote den of the monsters, to kill the king of the zombie, to intercept smugglers with cargo, to accompany the slug to the slug gun (!), destroy the competing keeper … to perform such quests is really interesting, but the villainous routine and the need for a squirrel in the wheel personally run around the dungeon back and forth sooner or later will tire any.
Realmforge Studios did not succeed in making a worthy heir to Dungeon Keepers. Dungeons lack depths, diversity, cynicism and multiplayer (although the battles of the two overlords suggest themselves). Here you will not feel like a charismatic villain with thin manners and a cane: at a maximum – the owner of a meat processing plant, which fits up heroes, like piglets to slaughter, then to personally run after them. And this, whatever one may say, is just a "cheerful farm" about evil.
TRANSLATION: Russian localization, unlike the game itself, turned out to be almost impeccable: there are no complaints about the quality of the text (everything was translated competently and adequately in meaning), nor for voice acting. The voice of a goblin-adviser is especially successfully selected: it ironizes, curses, and it is added very convincingly. True, the replicas of the adviser are repeated too often, and soon you have to turn them off.
Reigracy – No
Cool plot – No
Originality – Yes
Easy to master – Yes
Gameplay: 6
Graphics: 7
Sound and music: 7
Interface and management: 6
Waited? Dungeon Keeper for bored German housewives, https://candy-land-casino.co.uk/ who, after endless "funny farms" wanted more acute.
Mania rating: 6.5
"Above the average"
Localization rating: 3/3