By Alec Meer on August 19th, 2009 at 8:18 pm.
So Dungeon Keeper may be returning, as evidenced by not one but two trademark applications on EA’s part. My feelings on the matter are the very definition of ‘mixed’.
Of course I want to play a new DK game with ultra-graphics and drop-in multiplayer and perhaps even some degree of persistence (as I’m perhaps foolishly guessing any new take on the series would involve), but my huge attachment to a game I revisit at least once every 12 months has very little to do with the license – which was always broad, generalist fantasy with a satirical twist, rather than something howlingly unique. A new DK would be the same characters with a different team, and that means little. This isn’t that I’m lost to Bullfrogian retro-fetishishm – even the same theme with the same team mightn’t inspire me greatly at this stage. I want to be told this will be awesome, not simply this is happening.
Similarly, I have no fear that someone is going to foul up the license. DK means as much as it does to me because it was a perfect storm of passive observation and active strategy. Construction and action: two of the key pillars upon which my PC gamingdom is founded. What I want is the reassurance that the same values, the same degree of fun, will persist and be expanded upon, not that I get to look at a Horned Reaper with more polygons. Drooling fervour for old IPs is meaningless: it is the values that matter, not the characters. The underwhelming if fun Overlord games have proven that the evil-as-hero concept isn’t enough on its own.
Nonetheless, a possible return, even if it is only desperate hope based upon the renewal of a copyright, which surely happens all the time, is exciting. But it’s exciting because a rich company might fund a subversive, flexible, funny management game after years of the genre being neglected, not because I might get to see a Bile Demon with pixel shaders.
On the other hand entirely, I bloody love Dungeon Keeper.
19/08/2009 at 20:22 Cutman says:
Finding out I could possess my little goblins and run around the dungeon I made is still one of the greatest moments I’ve ever had playing a game.
Also, modern rebirths of older games don’t really seem to pan out well. Sure there’s the diamond in the rough here and there, but on the whole it never really works out.
If it turns out that there is a new one, I’ll still blindly love it, and if it doesn’t, I can always rest assured knowing that an awesome series wasn’t potentially ruined. That being said, whatever happens with this I’ll more than likely be happy because I too, bloody love Dungeon Keeper.
19/08/2009 at 20:25 Schaulustiger says:
Please, don’t.
This could in no possible way fulfill the nostalgia-driven expectations that we built up over the years. Some gaming series should rest and I think Dungeon Keeper is one of them.
Btw, I find DK2 still very playable, except for the utterly broken multiplayer. I’d rather see some fan fix for that than a new iteration of the series which would most likely be made for consoles as well and therefore hacked to streamlined pieces.
19/08/2009 at 20:34 Inigo says:
I thought the DK rights had been sold to a Chinese developer to make an MMO?
19/08/2009 at 20:37 BuDong says:
Then someone in the press will find out you can torture fairies in the game…
19/08/2009 at 20:38 Torgen says:
I found the first Overlord cloyingly *good*, and, piled on top of the consolesque boss fight, killed any enjoyment I derived from the demo. I’d relish an actual bad character for a change. In Overlord, you should have been able to torture and consume the souls of those impertinent villagers, after having your gremlins scale the palisade and lower the drawbridge.
19/08/2009 at 20:39 SwiftRanger says:
Problem is which studio would be suited for this? It probably won’t be any in-house developer EA has (EALA is just a cookie-cutter RTS factory) and other ex-Bullfrog talent isn’t centralized anymore (Lionhead is owned by MS and I don’t even know if I would trust the present-day Molyneux with a new DK).
I don’t see this ending well, especially not when it would also come to consoles.
19/08/2009 at 20:51 Sam says:
I came so close to loving the original Dungeon Keeper, so close. The “try-to-grab-speedy minion” control scheme was infuriating. I constantly found myself clicking on the spot one of my creatures had just vacated, or picking up a fly when I wanted to pick up the skeleton next to it.
That game cried out for something like a Spacebar pause or a snap-to-nearest-creature button. I’d welcome a remake or sequel if it fixed that problem (or advice from others on how they got past this problem playing it back in the day).
19/08/2009 at 20:55 cowthief skank says:
I’d love to see a Bile Demon with pixel shaders.
19/08/2009 at 20:56 phat_chopps says:
Bah humbug!
If you want nostalgia, or feel the new game isn’t up to scratch, you can always go back and play the old one. The making of a new version isn’t going to make the original game disappear from existence, or change it any way, is it?
19/08/2009 at 20:59 Howard says:
I really want DK to return but given even the original team managed to feck it up with DK2 (which was appalling!) I doubt a new team will do any better.
@Sam
Jeez… did you miss the point./ DKs control mech was spectacular!
19/08/2009 at 21:00 Vinraith says:
@phat_chopps
That’s a common fallacy. Actually, the making of a bad entry in a series damages the reputation of the series as a whole, plus it makes it far less likely that a GOOD entry in the series will ever be made again.
As to a new DK game, I’d be thrilled if such a thing actually turned out well. As others have said, though, in EA’s hands I think that’s very unlikely. The inevitable consolization is just one of many ways in which they can (and almost certainly will) screw this up.
19/08/2009 at 21:03 inanimotion says:
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
19/08/2009 at 21:05 Alez says:
I want dungeon keeper 3…NOW. I don’t care if it’s copy paste of 2 but just modern graphics. In fact, i’d rather they do that than fail.
19/08/2009 at 21:09 Archonsod says:
They promised us the surface dammit!
19/08/2009 at 21:10 DMJ says:
I want Dungeon Keeper 3 to be like Dwarf Fortress in 3D. And I want a pony.
19/08/2009 at 21:12 phat_chopps says:
@ Vinraith.
Nope, sorry – I stand by my humbug! The original games will always be there for DK lovers and nostalgia fans. Surely to suggest they won’t is madness?
As to sullying a good name and it never recovering it’s past glories – I rather enjoyed the new Monkey Island adventure despite utterly loathing Escape From. So bring on DK3, says I.
Point taken about EA being spuds though.
19/08/2009 at 21:21 Radders says:
I’d think Inigo is right, I would assume this is probably linked to them licensing the rights to a third party and wanting to make sure they still have the rights rather then a new game.
19/08/2009 at 21:23 Heliocentric says:
Quit bitching and play the eventual demo. Oh, and this will lead to more people picking up dk 2 and playing multiplayer which is nice. My favourite multiplayer strategy involves a few traps, a few temples and legions of undead.
If this was activision i’d be worried, but ea only seems to have poo for brains when it comes to racing and sport. Sure their online free to plays could do with a nudge in the right direction but i am not honking the failhorn yet.
19/08/2009 at 21:23 Radders says:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/12/01/dungeon-keeper-3-the-mmo-eh/ <– Is the original article
19/08/2009 at 21:26 cowthief skank says:
Vinraith: what is this ‘reputation’ you speak of? I play games I like, I couldn’t give a fuck if they are considered ‘good’ by others.
If Dungeon Keeper 3 turns out to be rubbish, and the youth of the day get it into their heads that this means Dungeon Keeper was rubbish and therefore do not play it (if indeed they would ever have any intention of playing it), that hardly equates to any loss for me.
Though it is a fair point that a crap game makes it less likely that a good game would be made in the future, I think that no game would have a similar effect…
Of course, perhaps I missed your point.
19/08/2009 at 21:33 Railick says:
I think Dungeon Keeper 2 could easily be updated to play very well on the Wii
19/08/2009 at 21:39 Dominus says:
WOOOOOOT! @____@ i fucking loooove this game
if the rumors are true, then I really hope EA will do its best for DK3 to be worthy of its predecessors!
19/08/2009 at 21:43 Howard says:
Oh good grief! You people didn’t…you didn’t actually LIKE DK2 did you?! O_O
19/08/2009 at 21:43 jalf says:
Yay! More Dungeon Keeper. And honestly, I’m not worried about it failing to live up to nostalgia, or it “sullying the series”.
It’s really what Alec said. The concept, the gameplay, the mechanics are what made the game stand out.
I don’t really care about Horny, the imps or the bile demons. Replace them with ants, rhinoceros beetles and spiders for all I care. Give me a game based on the same ideas, and I don’t *care* if it is called Dungeon Keeper or not, if it has Horny in it or not, and if it takes place in the same universe or not.
So if they fail, so what? They might ruin a franchise which has been in a coma for a decade anyway. Big deal… Never releasing another DK game would have the same effect.
19/08/2009 at 21:56 Alaric says:
I approve.
19/08/2009 at 22:02 hitnrun says:
@Vinraith: You have a point, as far as it goes, that a crap revisiting of an old franchise to mine “nostalgia” stands a decent chance of killing the series forever. Just off the top of my head, it’s unlikely that we’re ever going to see another Bionic Commando or Turok. In a different tack, the success of the kiddy “Advance” take on Final Fantasy Tactics means that the original game will never see the proper sequel fans have clamored for.
But is there any reason to think this Dungeon Keeper entry couldn’t be good? Why can’t it be the rebirth of the legend? Of course, it might not be, but considering that the DK franchise is deceased and interred and likely to stay that way, there’s hardly anything being risked.
19/08/2009 at 22:03 destroy.all.monsters says:
Well they’re also apparently developing a new Syndicate so we should know by how good or bad that is what to expect from this.
As Syndicate is one of my holy grail games (as DK is yours) it will be more than a bit sobering if they do screw up Syndicate.
With Deus Ex 3 coming along with this and Syndicate I can see this either turning to me being in joyous harmony with the universe, with a bad case of acid reflux or needing to invest in truckloads of valium to get over my morbid depression at devs butchering my beloved past.
Criminy that was a horrible run on sentence. Of Doom.
19/08/2009 at 22:05 Cooper says:
Persistent world, did you forget:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/12/01/dungeon-keeper-3-the-mmo-eh/
In anycase, I love DK. DK2 wasn’t bad, but relied too much on hominid creature models – I preferred the variety of the original in terms of creatures.
I just loved how difficult DK was to just keep a dungeon ticking over. Half your time was spent retrieving flies from buzzing off and brining heroes to your dungeon (flies always go straight back into the portal. Or get dropped next to a spider… Or keeping bile demons and skeletons apart, or saving your imps from stray fireballs from interrupted warlocks… Or painstakingly building a whole apartment complex just to keep one horny happy, and hoping that he doesn’t go mental in there..
19/08/2009 at 22:06 destroy.all.monsters says:
@Vinraqith – What do you think about the westernized Front Mission? Think it will doom the old style games? Doom the series? Or do you have other thoughts on it?
19/08/2009 at 22:10 Railick says:
I really like the modern heir to Dungeon Keeper is Dwarf Fortress. I can’t think of anything that would improve on Dwarf Fortress so I don’t know how Dungeon Keeper 3 could be any better than it . If they just attempted to do Dungeon Keeper 2 with more than 1 Z level and a surface level it will be even more like Dwarf Fortress but not as much fun ;P
19/08/2009 at 22:10 Railick says:
like – think, dunno what I was liking ;P lol just kidding . my typos are getting worse as the day drags on.
19/08/2009 at 22:17 Vinraith says:
@hitnrun
I’m actually not the one arguing that this will definitely suck, so you might want to address that one to some of the other posters here. I’m haven’t got high confidence, because EA isn’t exactly noted for their respectful treatment of pre-existing franchises, but I’d love nothing more than the see a modern incarnation of DK that actually worked.
@destroy.all.monsters
I’ve never played Front Mission so I couldn’t really comment.
19/08/2009 at 22:21 Taillefer says:
Dungeon Keeper is one game where I’d be happy with more of the same. They got almost everything right. Right down to the sounds and music.
I’d like to know how well it could work without letting you pick up and drop your creatures (but maybe allow it for imps). It made defence too easy, and outposts pointless. You’d have to put a little more thought into dungeon design without it. But, I know I liked being able to do it at the time. Hmmm.
Dwarf Fortress is great, of course. But there’s still an amazing game to be had even if you removed half the complexity (or more).
19/08/2009 at 22:23 almonds says:
@ Railick
Oh, how about graphics? Documentation? User-Interface? There are MANY things that can be improved upon in Dwarf Fortress.
19/08/2009 at 22:23 Railick says:
I’m wondering, which DK-alike game is you favorite? Evil Genius? StarTopia? Anyone have any thoughts on that?
19/08/2009 at 22:27 Howard says:
Startopia was great, but then given who it was made by its no huge surprise =)
19/08/2009 at 22:29 HexagonalBolts says:
Dwarf Fortress is only in an early alpha, it’s fantastic now but it could be truly amazing in the future
When will someone modernise Populous??
19/08/2009 at 22:32 Heliocentric says:
What was wrong with dk2? I mean actually wrong. DK 1 is one of the only bullfrog games i never played on account of it never working, so i’ll accept my position is weakened here. But dk2 had valid multiplayer which even the later evil genius didn’t bother with. 2 vs 6 coop lan is awesome fun. Its tile based nature makes map making easy. I can imagine great things coming from a properly made sequel. Shame surface missions seem unlikely. If we are lucky maybe we can send beings to attack the surface evil genius style.
What is somewhat exciting is that ea is finally getting their head around persistent content so maybe i can carry over my converted dwarves from mission to mission and slowly level them up into mining super soldiers.
19/08/2009 at 22:33 AtkinsSJ says:
HexagonalBolts – there was a modernisation a while back. Google ‘Populous the Beginning’. It wasn’t that great, IIRC. Though you may well be meaning a modernisation of that.
19/08/2009 at 22:33 Railick says:
I really wish Muckyfoot would have stayed around longer. I loved Startopia and was really looking forward to more of those types of games from them. Theme Hospital was awesome and I feel like Startopia was kind of the space version of that :P
19/08/2009 at 22:34 Heliocentric says:
Populous got modernised. Its called black and white.
19/08/2009 at 22:34 Vinraith says:
Startopia really was fantastic. I still mourn the passing of Mucky Foot.
19/08/2009 at 22:37 Howard says:
@Heliocentric
DK2, in comparison to DK1 was just awful. It was slow, clunky and filled with stupid gimics that did nothing for the gameplay.
Its hard to really describe exactly what is wrong with DK2: just play the first one and you will see how much better in every respect it is.
Oh and Populous was a good game so calling B&W a modernisation of it is just insulting…
19/08/2009 at 22:37 Heliocentric says:
@hitnrun bionic commando rearmed is fucking A. We will see further 2D efforts once the stink from the 3D one has washed away.
19/08/2009 at 22:46 Heliocentric says:
Black and white 2 city building was really relaxing. Build a 200 floor high sky scraper then punish your people for building a tower of babel.
Startopia was 2 or 3 patches from being really perfect. Evil genius was a bit of a mess, but i hold high hopes for a sequel. I find dwarf fortress utterly impeneterable, i’m sure its very good though.
19/08/2009 at 22:48 Howard says:
Oh B&W2 wasn’t too bad, but the first one was dire. Such a buggy mess of Molyneaux lies it was ridiculous!
19/08/2009 at 22:49 Taillefer says:
A good number of missions let you take a selected minion with you in DK1 with a secret item, and bonus levels often rewarded you with it too. I always took a level 10 vampire. Then I’d possess an imp, dig straight to the enemy, possess the vampire then proceed to slaughter everything. Those vampires were so powerful… Bit cheap really.
19/08/2009 at 22:55 Stupoider says:
As a fan of Bullfrog games, there is no doubt that the original was amazing, unfortunately I never got to play it but I managed to watch a trailer for the sequel in Populous: The Beginning.
However, I don’t feel that EA do old games any justice. Classics are classics, and reviving them can damage the grandeur.
@phat_chopps: It’s always best to end on a good note. :< It might be safe to assume that the possibility of EA hitting a good note is hampered by their track record.
I just have a feeling that EA have put on their apron and the pig carcass that they've castrated this time is in the form of Dungeon Keeper.
@Howard: I'm with you on the Populous comment! (Even though I enjoyed both that and B&W.. :D) B&W and Populous don't share enough similarities, and I had much more affection towards the awesomeness of the shaman rather than my floating, and strangely glowing hand. There weren't enough hilarious screams and groans from your believers in B&W, and disciple breeders can't beat packing a group of men into a hut to produce offspring.
19/08/2009 at 22:59 The Great Wayne says:
If this one ever goes live, it have to be online and multiplayer: join the keepers, or join the phat loot seeker team.
I would play that, if only to be able to exact rightful justice on those WoWies…
Torture chamber, here they come.
19/08/2009 at 23:00 Railick says:
I don’t believe Black and White series has anything to do with Populous other that the fact that your a god. You didn’t have very direct control over your followers in Populous other than being able to set a flag and use miracles and raise and lower land. They set up their own buildings and took care of themselves. I’d like to see a modern game like that where you have no control over the people directly but can cause various things to happen like floods and lightning ect. Act Raiser 1 was very good in this regard I really enjoyed it but it wasn’t the same :P.
19/08/2009 at 23:01 Heliocentric says:
B&W2 was excellent for one reason, you were free to sacrifice everyone in your town including all refugee’s but still win the “good” way because an underpopulated town was more tempting to villagers.
Remember you get more energy from new born babies.
Alternatively keep the population in check by having your pet devour everyone. It was a shame the ai couldn’t be taught to eat old people, they are useless, and probably crunchy.
19/08/2009 at 23:02 Stupoider says:
@Heliocentric: “Evil genius was a bit of a mess, but i hold high hopes for a sequel.” Now THAT is a sequel I’d love to see, because there is so much more that can be added to it! Even now I sometimes have a play, testing out base designs or maybe catching a snippet of a video that tells me how to make my base better. :) I think Evil Genius is recent enough that there wouldn’t be that much of a fuss over a sequel, but because of Dungeon Keeper’s age it’s now a relic of gaming.. or am I talking crap? :<
19/08/2009 at 23:03 Railick says:
I liked both Black and White 1 and 2 . I could never teach my pet to do ANYTHING useful in B&W 1 and in B&W2 he felt less real for some reason like I really couldn’t teach him anything at all I dunno. I liked the city building aspect of 2 more so than 1 but the creature felt much less impressive. I never did play long enough for my creature to get huge like the lion in the first game.
19/08/2009 at 23:15 JonFitt says:
Truth is I thought it mattered. I thought that music mattered. But does it bollocks! Not compared to how people matter.
19/08/2009 at 23:26 Railick says:
???? what?
19/08/2009 at 23:51 jti says:
Dungeon Keeper was the first game I ever played 18 hours in one sitting. After that I really never went back to it and DK2 didn’t get much playing time either. Anyway, my curiosity has been aroused. The idea behind it is excellent.
19/08/2009 at 23:55 Howard says:
@Stupoider
I don’t think DK is a relic, as that would imply it was no longer relevant or playable against todays games but I for do still play it and its design holds up.
I really don’t know what to make of a new DK the more I think about it. Technically I should be pleased but a console centric, money grabbing, PC-game shafting bunch of degenerates like ES making a new DK fills me with horror. So, so, SO many games these days are just utter bilge and the more we resurrect licenses the more dross is generated (just look at the new Wolfenstein for evidence of that. It is unspeakable garbage). Cynical little ass grabs like EA just buy up old IPs so they can make a quick buck off of the name and I don’t see why this should be nay different.
19/08/2009 at 23:57 Rei Onryou says:
Every time you mention DK, I get an urge to play. I really should put it onto my EEE.
20/08/2009 at 00:05 Wisq says:
@Sam: I seem to recall I never bothered picking up minions on the main map. If you want imps for something, you click on the idle imps counter, which gets you an imp who was otherwise doing nothing. Repeat as many times as you want. Then, drop them all somewhere. Same for all other classes.
20/08/2009 at 00:12 Blast Hardcheese says:
Maybe the new one will have a “play as the heroes mode”?
And yeah, a multi level dungeon would be terrific.
20/08/2009 at 00:38 Legionary says:
Keeper, you have something unpleasant under your fingernail…
20/08/2009 at 00:41 jti says:
Someone should just sit down and have a good think of Dungeon Keeper and Majesty. There’s a new hit there somewhere.
20/08/2009 at 01:25 Lach says:
Your dungeon is built on an incline. Angry monsters cannot play marbles.
20/08/2009 at 03:22 TheFanciestOfPants says:
I’m going to remain optimistic until given a reason to be otherwise.
That said I’m firmly in the “terrible sequels don’t ruin the original” camp.
20/08/2009 at 03:30 Anonymous says:
@Blast Hardcheese:
That name.. a fellow fa/tg/uy I see.
20/08/2009 at 03:43 Scott Kevill says:
For what it’s worth, DK2 has been slightly resurrected on GameRanger and there are a number of people that play it online.
DK2 wasn’t available on any online service before that.
DK1 isn’t there yet because it uses IPX rather than TCP/IP. That will take a little longer.
20/08/2009 at 04:17 devlocke says:
I fail to see how the argument that making a sequel in a franchise may kill the franchise makes any sense at all. I suppose it’s true that a crap entry in the series would make a further entry less likely… but never continuing the series at all makes it impossible. So, err, what’re you folks who are demanding that no sequel be made hoping for? Are you thinking that if you just keep DKIII from being made for long enough, DKIV, the game you’ve all been waiting for, will spontaneously create itself?
Note: I’ve read what I just wrote above like thirty times, because I’m hammered, and I think it makes sense, but somehow it just seems like the grammar is really weird and doesn’t work. I think it’s just because I’m not together enough to parse it. If it actually makes no sense… I apologize in advance.
20/08/2009 at 04:28 Vinraith says:
@devlocke
We’d like it to be made by someone ELSE.
20/08/2009 at 07:05 Howard says:
@Vinraith
When I read your comment then I was all “Yeah, screw EA” as I have been further up this thread but then, when I sat down and thought about it, I cannot think of any recent games that ES have totally screwed up.
I went and looked here: http://www.eagames.co.uk/gamesearch/*/5/0/0/
to see what there had been of late and while there are plenty of bad games there (endless Sims crud, Harry Potter pap, Spore (I know, personal taste, but its my posting =P), Mirrors Edge, LotR: Conquest, NFS: Undercover) that DO fall under the category of cynical cash cows, I’m not sure about the rest.
For every game that clearly has had EAs hand in it (the NFS franchise and its 12 month treadmill being a great example) there is plenty of stuff that has just been bad due to its own fault (Spore, Burnout Paradise and Mirrors Edge for my money) and plenty of stuff that has been good like the 2 Crysis games, MoH:Airbourne (No Allied Assault, but a decent return to form in a market dominated by COD), Dead Space and Mass Effect. Add in a bunch of (produced too quickly, I grant) sports games that I don’t care about but don’t seem to have been loathed by the general populace and I am a little less certain in my hatred towards EA.
Are we just angry with them for the speed they churn games out or is there something I am missing?
20/08/2009 at 07:15 Vinraith says:
@Howard
Well, to the degree that ME is a good game I give credit to Bioware (and of the EA houses they might not be the worst pick for a DK remake, although I think that’s unlikely). As to the other examples of good games you give I have to be honest, I’ve not played them. I’ve played several of the BAD ones, but my opinion of EA output may be colored by sampling error.
Of course, their DRM behavior of late’s been appalling, so there’s that too. It’d be REALLY cute if DK3 turned out to be a GOOD game with a 2 install limit or some such nonsense.
20/08/2009 at 08:31 Subject 706 says:
Evil Genius a bit of a mess? Evil Genius is ace! Bought it a few weeks ago from Gog, on account that I’d completely missed it when it came out. Completely love it! Now I need to get Startopia too.
As to a new DK, I share the fears of many others about EA being the IP holders, but hey, you never know. After all they’re making C&C4 a pc exclusive, so they might be getting agrip, right? Right?
20/08/2009 at 09:08 Matzerath says:
I love Dk2, and it still looks amazingly great. Top-notch animation really counters limited polygons. What I hope for is a Monkey Island style update, if it’s at all possible. And for Lucifer’s sake keep the original narrator – he was wonderful.
20/08/2009 at 09:11 Heliocentric says:
Killing enemies needs epic micromanagement. Also where dungeon keeper is paced towards trial and error the persistence of evil genius can mean your past mistakes haunt you. Also combat usually resulted in escalating pressure. Where combat in dk granted you vampires skellies and converts.
20/08/2009 at 09:15 Maxheadroom says:
Wasn’t there a trailer made for DK3 shortly after 2 came out? it may have even been on the DK2 CD, or did I dream that?
20/08/2009 at 09:22 Über Nerd says:
Yep, it ended with Horny looking across a beautiful pastoral panaroma complete with rainbow and birds singing.
20/08/2009 at 09:53 Howard says:
@Vinraith
Of course: their DRM. Yeah, that hasn’t been good ><
All I can hope is that they follow the roots of DK and base their game on on the dark, dank, grime filled corridors of DK1 and ignore that schmaltzy, disco-bright turd fest that was DK2. Also as this will obviously be a 360 release as well, I do worry for the control scheme. The grab and drop of DK will simply never, ever work on a gamepad so I physically recoil in horror when thinking about what they might do to this franchise.
As many people have said though, the promise of a new DK is better than nothing. Ah well, we can but see.
20/08/2009 at 10:03 Ginger Yellow says:
Half your time was spent retrieving flies from buzzing off and brining heroes to your dungeon
Mmmmm. Heroes in brine.
20/08/2009 at 12:56 TheApologist says:
/drools in a meaningless fervour
20/08/2009 at 13:55 Kotti says:
For some reason, I don’t trust this thing. Maybe it’s because I didn’t like DK2 that much, it felt like a big step back from DK1. I’ll just keep waiting for Natural Born Keeper until there’s some actual info on this.
20/08/2009 at 14:09 Stense says:
The little ‘Mwahaha’ sound when summoning an Imp is still my favourite ever in-game sound. I thought that was important for me to state.
20/08/2009 at 15:06 Lucas says:
While the sim dungeon building was always great, the progress model was too trial-and-error bound. You played a map until the end and only then were sieged by heroes to succeed or fail.
What I always REALLY wanted from the DKs was what the overworld map promised: conquest! The ability to progressively dominate the landscape and wage war would really put a strategic twist on your dungeoneering.
20/08/2009 at 15:59 Taillefer says:
Lucas, hm?
The earlier maps, certainly.
But it introduced enemy keepers whose dungeon heart you had to destroy. Some levels had attacks from heroes from early on. And, of course, exploration was always rewarded with secret items.
I need to play now.
20/08/2009 at 16:50 Alez says:
And so this article gets buried under countless other and nobody will give a crap about making another DK.
Also, i notice a lot of you claim DK 1 was great and the second sucked. Actually nobody said the second was better. I feel like such a young poser because i played the second first and loved it. Only tried the first years later when DK2 was already a classic for me and the graphics of the first seemed impossibly ugly (i’m a visual whore i guess).
Glad to see so many of you loved the series…but i really think nothing will come of this.
P.S. I remembered i played the remake for Settlers 2(I loved the first settlers aka serf city) which was as far as i could tell 99% like the original but got bored real quick of it. So maybe “more of the same” wouldn’t work because i grew up and the nostalgia is lying to me.
20/08/2009 at 17:07 Aubrey says:
Josef Fritzl’s Dungeon Keeper, YAY!
20/08/2009 at 19:06 bob arctor says:
DK1 was awesome, but the later levels were so hard! The bastard cheating AI comes in after 10 minutes and poos on me.
The graphics were awesome though. Full 3D possession. So much depth in raising undead, or converting heroes, levelling them up, fighting with them in FPS.
The way the dogs had black and white vision, and beetles had compound eyes.
20/08/2009 at 19:39 cowthief skank says:
Ahh like most of the rest of you I have got the fever again. I need to play Dungeon Keeper, but it probably won’t work on Windows 7 RC.
The sound of the Imps being summoned was indeed one of the best sounds in any game ever. The different vision for the different creatures was genius, though I hated controlling some of them because of it I think that made the game even better; things shouldn’t always be perfectly smooth.
I have to admit I am not sure I ever actually finished Dungeon Keeper; I believe I got to some final battle with lots of Heroes, but I could not say for sure that this was not in Dungeon Keeper 2 (which was most definitely NOT rubbish).
21/08/2009 at 07:26 Sonicgoo says:
Just wanted to add that I too loved Dungeon Keeper (2! even!) and am glad to see Startopia mentioned as well. A game that still looks great today and another example of style > polys.
Maybe I should try that Evil Genius game as well…
21/08/2009 at 08:43 PC Monster says:
“Impus neetool”
I enjoyed both Dungeon Keeper games but loved DK2; done right – respectful of character, etc – I’d be very interested in a third game.
Startopia bored me so much I only played it once then gave my copy away. It wasn’t genius so much as tedious and trying too hard to be funny.
Dwarf Fortress IS completely impenetrable. The user-interface has been designed by masochists, for masochists, ignoring every development, significant or not, in UI’s since the 1970′s. In fact, I suggest DK3 slyly references it as an option for torturing captured heroes – force them to sit down and play it.
You really have never lived until you’ve possessed a chicken then watched monsters celebrating a win in the casino with a rousing dance to disco classics.
21/08/2009 at 15:30 Catastrophe says:
I wonder if DK2 is on GoG, I miss that game and can’t find my damned copy.
21/08/2009 at 19:19 Seth says:
@ Alez, I don’t think “a lot of people” are saying this second one sucked. Just Howard. Over and over and over.
I still remember how the original box came with a simple flier with the DK2 logo – and a a statement of license to use the song “Disco Inferno.” Class act all around.
They’re both some of my favorite games but I dunno about a third. What happened to the license for that Korean Dungeon Keeper mmo EA sold?
21/08/2009 at 19:27 Railick says:
I didn’t know you could posses the chickens!
As far as DF being impenetrable obviously it isn’t otherwise no one would play it . . .