War for the Overworld

Just close your eyes for a minute and listen. Does that sound like you're in a dungeon? Are they usually smothered in inoffensive music? Open your eyes now. Isn't this place suspiciously clean? Aren't the colors somewhat washed out? And why are all the tunnels so straight? See, DK games were from the same family that gave us stuff like Planescape: Torment, The Secret World or No One Lives Forever - hot messes with a glorious vision. Here, none of this artistry is on display. Where WftO copies the old stuff, it turns out kind of soulless, and where it tries new things, it's consistently meh. There's too much of everything, very little matters, and nothing is particularly memorable. One thing I'll give them credit for is Daddy Pig. They did him well. All in all, for me this thing is a dud. It's not Dungeon Keeper 3, it's a committee's bucketful of dungeony things upended into a sandbox with pastel walls. If you're boiling to scratch a particular itch, you may like it, but it's not going to define you childhood, or even the month, really.

For all intents and purposes, this is a clone of Dungeon Keeper 2. Dungeon Keeper 2 had a teaser trailer for DK3 which also had a subtitle "War for the Overworld" and, in accordance to the name (and the whole DK2 campaign which ends - SPOILER ALERT - - when the evil forces kill the king and capture the working portal to the surface world) was supposed to take place on the surface -taking the fight back to the heroes' land and conquering it. Now, back to this game - it rode on the nostalgic wave of fans who never got the proper continuation of DK2, even so far as appropriating the name "War for the Overworld", but THERE IS NO WAR FOR THE OVERWORLD. The whole game takes place underground, just like DK1 and DK2. So basically this is a meticulous copy of all DK2 mechanics that adds nothing new, besides superficial things like different story, graphics and creatures; and most importantly, it does NOT add the Overworld mechanic like the name falsely suggests. In that sense, even Dungeons 2 is a more worthy successor to DK2 - that game at least has the actual surface world gameplay.

I'm an RTS fan since C&C / Warcraft 2, but I haven't managed to feel like I have any control over this game. I get the whole designate vs control thing relates back to some hellish Dwarf Fortress precursor, but even little things like: - I want to push a button to move the camera to my main army. - I want to push a button to see my foundry. - How do I know if I have enough food / beds? I don't know, maybe in a few minutes one of the dozen notifications will be 'unit BOB is unhappy (because he can't sleep)'. But he might simply be in battle - HOW MANY BEDS DO I NEED? - HOW MUCH FOOD DO I NEED? AFAIK 3x3 pigs is enough for any size dungeon? - I can't tell my units to retreat. I know there's a spell - but it leaves them in combat and gets cancelled when they inevitably take damage... so they die. But they could've just run away... but I can't tell them to run away.

A worthy successor to the Peter Molyneux classic, Dungeon Keeper. If you enjoy keeping dungeons this game is for you. Although, not without its faults. I'll start this review with the bad. I was a bit disappointed to find that some of my old favorite minions such as the Bile Demon, troll, and Horny Reaper did not make the cut (from what i have seen yet) although, they did include some worthy replacements. Also, green imps threw me off at first... took a while, but it grew on me. The first 3-4 levels of the main campaign are a bit frustrating. They throw enemies at you very quickly before you can even get your dungeon up and running, and they don't give you very much room to create your nice and tidy 5x5 rooms. It's a bit off putting, chaotic & stressful. But... if you can get through those first few intial levels until you get access to the prison, torture chamber and crypt,.. that's when things really get fun. The amount of different rooms, potions, rituals, powerups, secret buried treasures, and in general, helpful thingies... is awesome. Lets you get creative and allows you to replay any dungeon in many different ways. All in all, it's very different from the original Dungeon keeper, but also pays homage to it immensely. Improves upon it and expands upon it's idea. Lots of fun. Lots of levels. Lots of minions. And loads of features. Manually save every once in a while though. I haven't came across anything game breaking, but it has crashed on me more than once.

I have no nostalgia for the old dungeon keeper games, as I played them a couple years ago for the first time. It feels like WotO is simultaniously too serious and immature at the same time. It is sad, as it would have been nice to have an actual worthy succesor to such great games. But sadly this just falls short. Narrator is great and all, but he does not seem to have the witty calm charm from the old games and sounds more serious and angry...