This a wonderful puzzle game if you want to relax and let your brain play around for awhile. The mechanics are simple but allow a great deal of variety within the puzzles themselves. Most of them are kinda short and simple (once you figure them out that is). I don't give this 5/5 because it does take a certain mindset to really enjoy it. If you want exciting action or deep complex puzzles, this probably is not the game for you. But if you want to take it easy and play with brightly colored blocks for awhile, this game might just be perfect.
I played this on EA's Origin and i was very impressed, at first. Building a dungeon, exploring the map, raising your army and fighting 'the heroes' is a lot of fun. My only complaint, and its a big one, is that the missions quickly turn into a stalemate. Fighting other dungeon keepers sounds like fun and for the first two or three times it really was but i would launch attack after attack after attack and get no where. On one mission i spent over an hour just trading hits with the other dungeon and getting no where. The only way to win was to slowly grind away at him inch by inch until he finally broke down. That wouldn't be so bad but the next mission i had to do it again, then again and again. It became a chore to play through and i lost interest. I am very tempted to try Dungeon Keeper 2 if only to see if they fixed that problem.
The only reason I personally haven't downloaded this game from GoG.com yet is because I still have my copy and it is one of the few games that will work on XP, though I haven't tried Vista or Windows 7 yet. I have never played fallout so I can't say if is like fallout or not. This game gives you a great deal of freedom. You can be as evil or as good as you want but there will be repercussions regardless of what you do. Some people of course will not help you if you are too evil likewise they may not join your party if you are just good for their taste. In addition to how good or bad you want to be there is also how tech or magic you want to be. The more tech you are the less magic will effect you, for good or for ill just as tech will stop working the more magic you become. If you are one of those people who likes playing these kind of games for the story and exploring the world this is about as good as it gets. The entire world is open to you, you can go almost anywhere at any time. The game's character creation system offers a good deal of depth I haven't seen in a lot of games recently. Not only do you get to mess with your starting skills and attributes but you can also select a back ground which gives you even more depth. Now for the bad stuff. There are a number of noob traps in the game that can easily kill you or get you stuck if your not watching for them, like the wolves just outside the crash sight. It is also possible that you might create a character that is simply not suited to a particular part of the game. Probably the worse part of it all is the leveling system. Like most games you get points with each level that you can spend on...whatever problem is there is a lot of 'whatever'. In addition to 8, count them 8, basic attributes to up there is also around ten different types of skills not to mention twelve different technical disciplines and twenty schools or magic. The leveling system needs work but they do offer a way out, if you really can't get around it and still want to play. You can choose an level script which will spend your points automatically. If you like fallout, or just want to play something a bit different, check it out.
City building games are not for everyone. In most games you see how fast you can tear one down, here the idea is to build it up. It's about economics, society and managing people as well as resources. If that's your cup of tea this is about as good as it gets. If you prefer to destruction and mayhem over building and managing this really isn't your thing.
