Dungeons: The Dark Lord Reviews
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Brash Games starts us off with a 9/10:
So to round things off before I bore you all, this game is really good fun. Don't get put off by the initial feeling of, (Wow, this is complicated, so many things going on at once.) After an hour or so you will be enjoying it. It is a fantastic game, however, if you are wanting a '˜Dungeon Keeper; clone then look elsewhere. This game is far more in-depth, but has taken a few good points from the series. Dungeons' developers have done very well here, and I look forward to any future games they release. I recommend you go try the demo that is available for download first, to see if you want to shell out for it.
Fraggs goes scoreless:
The downfall of Dungeons: The Dark Lord is the scale of the challenges you must satisfy to advance. A single mission may take several evenings, if not more, to complete depending on the skill of the player. With the ramp-up time in hero strength tied to a set timer, the longer areas will see a fast build-up to fend off the rampaging forces of good, and then a long, tedious upgrade of existing structures to reach the required level of prestige or soul energy for that level. In sandbox mode I could accept the idea that I would be working for a week to optimize my dungeon for a campaign I'd rather spend a night giggling along with the clever plot, cringing at the next bad pun, and creating dizzying if not hyper effective labyrinths to trap the unwitting adventurers that come my way. If a managerial approach to evil is your style, don't hesitate to give the game a shot, but understand that instant, or even frequent gratification may not be forthcoming.
Reaction Time comes in with a 5/10:
Dungeons: The Dark Lord is the strangest mix of complexity and laziness I can recall encountering. The gameplay is deeply satisfying when everything comes together, but the lackluster tutorial, absent player tips and atrocious narrative will push the average player away. No one should have to withstand a layer of poor game design to reach the sweet, nuggety center. The visuals are interesting and there's plenty of content to go around, but The Dark Lord misses too many targets for me to recommend it. As we all know, Villains just never win.
And Calm Down Tom fires off a 6/10:
Dungeons feels polished and looks good but I found the dungeons a little too small and it gets repetitive quickly. For this type of game play and humor I would still pick Evil Genius every time.
