Dungeon Lords (2004) Online

Dungeon Lords is an interesting game. It's an RPG, and a traditionalist one at that. It has dungeons, dragons and evil wizards, who must be stopped by a knight in shining armour (or some derivative thereof).

It's not Oblivion. It's not Morrowind. It's not even Fable. The world is sparse. Fast travel is pretty much non-existent, so I had to spend hours (quite literally), running from one place to the next. Even when you get the 'Moon Gates' working, they still drop you off miles away from where you want to be 90% of the time. There are very, very few NPCs in what is quite a large universe. All the enemies fall into either one of two classes: Moronic or Moronic But Invincible.

Oh, and 95% of every room is empty.

Despite these flaws (and they do detract from the gameplay after a while), this game is good fun. The fighting is quite easy, and it gets a bit of a hack'n'slash feel, and the puzzles are surprisingly challenging.

The dungeon design is excellent. It ranges from satisfying to infuriating, but the reason this game gets any sort of good publicity at all is because of these puzzles. There is also an absolutely ridiculous labyrinth towards the end too, just for added win.

As an RPG of the post 2000 era, the class system is not amazing. Don't get me wrong, it's far from terrible, but neither is it truly sensational. Most of the skills are samey, but I still found myself playing hard to level up whenever I got near to the required number of upgrade points. The only really irritating aspect about it involves the guild skills, of which you can learn only 4. And you can't unlearn them, so apropos of nothing, when you discover there was a guild advancement you knew nothing about, you'll be unable to accept it, and its bonuses, as you've filled your last slot (that caused quite a lot of rage on my part, about 100 hours in).

The closest comparison for this game is probably Dragon Age: Origins. Just a really, really downrent version, with not much in the way of awesome to get you hooked.

Give it a go though- it's cheap, and it will surprise you.

Look anywhere online for reviews on this title and you are likely to find a veritable tirade of upset customers. Apparently, the original game shipped with a tremendous amount of bugs, some of which would make it impossible to finish certain quests, perhaps even the game itself. Several patches supposedly improved things, but not until the release of an entirely new edition called the "Collector's Edition" did most of the bugs appear to have been fixed. There are still a few present, but none of them are overly relevant to the gameplay.

Dungeon Lords is a fairly unique combination of RPG and FPS (First Person Shooter). This has been done before (Morrowind), but it doesn't seem to have been done as well. The story is very interesting, as well as the numerous side quests. There is almost constant action with randomly spawned monsters attacking frequently. Character development is more skills based rather than class based, although there are classes that merely provide reduced advancement point costs for certain skills. A few skills are offered to only certain classes.

The monsters and locations are well rendered, with stars and a moon filling the night sky, while at day things are typically shrouded in fog. Many of the quests are typical RPG fare, but some involve a considerable amount of intrigue and very roundabout means for completion.

The main quest is integral, unlike Morrowind, and must be followed to complete the game. It is also fairly straightforward in that interactions with NPCs do not affect the outcome of a quest or the flow of the game. It is often difficult, however, to determine what must be done next to move the story along. Also unlike Morrowind, the world is fairly "containerized," meaning that there are very distinctive boundaries on the world map - one cannot just fly from one end of the world to the other crossing mountains and any other obstacles.

Despite its number of flaws, I had an absolute blast with Dungeon Lords. I have always enjoyed FPS games, but felt they lacked something, and that something is character/skills development. DL combines the two quite well and provides a satisfying experience with a degree of replayability. Highly recommended for lovers of the genre, but be sure to get the "Collector's Edition." You should be able to find a good used copy at eBay, Amazon, or even a local used book store (Half Price Books, for example0.