Craig Gilmore // Wednesday, April 19th, 2006
// Printable version 
Dungeon Lords review
Can it hold a candle to Oblivion?
Reading the thank you statement in the manual to Dungeon Lords, you get the impression that a lot of time and effort was put into this game, and that the team is really proud of what it accomplished.
I totally understand that. For the past couple of weeks I’ve accumulated something of a mass of dirty clothing in the corner of my room. And not twenty minutes ago did I carry that mass downstairs to the washer. Once it was all in I stood back and fondly watched my mini-masterpiece swirl and clean.
That doesn’t mean Dungeon Lords is a masterpiece. Not by a long shot. What it does mean however, is that I had more fun washing my stinky clothes than I ever did playing this awful, awful game.
Dungeon Bores
Maybe I’m being too harsh on the game. I mean I have been playing an awful lot of Oblivion lately, and most recent RPGs can’t seem to hold a candle to it. More likely however is that a game like Oblivion – one with its own list of idiosyncrasies – served to highlight everything that was wrong with Dungeon Lords.
And that is quite literally everything.
The game opens with some wonderfully drawn animation that is about as engaging as an N-Gage with no battery. It looks lovely, but are we supposed to be feeling narcoleptic throughout? An adequate voice-over relates the games story – which I’ve forgotten already despite only having playing it half an hour ago.
There’s something about two wizards and a daughter who has gone missing and giant elephant. Or maybe I did fall asleep and the elephant was from my dream (Elephants rock, by the way). Seriously though, all this opening sequence does is muddle a perfectly straightforward hook. It goes on for what seems like ten minutes – static image after static image. Why couldn’t there be more FMV like the admittedly swanking opening duel vignette?
Dungeon Sores
Whatever… any hopes of digging a decent game out of that mess of an opener is soon dropped when you actually start playing. It’s here where Oblivion serves to highlight two of Dungeon Lords biggest traits: it’s really ugly, and the streaming world is anything but. This land you find yourself in is sparse, poorly populated and foggy as hell. For a game with such crummy textures and design the draw distance is devastating.
It wouldn’t hurt if the game was technically a belter. What it’s more likely to do is kick you below the belt: it’s awful to look at. For a game basing itself around exploring dungeons, they’re absolutely abysmal. Large rooms with hardly anything in them except a couple of breakable crates. They are so bare and negating that you’ll be bored by the time you reach the end of the very first one you encounter.
Exploring the towns and villages is no better. Nowhere is this more evident than in the herbalist store. What you would expect are walls adorn with shelves adorn with books and – y’know – herbs. Instead we get bare walls, bare room, one desk and a person standing behind it. Pathetic.
Dungeon… Bleurgh
You cannot customize the look of your character despite the manual actually saying you can. Even if it had only a fraction of the customisation options of Oblivion – which forced us to spend almost an hour getting our avatar to look right – it would have been better than none at all. What hurts even more is that the existing designs are rubbish too.
Let’s see, anything else? There is no music and only limited dialogue. Combat revolves around left-clicking to thrust, right-clicking to block. And it’s terribly depressing. No fun can be had with such a rudimentary control scheme – certainly not in an age when games like Condemned and Oblivion show us how diverse a simplistic melee can be.
You also cannot see your enemy’s health meter – which is a problem when you engage them in combat. At the beginning of the game you are attacked by several goblins. The fight is monotonous – if you stick around, that is. I just ran into the nearest doorway and descended into the first dungeon. Where the game actually managed to get worse.
Running away is a decent strategy, actually. If you see Dungeon Lords on the counter in your local games store, run away. Run as though your life depended on it.
Channels
Content
Dungeon Lords delay
Please tell me what difference it makes comparing a year-old game like DL to Oblivion. Oblivion appeared on a next-gen machine and it's graphics are wonderful, but what exactly makes that game next-gen? Nothing, really - at least not beyond its graphics. It barely even evolves the RPG genre.
The reason I compared it is because I reviewed DL /now/. Not one year ago. I was given the review code /now/. Not one year ago. If the publisher wishes to release the game at this time it has to be wary of the kind of games it is going to compete with and Oblivion is the best. Judged on its own merits DL is a bad game. But compared to Oblivion - which incorporates a lot of the same things - it's terrible.
I'm sorry you disagree with my review and I did let vitriol get the better of me, but I still feel the same way. It's a bad game - which is actually unfortunate. Because there's bad games, and then there's bad games with unmet potential. I feel DL is the latter.
Freelance Writer
www.boomtown.net
Not that the ame looks great, but ya, like someone said it sounded like a troll rant...
i thouth FMV went out of style like in, i dunno, 1998? so qhy complaining that its not there? IM sure if it did have the review would read the exact oposite... those horrible old school, out of style fmv's... oh unless it was a "hyoed" game of course, then fmv's are good.
I jsut get tired of reviews being so hypocritical its sickening. Just becuase a game comes out thats not hyped like Iran making missles, and falls short of what is out there now. Reviewers spit at it like a dirty dog. Just remeber , as so many wannabe reviewrs have said in the past, its the indy devs that create the inovation. Or maybe you really are fine with playing the same game that you hype so much for the next 10 years. Myself, i would like something new, so plz try not to drag down a game more than is necessary.
P.S. I like FMV if done right its awsome. Now someone plz flame me and tell why FMV went out years ago and is ghey to even think about putting into todays games. even though your so called fav's are praised for one (the glorious opening FMV sequence)
total garbatge
but i still played it and gave it a decent review. Same with every other game i play.
And you say, left lcick to thrust , right click to block? well, i jsut wnna ask if its any different or better than walk backwards in left click, being the only "real" (without imagination) way to fight melee in oblivion... whats the use in putting 800 commands in a game if you only use 2 to get the job done?
plz.... stop dogging out indy devs
I'm really not sure what you're complaining about. Have you even played DL? I said FMV would have been better than the interminable crap that we have instead. The game opens with an intriguing battle that looks nice, but then cuts to a series of several dozen images with one hell of a long voice over and it's just not engaging.
I have no idea why you seem to think I care more about the mainstream games than the indie ones, too. I shouldn't have to care about either if we're getting good games from both sides. But the sorry truth is that we aren't always getting that.
Re: acidreighn
I said the combat was bad because games like Condemned and Oblivion have the exact same scheme but show us how fun a rudimentary design can be. Also, if you read my Oblivion review, you would see I said the story isn't important in that game if you don't want it to be.
You're both accusing me of trolling, but it looks like the two of you are trying to get a rise I'm afraid. I'm very thankful for your feedback because god knows we don't get enough. And I'm sorry that you both disagree with me. I am. But if you're going to debate my opinion please don't start pulling things out of the air or think you know my opinion based on article's you've read by other writers elsewhere on this site.
----Edited by user 23/04-2006 11:12
Freelance Writer
www.boomtown.net
Seriously guys you've all stated that most of you dislike the game anyways, so whats the point of ripping at Craig's opinion? Some of the points may have been a bit harsh, but I agree with them all the same. To release a game that will be competing with the very best in this genre will surely be compared to the likes of Oblivion and any other major RPG, and to be honest, this doesn't even come close.
::EDIT:: oh wait you said oblivion in the ratings, that makes it : oblivion-6 and DL-5
----Edited by user 13/11-2006 03:01
You must be logged in to write a comment.
You can create a new user account here.