Review - PC - Dungeon Lords

[schild]

A roleplaying game without a map is like a strategy guide without an index.

Edit: By the way, this was sent in by Paelos.

[Paelos]

This game was a dump in a box. It was in fact so bad that the developers admitted they had fucked up before they released it in Europe. I've only heard of such things in myth. Anyway, be glad UK. You dodged a bullet that I stepped in front of with both arms wide open.

[Shockeye]

This game was a dump in a box. It was in fact so bad that the developers admitted they had fucked up before they released it in Europe. I've only heard of such things in myth. Anyway, be glad UK. You dodged a bullet that I stepped in front of with both arms wide open.

All hail the monkey.

[Tebonas]

Yeah, thats the one time buying the US import version really bit me in the ass.

I hope they at least fix the inventory bugs. The whole junk section not working really puts a dampener in my money gaining abilities, running to the shop after nearly every fight eerily reminds me of Everquest Level 1 to 3 before you have the money for bags. In short, I parked my character in Elfville, meaning he will slowly succumb to insanity until a working patch arrives.

Oh, and DW Bradley? After Wizards and Warriors and this? My goodwill from the days of Wizardry is spent.

[Paelos]

Ah yes, Elfville. I left out my hatred for that place because it would have taken too long in the review. However, I must note a few things.

- The city layout makes as much sense as the positioning of buildings in a Peruvian slum. There are no discernable roads connecting anything, no signs pointing to anything, and it's all haphazardly scattered across an outdoor area with no city wall. In the dark, which is often, you can't find your way to buildings like the Apocathary, which is needlessly out of the way from everything else.

- There are no campfires in the city. The purpose of a fire is to wait so it turns from night to day and thus ease your travel. Every city has an inn. All other city's inns have fires in the rooms. However, in Elven town, fires must be outlawed. It has an inn, but no fires. That basically takes the one useful function of an inn and turns it into a large box that takes up space.

- There is no furniture anywhere. This is not just true of the Elf town, but rather every town. It's just much more noticable when you're already pissed off. The inn rooms literally have ZERO things in them. I'm not joking. It's like walking through a show-house after the previous owners have already moved out. It's probably the most immersion breaking thing in the game. Maybe the elves burned all their furniture and now have no chairs or fires.

The loot thing is a little frustrating, but more frustrating is how you can't pick up more than one of a certain item. The game automatically tosses anything double that you grab as far as weapons and armor, so you can't sell more than one at any local merchant. This is good and bad. On the one hand, I'm not carrying umpteen goblin daggers worth two gold. On the other hand, I may miss out on 14 Elven Runeblades in a dungeon that I find because I can only keep one.

[HaemishM]

After seeing some video about a month ago of this game, I was completely underwhelmed. Glad to know I shouldn't even have bothered with the video.

[Tebonas]

The thing is, according to the manual (which I seldom read, but I thought I was too stupid to figure it out something, instead of the game being horribly broken, oh the irony) thats what the Junk section of the inventory SHOULD be for, if it was working. It is for looting the second Elven Runeblade. Granted, it would still be tedious as hell, but half as tedious as it is now.

[Jain Zar]

RPG Codex has been making fun of this game for almost a month now, if not longer.  Sounds like an utter abortion.

[Dren]

This will teach me to ignore this section.  I bought this game about 1.5 months ago.  Utter crap.

I even played it for several nights and hours just trying to figure out if I got auto-mapping as a skill later or something.  I figured something had to open up to make this more fun.

I also noticed the junk thing not working properly when I kept looking for all that loot I kept getting to selll for better stuff.  No dice.

Anyway, about 3 weeks ago they put out a patch that fixed all that.  The automap is in and works fairly well.  The junk thing works now so you can get a lot more money quicker.  The game is still devoid of content, the quests are boring and tedious, the random monster spawn is frustrating as all hell too.  Nothing like standing in one spot defeating one gang of monsters to then have another group come in on you, then another, then another.  I finally figured out that I should move from that spot.  I took about 8 steps in one direction and the spawns stopped.  Just one more thing to break the immersion (computer logic for the win!)

I can't remember a game making me so angry for a very long time.  I thought I had learned my lesson on buying games before reading reviews, but I screwed up on this big time.  I was just that desperate for a good old fashioned one player RPG, I jumped at the chance.

[Signe]

Poor Dren!  I was absolutely gobsmacked at the horrendous awfulness of Dungeon Lords.  It made me question whether or not I was still living in 2005, or if I had, suddenly, been teleported back in time.  If this were the only game left to play in the universe, I would date Danny Bonaduce.

[Dren]

Poor Dren!  I was absolutely gobsmacked at the horrendous awfulness of Dungeon Lords.  It made me question whether or not I was still living in 2005, or if I had, suddenly, been teleported back in time.  If this were the only game left to play in the universe, I would date Danny Bonaduce.

Me too!  Er....well everthing except the Bonaduce part.  :-D

[Paelos]

Ah Dren, you too now know the pain of Dungeon Lords like myself. I pity our collective fate.

[Pococurante]

If this were the only game left to play in the universe, I would date Danny Bonaduce.

Well sure who wouldn't.

[Sairon]

Things like this is really scary, how is it even possible for a game to ship in this state? Was there no one who ever played the game before it going gold? Same thing with Daikatana, if they actually tried the game on a computer from that age, the fact that you didn't get high enough FPS to get past the start up menu should give you a hint that there's something wrong.