An enoyable nonlinear combat-based fantasy RPG with good graphics, but lacking in polish and detail.
User Rating: 7.5 | Dungeon Lords PC
This is an early review as I have only been playing for a couple of days so far. I haven’t yet tried multiplayer. The game version is 1.0. Pro: The game is playable in up to 2048 x 1536, and runs smoothly at that resolution (using a 256 MB ATI Radeon 9800 XT from late 2003), although the menu screens do not display correctly in such high resolutions. Combat is enjoyable with a decent variety of well-rendered monsters and weapons. The graphics are good with fairly detailed models and textures. The variety of races to choose from include human, dwarf, elf, zaur (reptilian humanoid fantasy archetype), urgoth (basically an orc) and a couple of others unique to the game. There are appropriate environmental sound effects. Exploration is nonlinear like a true RPG (not merely a Dungeon Siege style "follow the yellow brick road"). There are suitable quests and dialog with townsfolk. The voice acting for voiced dialog is better than many RPGs. Character advancement is enjoyable. One earns advancement points as one kills monsters and does not have to wait to level up in order to spend them on attributes and combat abilities. The game seems to be stable. I have yet to see it crash or lock up. Con: The game lacks polish. Interaction between the character and objects in the environment is limited (ability to walk through solid objects like stacks of crates in some cases). One cannot move or manipulate objects such as pieces of broken crates. There are situations in which the character should be splashing through water on the dungeon floor, but instead is kicking up dust as he goes, with the sound of footsteps on dry ground. The problem of visible mismatches between the position of the character and that of walls and floors is worse than in most modern RPGs, with frequent examples of weapons and limbs passing through walls, or the character appearing to hover above the ground as he walks along the side of a dungeon corridor. Camera controls are limited (Ultima 9 allowed one to view the action from more different perspectives, and to zoom in and out further and examine one’s character model and his environment more freely). Boring skies for a modern RPG. There are only a few nondescript clouds to see in the sky. I have yet to see any stars at night or real sunlight during the day. In fact, I haven’t noticed any real day-night cycle or weather in the game. Whereas many other modern RPGs have beautiful sunrises and sunsets, this game seems to be set in perpetual twilight. Death consists of merely collapsing to the ground, at which point one is still free to rotate one’s corpse 360 degrees. In order to continue after dying one simply reloads a saved game. Inventory management is fairly simple and streamlined, but could be better (for example, your character should automatically replace a damaged shield with a new shield of the same type when he finds it on the corpse of a fallen enemy). The navigational AI for NPCs is imperfect, as I saw one character get momentarily stuck on a piece of furniture while he was trying to lead me somewhere, and I had to give him a push to get him going in the right direction. Overall the game is fairly enjoyable. Combat is its strong point. But the game lacks polish and detailed interaction with the environment. I think D.W. Bradley did a good job given an obviously limited budget and development team. In retrospect I’m glad the game was delayed from its previously scheduled 2004 release date. But I would have preferred more polish. Hopefully if the game does well they will have a bigger budget and larger development team to do a more polished sequel in a couple of years, as this game does have a number of shortcomings. The game is worth playing, but not as good as I had hoped it would be. 
