Dungeon Keeper 2

Year: 1999
Genre: Real-Time Strategy, First-Person Shooter, God Game
Website: http://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper_2

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 15.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 8/10

Lee:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 1.0
• Playthroughs: 0
• Rating: --/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (6/22/2014): Back in the day, circa year 2000, I played the hell out of this game.  I remember well, my Pentium 166 from Micron PC and the Voodoo 3 card that constantly overheated and shut my system down.  I would sit in my room (probably avoiding homework) and grab the toughest unit I had.  Then I would run around and attack the enemy, often with just an imp, though I preferred the Mistress.
  
  I still prefer the Mistress it turns out.  I managed a playthrough recently after playing a number of hours of the Android version of Dungeon Keeper.  Nostalgia was a strong force here.
  
  Things that I loved then that I still love now:  Taking a Mistress and walking backwards, away from enemies, hitting them from just outside of their attack range.  Keeping every possible enemy unit in a prison and amassing an intimidating army of skeletons!
  
  Things that I loved then that I don't have time for now:  EXHAUSTIVELY filling in every block of the map and making sure I had collected EVERY hidden item.  Taking on the enemy one at a time, all the way through the game.
  
  Things that I didn't understand then and I love now:  Leading a well formed group of leveled up units into enemy territory and cleaning up.  Hell, leveling up past 4 was something I couldn't bring myself to do when I played it 14 years ago either.
  
  (To complete this list) Things that I didn't understand then but didn't do much of this time: Converting enemy units in the torture chamber, thereby pissing off all of my units by making them spend time "with creatures they hate."
  
  I wanted to give this game a 10 as I played it through this time.  The problem with that became how long it took to get through.  I think that this new world of low price independent games has changed the way that I look at gaming as a whole and the old AAA titles now feel blunt and drawn out.  I intend to add a few more old-school cool games to my list as I can scratch together time to play them.  It will be interesting to me to see if that feeling persists or if it is more a matter of training myself to appreciate what I am playing most.

• Lee (6/23/2014): I will add more thoughts here after I play this game some more, but I do want to say for now that I felt a similar sentiment regarding Shane's comment about older games feeling drawn out while recently playing Dungeon Siege. I got tired of killing thousands of the same enemies over and over, with the only gameplay changes being made to the textures in the surroundings of the seemingly endless levels. Oh, look, another fucking cave...