For all of its chummy quips and hordes of orcs battling My-Little-Pony-esque unicorns, Dungeons 2 comes off as slightly cynical. The first entry tried to revive Dungeon Keeper in 2011 (well ahead of EA's free-to-play debacle last year), and it valiantly attempted to make the franchise its own by giving you direct control of the Keeper and focusing the gameplay on luring heroes in and entertaining them before harvesting their souls. It didn't turn out too well, but developer Realmforge Studios has resolved to give us what it thinks we want. The core dungeon game is almost lifted straight from Dungeon Keeper, the narrator reflects on your actions in a bemused British accent, and dungeon maintenance is paired with an overworld real-time strategy element that closely resembles Warcraft III. Sales figures and reviews have proven that we like these things, yes, but too much gets lost in an ambitious attempt to mash them all together.
"You wanted Dungeon Keeper," Realmforge seems to say, "so here you have it." There's little to none of the original Dungeons' innovations here. Happily, this means that veterans of Peter Molyneux's 1997 game will find much that's familiar, whether it's the throne room and the hole from which you summon minions or the surrounding dungeon that's packed with gold veins and potential tunnels just waiting to be dug out. Should one of the "little snots" who do your bidding stop to break the fourth wall and wave at the camera, you can slap them around with the giant, disembodied hand you use to guide progress and set minions to new adventures and tasks. Dig out a square or rectangular space and slap down, say, a brewery to attract orcs to hack and slash for you. The production process is slow at times and the AI is responsible for making the little snots work, but this is Dungeon Keeper in all but name.
The humor extends beyond the narration to little touches such as 666 and 1337 values for the Prime Evil's attacks in the intro.
It's kept from being a straight clone by a new overworld RTS mode that sends you and your minions off to the world above to mess stuff up and occasionally nab MacGuffins from other, smaller dungeons. The world certainly looks good, and there's a pleasing visual element to the whole affair in that the landscape shifts from grassy and sunny to hellish and reddish as your hordes move through it. "Horde" is an appropriate word--the game itself calls them that, and it sends you off to fight the forces of the "Alliance," right down to the familiar blue-and-white fortifications from the Warcraft series.
Alas, Dungeons 2's RTS element is undercooked. Regardless of which stage of the campaign you're on, the basic strategy never deviates far from amassing a swarm of orcs, goblins, trolls, and snaky naga in the dungeon to attack the Alliance, and you accomplish this most effectively by selecting the whole pile and right-clicking on units to attack. There's some fun involved in watching the world change as you pillage and plunder (even if my GTX 780's performance dragged when too many enemies were on the screen), but the act of guiding your army is complicated by an awkward shift in control schemes from the underground. Deep in your dungeon, you can't control minions directly, which led to some frustration when I realized my little snots were just loitering around because I hadn't dug out a room large enough for my intended project. In the overworld, you can control your units, although singling out the few minions that have special powers involves trying to pinpoint them from the swarm with your mouse and selecting them independently.
It's goofy stuff, but a lot of work was put into providing a backstory for the action.
The chief surprise I encountered while playing Dungeons 2 was that I enjoyed it despite these downsides. I suspect a lot of that has to do with the near-constant humorous narration, voiced by Kevan Brighting. It sounds like he's playing the exact same role that won him such acclaim in The Stanley Parable. Brighting's voice work never fails to hit the proper notes here, even if the script pours on the self-awareness too thick (at one point, your overworld minions encounter and slaughter a bear, and you're told that it was pointless because bear meat isn't used for anything in the game). Sometimes, it feels as though Realmforge is trying too hard, although the narrator's always good when he's used as a tutorial of sorts to correct the Ultimate Evil--as the main character's called--when he goes in the wrong direction.
All of this might be much more fun when you take advantage of the LAN and online multiplayer content, which gives up to four players their own dungeons and lets them fight over a shared overworld. Unfortunately, this review arrives prior to the game's full release, so other players are as hard to find as original, sealed copies of Dungeon Keeper from 1997. Its directions are sometimes muddled, and the whole affair feels like it was oversimplified to cut down on micromanagement, but the beauty of Dungeons 2 is that it never fails to let us take some glee in sowing discord. It's not quite a keeper, but it's an improvement over the original.
Harold is a cleverly crafted, personality-packed infinite-runner platformer with visual style to spare. Its title character, however, is an awkward athlete and a bit of a loser, both literally and figuratively. Despite Harold's unwavering determination and enduring spirit, he does dumb things, like getting stuck in frozen dog pee and high-fiving a cactus. Thankfully, you don't assume the role of this doomed underdog, but of his equally-determined guardian angel Gabe. As this anime Zac Efron lookalike with wings, you help Harold complete a series of increasingly hazardous, side-scrolling races by manipulating environmental objects, messing with competitors, and giving the slow-moving marathoner an occasional speed boost.
The monkey wrench in this race is that you have no direct control over the perpetual runner, so clearing and altering his path via divine intervention is the key to ensuring that the lanky, bespectacled competitor finishes in at least third place. Earning the bronze is no simple feat, though, as Harold is an intentionally difficult game, one that ultimately has hardcore completionists and seasoned speed runners in mind.
The courses sport the usual platforming elements and obstacles, from moving blocks and slippery surfaces to spiky walls and bottomless pits, but Harold goes beyond the tried-and-true template with some especially inspired touches; Using an ethereal mallet to transform a chomping crocodile into a belly-up bridge and flinging Harold forward with a sling-shotting noose trap never gets old.
Interacting with these hazards involves using the left analog stick in a variety of ways: a single level could see you pushing, pulling, flicking, and rotating the stick over the course of just a few seconds. Given how you also cycle through obstacles by squeezing the triggers, Harold puts your nimble fingers through the paces. It feels fantastic when you're in the zone--circumventing traps, swinging on ropes, and hitting the ground running with a speed boost--but getting to that point takes some serious practice.
While playing guardian angel for Harold usually involves protecting or helping him, you can also harness your heavenly powers to hinder the more seasoned speedsters. In addition to shifting platforms beneath their swift feet to ensure that they jump to their deaths, you can cut ropes just before they grab them, raise ramps they're about to ascend, and generally make their lives a living hell. If you've ever envied Lucy's habit of pulling that football from poor Charlie Brown's path, you'll have as much fun tricking these clueless humans as you do helping Harold.
As satisfying--and sadistic--as it may be to pull the rug out from under the competition, they sometimes spawn right where they left off or, worse, further ahead of Harold. This odd design choice doesn't affect the races' pace unfairly, as Harold enjoys this benefit as often as his competitors do. Still, it would be more visually satisfying to see your targets consistently trailing Harold after falling victim to your well-timed traps.
In addition to altering the world to keep Harold on the quickest, safest route, you must carefully monitor and manage puff power. This collectible gift from the gods not only fuels Harold's speed boost--via a swift lightning bolt to the backside--but it also grants extra lives. I found myself using it more for the former, as it's the most effective way to put the pokey protagonist in the lead. Plus, the punishment for dying isn't so severe that bonus lives are a big deal; quick respawns and restarts ensure that you're never out of the race for long. Regardless of how you decide to use puff power, though, managing the scarce resource quickly becomes as important as ensuring that Harold doesn't get a face full of spikes.
Harold's gameplay is complemented by a hand-drawn art style that wouldn't look out of place in a 90s era Disney film. Seriously, swap the runners--during the jungle races--with the cast of The Lion King, and the action wouldn't miss a visual beat. The pop-off-the-screen art style isn't limited to static backgrounds, either; characters animate in amazing, cartoony detail, and gameplay elements, like rope bridge planks that can be popped to persuade Harold to pick up the pace, bring the pretty presentation to life. Sadly, Harold's steep difficulty doesn't leave you with any time to ogle the gorgeous surroundings like a first time tourist. As aesthetically pleasing as the presentation is, only the most skilled players will enjoy having their eyes and reflexes engaged simultaneously.
Harold is at its fleet-footed best when everything clicks; when your divine guidance not only propels the protagonist to victory, but also leaves his cocky competition on the wrong end of a devious trap. But these momentum-fueled moments will be experienced by only the most dedicated players. And even genre enthusiasts will occasionally be let down by the gamepad-only controls; the inputs are generally spot-on, but the mouse-and-keyboard crowd might miss the precision of their preferred set-ups when they're called upon to manage multiple tasks simultaneously.
Although this genre's been done to death, Harold's inspired levels, imaginative mechanics, eye-popping presentation, endless charm, and steep challenge separate it from the pack. It's only that latter element that crosses the line, sometimes making Harold more frustrating than fun. This game's reflex-taxing level of difficulty isn't for the faint of heart. However, if you're not afraid of a few laps on the trial-and-error treadmill, Harold might just become your next endless-runner fixation.
My faction's commander gave me a special weapon for destroying alien hives in a single shot, but it wouldn't fit in my ship. I left it in my inventory for later use, but at some point in my travels, it disappeared (perhaps I sold it by mistake?), and I could not find a way to retrieve a new one. The contact that had given it to me had nothing more to say, and none of the stations I visited sold such a weapon. So I was left to my own devices, slowly whittling down hives while accompanied by a useless companion that could fend off attacking aliens and space pirates, but could do no damage to the hive itself. I spent a half-dozen hours hammering away at these things, laboriously zooming back and forth between alien systems and bases where I could refuel and refill ammunition. After a while, I could finally afford a better hull, and I presumed my path to victory--a path without the disappearing superweapon--would be clearer.
Instead, my new fighter made things worse by allowing me to only equip weapon types with limited ammo reserves. I wasted precious minutes flying to a base seven systems away so that I could reload, only to return to the alien system and find the hive had gained back all of its health. It was here that VoidExpanse and I parted ways after 25 hours of spacefaring tedium and shallow questing, and I can't say I'll miss repeating the same four side missions over and over again.
Well, there's one bounty earned.
It didn't have to be this way; it never does. VoidExpanse is built from a proven foundation, recalling every space sim in which you crisscross the galaxy, buying low and selling high. In VoidExpanse's case, this all occurs on a 2D plane upon which you zoom from one space station to another, mining minerals from asteroids and shooting down space pirates along the way. With each accomplishment, you earn not only money but experience, which you then apply to skills that improve your flight agility, open access to new weapons, and enhance your financial standing.
2D plane aside, this is Freelancer, or DarkStar One, or X3: Reunion, a game that encourages you to find your inner Han Solo, gaining funds by performing odd jobs, aligning yourself with a faction, and destroying whatever enemies stand in your way. Those games built adventures around these basic systems; VoidExpanse, on the other hand, rarely expounds upon the fundamentals. You do odd jobs for your chosen faction so that you can join its ranks, and at least those tasks mix things up a little. You even get choices to make, potentially befriending or alienating a contact depending on how successful you are at hacking a terminal, or convincing a pesky pirate to leave his enemy alone instead of firing on him at first glance.
Here's a space station. There's not really more to say.
The rare story-based diversion is not enough to brighten up the dreary pace that soon develops, however. VoidExpanse recycles the same few missions over and over again: Mine some minerals, deliver this package, kill this pirate, rescue these survivors. This is the steady diet of quests you feast upon if you have any hope for forward progress, unless you prefer to ferry supplies and the spoils of random enemy encounters from one system to another, seeking the highest possible prices. Trading is a common activity in space exploration games, but the lack of visual variety squashes exploration flat. Backdrops are generically pretty displays of green and purple nebulae stretching across starfields, and space vessels lack the drama of pop culture's most iconic craft; They are built for function, apparently, and not for form. But it is form that such a repetitive game needs to thrive, and what starts as a fun but formulaic adventure grows tiresome.
Combat is functional, at least, and supports two different control schemes, one of which allows you to drive the ship with the mouse, and the other of which separates aiming and movement. It is the latter scheme that affords finer control, and there is inherent appeal at hovering your targeting reticule over a pirate or an alien pod, launching missiles at it, and watching it explode. Alien ships are particularly mobile, so while most encounters aren't demanding unless you wander into systems you shouldn't be exploring yet, some battles keep you circling and reward precise aiming.
The skill tree is easy to understand.
The main reason to press forward is to earn more currency and more experience, leaving behind your paltry vessel and starter gadgets for a more powerful and roomy ship. There are slots for weapons, shields, engines, and so forth, along with places to equip consumables (good for a resupply of hull strength, for instance) and boosters (good for, say, improving your defenses or supporting your energy supply). But all the incremental improvements represented by ship advancement and skill choices are at the service of repetitive sights, repetitive travel, and repetitive actions. In time, the few spots of joy are overwhelmed by the annoyances, such as the suicidal way the companion you later earn keeps ramming into alien hives until he explodes, and an autopilot that sometimes steers around obstacles, and other times bounces your ship against asteroids and space stations.
Galaxies are procedurally generated--and you can join other players' galaxies in online play--but those options bring little diversity to VoidExpanse. In the case of galaxies, the variables have too little effect on the pace of exploration to be meaningful; In the case of online play, the community is too small to make multiplayer worth investigating. Going online means following the same path you would if you played on your own, except you might encounter another player to shoot or ignore. In fact, VoidExpanse is toothless in general, lacking the mystery and suspense that could have propelled it through the universe.
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