Dungeon Keeper Mobile Review - Wallet Reaper

lacktheknack

Je suis joined jewels.
Jan 19, 2009
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Branindain said:
Honestly, it makes me suspicious of games journalists, and I'm not normally that guy. I mean, seriously people. What would a 50-rated game do, stab you in the eye and then crap in the wound?
Yes.

:p

Also, those four reviews are from App-Only reviewers, so they have much different expectations than us.
 

Airon

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Jan 8, 2012
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A necessary call Jim. I was actually curious about this one.

And thanks for the reminder for War of the Overworld. That's on my wishlist now.
 

Branindain

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Jul 3, 2013
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lacktheknack said:
Simalacrum said:
I don't understand how this is even legal.

Surely in any other industry this would be considered a breach of consumer rights?

We should be preparing a lawsuit, not moaning about this game,
Over what?

The minimal wasted time and bandwidth spent on a free-to-play? Where's the breach of rights? You can get it, play it a bit and throw it away with literally no loss beyond a few minutes.

OT: Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh.

EDIT:

http://www.metacritic.com/game/ios/dungeon-keeper

76%

wat is this
Lol, look at the user reviews though! Zeroes across the board!

Honestly, it makes me suspicious of games journalists, and I'm not normally that guy. I mean, seriously people. What would a 50-rated game do, stab you in the eye and then crap in the wound?
lacktheknack said:
Branindain said:
Honestly, it makes me suspicious of games journalists, and I'm not normally that guy. I mean, seriously people. What would a 50-rated game do, stab you in the eye and then crap in the wound?
Yes.

:p

Also, those four reviews are from App-Only reviewers, so they have much different expectations than us.
I noticed that too, and that excuses it up to a point, but still... I have played quite a few iPad games and some of them are legitimately fun, freemium games included. I don't think their standards should be THAT much lower.

At any rate, I've somehow never even heard of Dungeon Keeper, despite it sounding like it's right up my alley and despite me being older than dirt. So I'm gonna read up on it now and maybe buy it off Gog.
 

freaper

snuggere mongool
Apr 3, 2010
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I was going to recommend War for the Overworld but I'm glad to see you already did that.

OT: There's simply nothing to say about this abortion other than that it spawned such a delightful review. I just needed to see some bile. Thanks Jim!
 

IamLEAM1983

Neloth's got swag.
Aug 22, 2011
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I'm loving just how brainless the App Store reviews are.

"Great for the whole family!"

Yep, this has to be a non-gamer, someone who WILL get suckered in and who won't utter the simplest complaint.
 

mindfaQ

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Dec 6, 2013
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Well done EA, your decision makers once again have proven to be fulltime retards. You've published an unusable product. I guess it has to give some profit, but the people investing money into this game clearly are already beyond help or are millionaires and just don't care about the money. When seeing this debacle, why should anyone in a near/mid future trust you. You discredited yourself. Again.
 

The Squid King

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Jan 19, 2014
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Well this is depressing. There goes my hopes for another actual Dungeon Keeper

lacktheknack said:
Simalacrum said:
I don't understand how this is even legal.

Surely in any other industry this would be considered a breach of consumer rights?

We should be preparing a lawsuit, not moaning about this game,
Over what?

The minimal wasted time and bandwidth spent on a free-to-play? Where's the breach of rights? You can get it, play it a bit and throw it away with literally no loss beyond a few minutes.

OT: Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh.

EDIT:

http://www.metacritic.com/game/ios/dungeon-keeper

76%

wat is this
That is disgusting. If it's any consolation, at least have more evidence of Jim Sterling being a trustworthy reviewer
 

Trishbot

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May 10, 2011
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I confess, people, I am utterly PETRIFIED that EA is going to somehow utterly destroy Mirror's Edge 2 with some ill-advised scammy get-rich-quick scheme that only hurts the players and sucks out the fun of the game...
 

Dirty Apple

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Apr 24, 2008
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I have an android tablet and played this for a bit. I was pretty much done with it within 2 weeks. I think games like this are part of a larger systemic problem. I'm having real difficulty finding any kind of worthy game to play on the tablet. Plants vs Zombies 2 is ok, but again involves in game purchases, as does Candy Crush. Why can't someone come out with a good flash game level product for the tablet. I'd happily pay 10 bucks for the opportunity.
 

Dr.Awkward

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Mar 27, 2013
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Dirty Apple said:
I have an android tablet and played this for a bit. I was pretty much done with it within 2 weeks. I think games like this are part of a larger systemic problem. I'm having real difficulty finding any kind of worthy game to play on the tablet. Plants vs Zombies 2 is ok, but again involves in game purchases, as does Candy Crush. Why can't someone come out with a good flash game level product for the tablet. I'd happily pay 10 bucks for the opportunity.
If you think about it, it's because mobile gaming on non-dedicated devices is at a point where consoles were in the early 1980s, right before the crash. Mobile gaming via phone or tablet is showing to be a real moneymaker, meaning everyone wants to cash in, but is focused so much on getting that cash that quality and customer satisfaction has been cast to the wayside. But in a twist of irony, I bet you'll find that the people who usually get these F2P games are the same people who grew up with the games prior to the crash, but don't realize they're heading towards the same situation.

I think that's where we need to step in. Given how many may have grown up with games from the early 80s, showing them just how on-par something like Dungeon Keeper is to, say, ET on the Atari (or more fittingly, Pac-Man) might wake some of them up on how much of mobile gaming's ailments are too similar to the factors that caused the crash in 1983.
 

NerfedFalcon

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Mar 23, 2011
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Dr.Awkward said:
Given how many may have grown up with games from the early 80s, showing them just how on-par something like Dungeon Keeper is to, say, ET on the Atari (or more fittingly, Pac-Man) might wake some of them up on how much of mobile gaming's ailments are too similar to the factors that caused the crash in 1983.
And after the death of the Atari 2600 came the rise of the Nintendo Entertainment System. So whatever comes to replace the smoking shell that King etc leave behind will hopefully make things a lot better.
 

IamLEAM1983

Neloth's got swag.
Aug 22, 2011
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What's really sad about this is the fact that the iOS's systems make it all too easy to circumvent all the timers. Here's a little handy secret that works for any freemium out there, from Candy Crush to this.

They all base their timers on your pad or smartphone's internal clock. You're stuck waiting four hours? Go in your device's settings and push the time ahead, after logging out. Log back in, and the game will be magically convinced that you've waited the required time. Thanks to this, you can expand fairly quickly at no cost towards yourself.

I discovered this after my folks bemoaned the waiting times on Candy Crush. Figured I'd poke around with the tablet's clock for the lulz and, well, whaddaya know - instant extra lives!

This doesn't make freemium models any better or easier to tolerate, but at least you can try and scam the scammers at their own game.

Once you're done playing, just reset your date and time to their proper settings, and you're good to go!
 

Shadow-Phoenix

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Mar 22, 2010
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I'm wondering how long it'l be until we make a law that prevents this kind of game from ever being massacred, or any for that matter and for Free to play games to actually be free to play, none of your time slowed down, no having to grind or wait a fucking week to get bread and butter results, no having to pay money to get to a normal decent result of fun and playability (looking at you PS2).

Still can't believe these kind of games are allowed to even charge that much, I'd seen the article about the game and nerd's video on how this will kill mobile gaming and it's just all kinds of sad that we let this happen, there has to be some point in logic where we can assume the right and lawfully stop this kind of shit from happening, voting with your wallet, don't like, don't buy bullshit does nothing and if it did there's certainly no big massive positive changes at this moment in time if this game still exists.
 

MrBaskerville

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Mar 15, 2011
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I played it last night, i like how the annoying tutorial demon straight up tells you that everything is a slow boring grind and that you can fix it with your wallet. If you atleast could mark more rocks than you have imps, then you could put the game away for a while (which would still suck), but nope, you can only mark as many rocks as you got imps. Obviously Imps cost gems, a lot of gems (third one costs 800, you start with 500) and it takes forever to mine rocks, i think it's something like 200 rocks pr hour while everything costs waaay more than that. I hate this game and the art style is horrendous...

Btw, the opening tutorial might be one of the worst i've tried in a while. It's confusing and they are basically just forcing you to click where they point for a long long time.
 

MrBaskerville

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Mar 15, 2011
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Hazy992 said:
EA already hard at work trying to win that Golden Poo for the third year running, I see?

At least you've already got a contender for shittiest game of 2014 -_-
And guess what, a danish award show called Danish Game Awards just gave them an award for being the best publisher second year in a row (as voted by the general public). That's quite depressing to think about^^.
 

WarpZone

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Mar 9, 2008
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My thoughts as I got to the end of this review: "Wow, an honest-to-god REVIEW on a mainstream website that rips apart a shitty mobile game! Maybe the games review biz isn't entirely bankrupt of credibility after all. I wonder who they got to review... oh, shit. It's Jim Sterling. Jim Sterling is literally the only person on The Escapist's staff who would call this shit out, isn't he? Who am I kidding. They probably only keep him around for the paper-thin veneer of street cred he lends the website."

Keep doing what you're doing, Jim. But honestly. Does it have to be you? Every single time? Is there no one else in this entire fucking industry who will call a turd a turd?

Jimothy Sterling said:
Dungeon Keeper Mobile Review - Wallet Reaper

An utterly despicable cash grab.

Read Full Article
 

bkd69

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Nov 23, 2007
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Dirty Apple said:
I have an android tablet and played this for a bit. I was pretty much done with it within 2 weeks. I think games like this are part of a larger systemic problem. I'm having real difficulty finding any kind of worthy game to play on the tablet. Plants vs Zombies 2 is ok, but again involves in game purchases, as does Candy Crush. Why can't someone come out with a good flash game level product for the tablet. I'd happily pay 10 bucks for the opportunity.
The short answer:
Humble Bundle
Periodically they'll have a humble android bundle.

Also, some of the big FOSS games have been ported as well:
Ur-Quan Masters
OpenTTD
FreeCiv
Wesnoth doesn't seem to be available in a free edition.

Also available is Droid Tower, an adaptation of the Dark Tower board game, playable either in full board game mode, or usable simply as a tower replacement if you already have the board game.
And of course, there's always Minecraft.
 

BunnyKillBot

Fragged by Bunny
Oct 23, 2010
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MrBaskerville said:
I played it last night, i like how the annoying tutorial demon straight up tells you that everything is a slow boring grind and that you can fix it with your wallet. If you atleast could mark more rocks than you have imps, then you could put the game away for a while (which would still suck), but nope, you can only mark as many rocks as you got imps. Obviously Imps cost gems, a lot of gems (third one costs 800, you start with 500) and it takes forever to mine rocks, i think it's something like 200 rocks pr hour while everything costs waaay more than that. I hate this game and the art style is horrendous...

Btw, the opening tutorial might be one of the worst i've tried in a while. It's confusing and they are basically just forcing you to click where they point for a long long time.
Here is the subtle crux of the contempt. Imps are required to do anything, mine, build, upgrade. While they are occuppied, you can not do anything else. The game gives you two imps. The next one costs 800 gems. It doesnt tell you hiw much the fourth imp is, for all i know the next imp is 1600 gems. the game gives you about 500 gems while the tutorial encourages you to fritter them away. The natural earn rate of gems is so slow. It Is Impossible To Naturally Buy The Next Imp. That is ******* disgusting. Only having two imps, which are action performers, is unplayable.

This is not a game, its a money extraction tool aimed at the mentally ill. It is ****** disgusting and those involved should be shamed. I propose we name and shame them. Build a website of managerial employees, names, pictures and addresses. Give faces to the obscurification of coorporate greed.
 

rees263

The Lone Wanderer
Jun 4, 2009
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I though I'd give it a go since it's free and I have absolutely no intention of paying money to any freemium game ever.

Usually I take Jim's word as law, but I think he's been a little harsh with this one. That's not to say I think it's a good game, but there are definitely worse examples out there. Mainly because this game actually has something to do besides build stuff - the raids. Even if it's not a fantastic execution of this idea, a lot of similar games don't even have that.

I guess I won't hold Jim's opinion against him though - I loathe IAP as much as the next guy and I still haven't forgiven EA for shitting all over PvZ 2.

Actually yeah, I changed my mind. Fuck EA.