I would just like to offer a little constructive criticism, if I may:
Jimothy Sterling said:
The first block I clicked on was going to take four hours to excavate with one of two imps I had. Not a problem, I had a bunch of gems already. I used them and sped up the process. As I did for the next block. Then the next block. Then I had no more gems. I started trying to dig out a 4x4 room two nights ago.
Two nights ago ... and I am not finished digging out a 4x4 room.
You ARE aware that roughly 80% of the playing field is blocks that only take 4 seconds to dig-out, right? It's only at the very edge of the map that you have to worry about any 24-hour blocks, and even the 4-hour blocks are close enough to the edge that they shouldn't be too much of a hassle until your dungeon starts getting bigger. And the longer times are there because you get more reward for the time spent. The 4-hour blocks give you some gems (granted not a lot), and the 24-hour blocks are there to act as a barrier between the extra Gold/Stone Quarries.
The constant acquisition of gold and stone from mines (you can't dig gold out of the map yourself anymore, that would be too much like gameplay) means nothing when the real currency of the game is gems, and the acquiring of gems isn't satisfying because you just buy them with real cash.
Granted that you
can buy gems to acquire everything; but the trick is that you aren't forced to. Heck, the game doesn't even badger you that much about it. Horny tells you about it during the tutorial and that's about that. From there you're free to buy or not buy gems at your leisure. Not once, outside of mentioning them in the tutorials, has the game bothered me about making gem purchases; in fact, I'd go so far as to say that this game is LESS intrusive about it compared to other games of it's ilk.
The map is small, progress is linear and predetermined for you (nothing to discover here, no secrets to find or a huge bestiary to attract), and doing battle against others is facilitated by a separate, stripped-down Tower Defense style game that lasts a few seconds and holds little strategic challenge.
The map is on the small side, I'll grant that, but it still has plenty of room for setting-up traps and mazes for attackers to have to navigate. And... predetermined progress? Granted that you unlock rooms (and thus the creatures associated with them) in a linear fashion, but that's really no different than the original; where every new level threw a new room at you which would attract the creature who prefers that room. Other than that, the only "progress" can think of is designing your dungeon, which is completely open. Both in building my own, and in attacking other players' dungeons, I've seen several different configurations. Some harder to attack than others. Heck, some people managed to put together dungeons that I would deem damn-near impossible to attack, but that other people were probably able to waltz through with relative ease because they were able to find some work-around to the trick that destroyed my army. There's actually a surprising amount of depth and strategy to be found in the game's attack and defense strategies.
You slap imps - on a separate imp-slapping screen - which makes them allegedly work more efficiently for a modest amount of time, though the time it takes them to do anything is so vast, there's no observable difference.
There's nothing "alleged" about it. It even flat-out tells you on the screen; it's a 2x efficiency boost, and it's very noticeable when you set an Imp to do a 5-minute job (yes, they do have jobs that take less than 24 hours). Heck, it's actually kinda nice when it lines-up with tasking them to do 1-hour jobs. Set the imps to work, slap 'em, and they'll be done when the 2x buff wears off. And on the longer jobs? Sure it requires a bit of checking-in to keep the 2x boost going, but you'd be amazed how quickly a 24-hour job (like the heavy gem veins you were crying about at the start of the review) flies by when it only takes less than 15 hours.
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Those are the only bits I care to poke at for the moment, but my point is this: If you hate the game, then fine, but at least be
honest in your review. If you want your review to simply be "I can't believe they made Dungeon Keeper into a time-based game rather than giving it a true sequel", then hey great; at least it's an honest reason for why you gave it only a half star. When you have to sit here and make-up reasons for why the game is bad, it really does nothing but hurt your stance. Heck, the only reason I downloaded the game (aside from the fact that it's free) was
because of your review (or more specifically, your video about it). And after playing it my thoughts were pretty much "It's really not as bad as Jim made it out to seem". As an example, the first thing I picked at in your review, was when I went into the game fully ready to be outraged at the game expecting me to spend entire days on just on block; then I get into the game to find that actually only certain blocks require that amount of time, and that most blocks actually only take a few seconds. Once I got to that point, my only thought was "Well what else did Jim lie about in his review?" Turns out, quite a bit.
If I can be honest, this whole Dungeon Keeper backlash sounds more like gamer entitlement (how DARE they make a Dungeon Keeper that isn't catered specifically to my tastes) than an honest review of the games actual merits and failings. And don't get me wrong, the game does have some; just that you didn't mention any of them. Probably because they aren't as big of failings as you would have liked them to be; hence why you just made-up (and/or rather exaggerated on) facts to try and make your whining sound more justified; when really all you had to do was be honest and say "I just don't like the format they used for this game". It wouldn't have been a good review, or even a helpful one, but at least it would have been honest.
