Dungeon Lords could have been one of the best action role-playing games of 2005. It had everything going for it including a seasoned development team and a lead designer that has created some of the most popular computer role-playing games of his era in the form of D.W. Bradley. But from concept to creation all the way to completion, Dungeon Lords turned out to be an unadulterated mess. What was finally released to retail comes across as an unfinished, half-hearted buggy disaster. That isn't to say that the game is entirely worthless. Underneath all the bugs and missing features is a fun game, but getting past the game's shortcomings is problematic.

The game was billed as a role-playing game geared towards action fans with simplistic controls, an almost arcade like magic system and twitch based combat. What consumers got was a game that didn't seem to work very well, crashed on some systems and had all kinds of bugs with the main and side quests that saving often proved to be the mantra of the hour. There are so many problems that this game that I could write about right that it would take up the space of two reviews, but I'll focus on just some of the more glaring mistakes that were made.

One of the worst things that Dungeon Lords does out of the box is lies right to your face. The minute you read the manual and play the game for the first time you'll realize that someone didn't proofread it. The manual lists several features that don't exist in the game, and while these may be minor things, it nonetheless tells users that they are there when they clearly are not. Auto-Mapping is one example of a feature that never made it into the retail version of the game, while character customization and junk inventory (I.E. loot players collect) are more that were not included in the game. But a few missing features are just the tip of the iceberg.

There's the whole disarming/lockpicking/bashing issue with the game where ordinary fighters and mages are forced to train skills (Disarming, lockpicking) as opposed to having a class specific means of doing so. Fighters can't successfully bash a chest like a D&D game and mages don't have any spells that help them accomplish such a task.

Then there's the whole series of bugs related to quests that have frustrated just about anybody that has played the game. You do the work on a given quest and follow the leads only to find that there's a problem with an NPC never showing up or getting stuck in mid-air. And these aren't just on class specific quests but even on the main quest you have to undertake. Then there's quests where characters are supposed to be dead or dying, but going back reveals that they are still right where you left them. Other times there are quest where if you miss the NPC that is the object of your attention then you will never again encounter them. There are all kinds of small and grand problems with the main and sub-plotlines that are a major hassles to deal with.

But beyond those kinds of bugs are tons of performance issues and on machines that should easily handle this game. When you are ten times over the recommended system requirements and the game slows down to a crawl there's definitely something wrong with the game's overall code.

And yet despite all this heartache, aggravation and pain that players have suffered through is a pretty decent and charming role-playing game. Despite the fact that the world feels empty Dungeon Lords is fun to play -- if you can survive from and live with its lengthy laundry lists of bugs.

DreamCatcher and Heuristic Park recently added a patch that fixed some of the game's problems, which fans do appreciate, but the lesson of this story is to do it right the first time. Out of the retail box I can not really recommend this game to anyone, despite its underlying fund and addictive gameplay. If you have the patience to deal with the game's problems and don't mind a patch or two then you might want to pick up this game, otherwise wait for Gothic 3 or some other action RPG to waste your time on.