1. fireskull98

   9

   I really enjoyed playing this game, I'm not sure why everyone else is rating it so low. Impire was really fun in my opinion, and I would recommend it to anyone who liked dungeon keeper.… Expand

   • Helpful? 0 of 0 users said Yes.
2. Zicious

   8

   This is a great game by itself. I give it an 8 because I have a lot of fun playing it. Impire has launched with basically a Quasi-Beta status. Lots of random bugs and game play mechanics that need to be balanced. A lot of people compare it to Dungeon Keeper and Dawn of War. It isn't very much like DoW except for the "squads". Squads are a must too, because if you just have units (not in a squad) they get slaughtered by squads of heroes. Its based on Ardania which is actually from Majesty. So I would say it is more of a Dungeon Keeper (base building style), Majesty (lore of the game and silliness), and RTS (more simplistic than DoW). I love the idea of how they tied everything together, you can Cooperatively play with others and skirmish. Developers are very active on the forums collecting logs and screenshots of crashes/bugs. I believe they will promptly patch and balance the issues others have outlined here. If you want a better idea of the game, definitely watch a play through video.… Expand

   • Helpful? 6 of 16 users said Yes.
3. Taziar

   5

   I have actually played the game and and after seeing the delusional reviews here, I felt compelled to chime in. (8.3? Really?) The atmosphere in the game is fine, and the humor, while a bit simple, is also fine. The real problem is the game-play. It isn't fun. In fact, it can be rather tedious. Basically the game consists of 5 parts. Building your dungeon, defending your dungeon from heroes, adventuring, raiding, and maintenance. No, it is not as exciting as it sounds.
   
   Building your dungeon is basically rotating and dropping a pre-sized room next to a corridor. Layout is unimportant because you generally teleport your units everywhere. Other than perhaps a cluster of kitchen's as you will spend a fair bit of time feeding your minions. It is generally unsatisfying and happens at a fairly slow pace. It feels more like the base building in a RTS, you do it just to get the buildings deployed to unlock functionality, not because you are actually designing a base.
   
   Defending your dungeon, now here is one of the tedious parts. Every couple of minutes, 2-4 (depending on stage of the game) ladders will randomly appear scattered within your dungeon. If you don't destroy them, a group of heroes will come out of one of them roughly twenty seconds later. You can setup patrols to destroy the ladders, but you rarely bother, because if you do, the heroes will simply come in through the dungeon entrance and attack your base anyway. So you teleport your squads back and attack the ladders and then teleport them to the entrance to attack the heroes. Then you send your minions to feed, and teleport them back to where they were before you were attacked.
   
   Adventuring is wandering around a too-dark area doing simple quests with mediocre combat. It is the best part of the game, and you can't enjoy it because you have to stop and teleport your minions back every couple of minutes to deal with the heroes. Or feed your minions.
   
   Raiding. Basically, you switch to a world map with a couple dozen locations on the map. There are 3 different types, each gives a different resource, and sometimes quest specific locations as well. But all you do is right click on one and select a single squad to send. Your squad leaves the dungeon, and comes back a minute later and you get resources, and possibly lose units. That is it. The quest ones are basically the same, just with a quest update thrown in. There is no real interactivity. It adds a little something to the game, but nothing to write home about.
   
   Maintenance. Ugh. You have to send your minions to feed. Often. When you lose a unit, you have to go through a couple of screens to create a replacement, send him to training to level two, go to a squad menu, add him to a squad, purchase upgrades for each unit separately (basically armor/weapons lvl 1-3, no real customization) and then send the squad for feeding. You can have replacements on hand, but still have to do all the same micromanagement.
   
   The UI has issues and needs to be streamlined, and there is too much micromanagement. Like you can tell an imp to repair a building, and he will, then just sit there. You have to wait until the repair is complete to then manually request an Imp go to work in said building. The same with ladders. Unless you set squads on patrol mode (which you generally don't want as they will wander off) when you teleport a squad next to an invading ladder, you have to manually select the squad you just sent, and manually tell him to destroy the ladder he is basically standing on top of. When you have to destroy 4 ladders, it is teleport, select, target ladder, repeat. 4 times. Every couple of minutes.
   
   Beyond the tedium, there is no real tactical depth and combat is kinda boring. Squads (which consist of 4 units) get bonuses depending on unit composition and level, but only with 4 different units. So, for example, if one of your bonuses is extra healing and you replace a DPS unit with a second healer, you lose the healing bonus. Odd logic. So the game encourages you to throw together squads from random groups of units. And combat is basically swarming the enemy with all your squads. There is no strategic reason not to, as you can instantly teleport your squads to wherever you want them. (albeit one at a time, as the UI has no streamlining) There are also reports of a few bugs, though I have not personally encountered any. To be fair, the developers have been active on Steam forums and I suspect the bugs will actually be fixed rather quickly. They have also promised to address some of of the other game issues, like the UI and constant need to feed your minions. With a couple of patches, they could get the game to a 6-7 rating, which is respectable for a $20 game in a genre with few other options. But as of right now, playing the game is a chore.… Expand

   • Helpful? 18 of 22 users said Yes.
4. ogre

   2

   Don't buy it if you expect Dungeon Keeper. In fact, just don't buy it.
   The gameplay is extremely tedious, and it's just a sad waste of time. It feels and looks like a lot of effort went into its production, but it doesn't matter because the gameplay isn't cohesive, and it's not fun at all.
   I have a serious feeling that the "10" reviews are friends and family of the developers...… Expand

   • Helpful? 5 of 6 users said Yes.

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