Monster Den: Book of Dread

Game's like LOTRO's story based world are some of the most unique and memorable games out there; Breathtaking vistas, moving story-arcs, and dramatic boss-fights, these are somethings that really make a game like LOTRO incredible.

But face it, sometimes, deep down inside, you just want to smash stuff and get phat loots; And nothing satisfies that kick-in-door game style like a good o` fashioned dungeon-crawl.

Monster Den: Book of Dread is just about the best dungeon crawl experience that you can have without paying a cent. Its a free flash game, but the quality of it is something that I would expect to 10 or 15 dollars for.

Try out Monster Den: Book of Dread here.

Overview:

Like all Dungeon Crawlers the premise is simple: You create your rag-tag group of heroes-to-be, and set forth into dungeon filled with all kinds fiendish entities in order to obtain thier uber powerful items (that for some reason they weren't using *shrug*). There are 3 different campaigns to try here. The first, Den of Corruption, is simply an improved version of this game's predecessor, Monster Den. It's the most straight foward, and probably where you should start. The second is Den of Terror; it is an all new campaign that seems to play similarly to Den of Corruption, but might be otherwise very different--In all honesty, and I haven't tried it much myself. The third is The Fall of Tellunos. A bit different from the others and Dungeon Crawlers in general, this campaign does away with the Dungeon, and simply has you battle wave after wave of foes, to see how long you can last. You can have up to 3 different save files so if you want try different parties in the three different campaigns you can.

Graphics: 8

The graphics are not incredible, but are effective. Think like, Eye of the Beholder, but with a higher resolution. It's something like that, though battles consist of watching your characters portraits duke it out with the enemy portraits; You never actually see a fully rendered entity, everything is done through the protraits and sparkly special effects. They have decent selection of portraits for your characters, but the really cool thing is that you can use custom protraits! All you need is the URL of a picture. Just choose custom portrait when making your party and put in the URL. Just make sure you still have the gender of the character selected properly as well.

Sound/Music: 8

This was one I was definatly not expecting. The music in this game is good. Not jaw-dropping, life-changing, earthing-shatteringly good. But it is good. These are some rather epic fantasy tracks, both the passive dungeon exploring themes, as well as the many battle tracks--each type of enemy group like undead, cultists, or orcs, have their own battle theme, so there is a lot to listen to; My personal favorite is the evil cultist battle track. The sound effects a bit weaker. They work, but thats all. And by default I found them to be way to loud compared to the music. Fortunatly, you have the option of manipulating the sound effects and music volumes independently.

Gameplay: 9

If this game wasn't free, I'd probable give this a much lower score, but like I said, I found it to be one of the funnest free games out there. This game is wholey a strategy game, requiring you to think out each move. A bit like fantasy chess or something, there is no strict time limit on how long you take your turns. And I reccomend you really do think about your moves, as apparenly charging in and swinging swords and fireballs all over place usually ends in premature adventurer death. Oh yes, be warned, this game is very HARD, especially at the early levels. On the default difficulty settings, I got my butt handed to me many times. Fortunatly there is an easy mode, and believe it or not there is also hard mode. Crazier yet, there are extra settings that you can choose to futher increase the difficulty, like "Attrition" which prevents you from buying or selling supplies, or "Hardcore" which invokes permadeath if your party wipes. The game has a ratings score that keeps track of your successes and fumbles, and these various difficulty settings will also have an effect on that score. So if you're a glutton for punishment like me, you have lots of options.

Story: 4

There really isn't any story, but there isn't supposed to be, so this weakspot won't really affect my overall rating. The game a nice atmosphere, and your characters will communicate a little in between floors but none of it is exceptional. I may edit this rating as I try more of Den of Terror and I see what it has to offer.

Replay Value: 9

Really, if you're in the mood for a Dungeon Crawler, variety probably isn't what you're looking for. Still, with 3 differnet modes, and 7 different classes, and an infinate dungeon to explore--after you beat Den of Corruption that is--this game has a lot of long term play value. Now, you may not want to play Monster Den in place of LOTRO, but this makes a great game to play if the LOTRO servers are down, and tt also runs easily on labtops so you can play it when you're on the go.

Overall: 8.5

I give this game solid rating, for being really fun without having to pay any money. But ultimatly, it cames down to a matter of taste: If you like Dungeon Crawlers, you will like this game. If you don't like Dungeon Crawlers, well, this game likely won't change your opinion, but I reccomend you at least try it out.

We'll always love our epic-story games, but there is an element of "kill stuff, get loot" in almost all fantasy games. Monster Den: Book of Dread simply focuses on it.