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Felicitous greetings and fanciful salutations my friends, foes, and fans! (Didja notice those big words? Not bad for a high-school dropout, huh?) Everybody's buddy, Oddcube here, saying welcome to the column! In the odd instance that you might be a n00b, or first timer, I shall elucidate about my intention with these articles.

Basically, the movers and shakers behind this wonderful website have entrusted who? Me! To show who? You! About the niftiest and dandiest things and stuff that have come and gone! That's right; I'm here to tell you about some UFOs! As in: Unfortunately Forgotten Objects! LOL, I made that up myself.

This month, we're going to talk about a game. See, any gamer worth his tokens knows that at the recent Blizz-Con, they announced the next expansion to World of Warcraft. That has nothing to do with this review, really, I just figured saying "World of Warcraft" and "Blizz-Con" would help my article pop up in web searches…so I guess we can all see what sort of underhanded opportunist I really am! Hey, at least I'm honest about it!

Seriously, though, the new expansion is called "Cataclysm" and they're wreaking havoc all over the core world, redesigning all the zones that everyone is used to. Well, the post-apocalyptic version of some of these lands reminded me of another game. That game is called "Dungeon Keeper".

I first found out about Dungeon Keeper in an ad in Dragon Magazine (I can say that here, right? Even though they're competition?) Anyway, it's a PC game where you get to build a dungeon and attract monstrous minions and fend off ardent adventurers and heroes who have come to harass you.

Wait, I better get the boring stuff out of the way so I can get to the good parts. So, it was developed at Bullfrog Productions under the supervision of a guy named Peter Molyneux (apparently an important name in the history of video games). It was released through Electronic Arts in July of 1997. In November, an expansion pack followed, called "The Deeper Dungeons", and in 1999 by the sequel, "Dungeon Keeper 2".

Okay, now on to the cool stuff!

So, Dungeon Keeper is a real-time strategy (RTS) game. You, the player, look down on the game board. Your cursor looks like a hand, and is referred to as the "Hand of Evil". Your mission is to conquer the world! …One land at a time. You come equipped with a handful of imps to start each level with. Imps are your all-purpose lackeys. They dig out areas that you tell them to dig, clearing the area for rooms or hallways. They mine out gold and gems. They claim territory for you, so you can build rooms or drop your minions there. They fortify your walls. They set traps. They're totally indispensable.

You get other monstrous minions, too; lured to your dungeon by the various rooms you have built. First your imps have to claim a Portal, so these new monsters can get in. Lairs will attract even the weakest of monsters, like Flies and Beetles. Hatcheries that provide food are required to feed your minions, and if they are of a certain size, they attract some creatures, like the gluttonous Bile Demons. Libraries attract Warlocks, who use the library to research spells and new types of rooms. Training Rooms allow your minions to gain levels, and also attract Demon Spawn. Workshops attract Trolls, who can then build you doors and traps. Prisons allow you to hold your enemies; if they die there they become Skeletons under your command. Torture Chambers attract Mistresses, plus they allow you to torture prisoners for information (usually revealing parts of that level's map). Sometimes the prisoners join you just to stop the torture; otherwise, they die and become Ghosts at your command. A Barracks room will attract Orcs, who are better fighters than Demon Spawn. If you build Cemeteries, your imps will drag dead bodies to it, and eventually you'll get Vampires.

I know this probably sounds a little overwhelmin