When you play most fantasy games, all you see is the gallant knight charging bravely forth into some dark, dank lair to square off against the forces of evil lying in wait deep inside. But have you ever stopped long enough to look at the other side of the story? Do you realize just how much work goes into building that perfect dungeon, only to have some yahoo with a hero complex come in and trash everything? I mean, there are minions that need micromanagement, occult spells to learn, and have you ever had to cope with an ogre that hasn't had a full eight hours of sleep? Thankfully, the folks over at Sony Online Entertainment understand what it takes to run an evil dungeon (--INSERT CORPORATE JOKE HERE--), and are sharing that experience with gamers in its latest Facebook offering, Dungeon Overlord.

Dungeon Overlord puts players in the role of, well, a dungeon overlord, who was perfectly content to rule over his little piece of hellish paradise with an iron fist. At least he was content ... right up until a rival overlord crashed his party and wrecked the place. However, if there's one thing we've learned from all of those RPG/Adventure franchises, it's that you can't keep a good bad guy down. So the overlord packs up and moves on, determined to rebuild his evil empire and exact a not-so righteous vengeance against all those who've wronged him.

Players start Dungeon Overlord with little more than a small vault and a strip of dirt surrounded by lava. It's a humble start for an evil mastermind. Still, you've got to work with what you're given, and with just a couple of goblins initially under your control, you've got to jump right into the thick of things and start rebuilding. You start off by building a den for your minions to lay their weary heads, a farm to feed all those hungry mouths, and a mine to collect resources to help pay for all of your new dungeon renovations. Eventually, you work your way up to recruiting new minions aside from your goblins, creatures like warlocks which help to learn new skills and spells, and orcs for some extra muscle. You can also upgrade your rooms to provide things like extra training for your troops, more efficient resource mining, and more storage space.

Admittedly, it's this micromanagement that can be the most tedious part of the whole experience. Actually, it wouldn't be so bad if Dungeon Overlord didn't fall to the same curse as most Facebook games of this type. Simply put, it moves (initially at least) at a snail's pace. Now, here's where the free-to-play model that a lot of Facebook games uses comes into play. Sure you can play the game for free, but you'll have to wait for a while between actions while things start. Upgrading your rooms or building new equipment can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to two hours or more. However, if you're feeling a little impatient and don't mind spending a couple of bucks, you can buy some of Sony's Station Cash and use it to instantly finish your upgrades or to increase your resource gathering rates for a week at a time. If you do decide to shell out some real dough, I'd recommend picking up the two permanent upgrades. There's one for three extra goblins and one to increase your dungeon's total available size. It'll set you back about five bucks total, but definitely helps make the game move along faster. And once you've gotten through the initial grind of building up, the game gets a lot more interesting, as players put together their armies to stage raids on nearby villages and rival dungeons.

I'll go ahead and go on record and say that Dungeon Overlord is one of the best looking games on Facebook right now. Although the game could do well with a zoom function, everything happening onscreen looks sharp and, more importantly, alive. It's fascinating to watch all of my minions running around my finely tuned dungeon like little demonic worker bees. I will say, though that while I've yet to really tire of Evard Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King playing subtly in the background, I wish there was a little more variety in the game's audio. Between the same background song and in constant chipping away in the mines, after a while you might need to switch off the sound to give your ears a break. My biggest gripe, though, is the game's unusually long load times. I've logged in before and felt like I could have run out for a quick bite before the game finally started up. I'll go ahead and cut it a little slack as it's still technically in beta, but the long loading period definitely could use some trimming.

While the micromanagement can feel like too much of a grind at the start, once Dungeon Overlord picks up the pace, it's hard to stay away from. If you're looking for something to jump into for a few minutes a day and build up over time, and if you've got the need to feed that evil streak inside of you, Dungeon Overlord is the way to go. Besides, who couldn't do with a few more minions to do their bidding these days?

Final Score: B+