Overlord

Overlord is a pretty unique game. If you took Dungeon Keeper and crossed it with Pikmin, you'd have a pretty good semblance of Overlord. With most hero-based adventure type games, your goal is generally to seal away the evil that has awoken. In this game, you ARE the evil that has awoken. On top of that, while you were dead heroes came and looted and destroyed your tower, so now you're pissed on top of being evil!

I would describe the game play style as 3rd person hack and slash, but the fact that you are always followed by a group of VERY loyal minions makes it a bit more than that. While you can destroy your enemies personally with whatever weapon you happen to be using at the time, it's much more effective to send your army of minions after them (especially at the beginning).

You control yourself with the left analog stick and you control your minion army with the right analog stick. It's difficult to get used to controlling you and the minions at the same time, so fortunately you don't have to. If you just walk away, your minions will blindly follow you - even if it means their death ("They're very loyal!").

I wouldn't consider this a "standard" RPG type of game. It has the same basic power gaining system as any Zelda game: Find items that increase your health, magic, weapons/armor, and number of minions you can have active at any given time. You can't loot the equipment off of your enemies, but your minions can! See that group of halflings over there? Send your minions to destroy them and when they're finished, they'll pick up the weapons and armor and equip them making your minions that much stronger (I've gotten my active minion army to over 350% of their normal strength). The best part is that your minions will keep their weapons and armor permanently until they are killed.

It seems like I mention your minions a lot - that's because they are integral to the game. You can attack, but your minions are almost always stronger. At least in large groups they are. There are also 4 types of minions which, by excellent design, correspond to the 4 colors of the 360 buttons.

Brown: Basic fighter minions. Let these guys equip weapons/armor first.

Red: "Mage" type minions. They throw fireballs with decent range, but die in melee very easily. Immune to fire.

Green: "Thief" type minions. They can both stealth and backstab. Better than red minions at melee, but nowhere near as good as browns. Immune to poison.

Blue: "Healer" type minions. Blues will resurrect fallen minions provided they reach them in time. Very weak combat skills. The only minions able to move through water without drowning.

Your "party" of minions starts out small at first with you only being able to control 5 at a time. As the game progresses, you can easily amass a huge army of 40+ at any given time. Having a balanced party of minions is a huge help, too. Some reds for ranged support, some greens for stealth attacks, some blues to minimize combat losses, and a goodly number of browns to annihilates those standing in your path.

While the story of the game professes that you're evil, there are plenty of opportunities to decide just how evil you want to be. Do you save the villagers to earn their worship, or do you slaughter them and take their women as your personal servants (actual in-game choice)?

Overall, I'd give this game 8.9 out of 10 for originality and humor. Yes, there are quite a few comments made that just make my evil side cackle with evil glee. (This review is for the XBox 360 version of Overlord. The PC game is basically identical except for the control scheme, so this should mostly apply that that version as well.)

Overlord Trailer

Written by GatheringofGamers.com Member: CodeH4x0r