Overlord
Published on 6 Jul, 2007 @ 05h45
by Genesis
Category:
Diverse | review
With great power comes great responsibility, and instead of being the good guy all the time and doing things the responsible way, it is much more fun, and talking from personal experience, abusing power is a lot more enjoyable than being responsible with it. This summer we get the chance to destroy homes, pillage towns, kill sheep, wipe entire species out even bash your own loyal minions, for fun of course…
If you’re a fan of Dungeon Keeper series or just plain insane, Triumph Studios is here to help you to bring out that little Devil inside you; as Overlord is bursting with opportunities to be evil, which in fact is the whole point of the game. You, a spiritual successor to the long-dead tyrant who was knocked off his throne by goody-two-shoes heroes, must now rise up and begin tyranny to the land once more.
Clad in demonic armour and wielding a great axe, the objective of the freshly-appointed Overlord is to stomp through scenic villages killing and beheading innocents. For every innocent or evil killed, you’re awarded a life-force, which forms the basis of what the game is all about. As you can imagine, no self-respecting evil dude would do his own dirty work, unless you get bored with watching and commanding, you are obliged to join in the bloody battles; instead calling on his army of minions to do it for him. That's exactly what happens here, with players converting in the life-force at minion spawns they've collected, in return they get an army Minions - little goblin-like creatures who obey you're every command as well as taking countless abuse from you (feel free to kick them when you please).
As such you don't actually spend that much time slaughtering enemies; instead you command your Minions, telling them to attack villages or innocent villagers, gather artifacts with which to embellish your castle and generally cause havoc.
Your castle is a place evil; there you can test out your army in the pits below and the more corrupt you gets (by killing innocents) the darker you and your castle gets, with demonic spikes growing out of you armour and walls of your castle. Your Overlord gains spells and new armour over the coming battles as well your minions find useful objects to use and most of the time rather useless items like pumpkin helmets.
In the beginning players start with only five minions at one time with which to do their dirty work, but later in it's possible to amass an army of 50 fiendish followers. Thankfully, even with this number of critters on-screen it's easy to keep track of your horde's progress and keep them in check, because the controls are quick to pick up and easy to use. You can either control the minions directly or highlight an object for them to attack. Your army can be broken down into a number of groups too, enabling you to flank the enemy if you're clever and quick enough. Also, even if the screen is packed with Minions there's no visible slow down, which is a nice touch.
The key to success in Overlord is how to use your army properly, especially as you discover new types of Minion. Initially you only have access to the Browns, who are great brawlers but not much else. However, later in the game you unlock Reds (shoot fireballs; absorb flames), Greens (withstand poison; turn invisible for stealth attacks) and Blues (water resistant; can revive minions). To gain access to different minions, one needs to find the lost minion tribes. Knowing how to make the most of the Minions at your disposal is vital to your survival, because while the greens can easily knock off an enemy in seconds if they manage to sneak up from behind, if they're ambushed head-on they won't last a second.
Overlord has a puzzle element to it, as your Overlord is too big and buff to go through small gaps; this is when the minions come in handy and each minion has a certain trait to them like Blues can cross over water, Greens can travel over poisonous grounds, and Reds can go through fire.
And that’s as hard as the puzzles get. And what’s more they are linear as more could have been added to the minion’s abilities. A more imperative problem is the vast amount of backtracking you have to do, as minion’s spawn from different pits around the map, so if all your reds have died, and then you have to backtrack to the last Reds pit to resupply your army. And what’s more is that you don’t know what minions you will need in the coming battles.
Overlord has three multiplayer modes; Slaughter mode pits you against other overlords in a deathmatch to determine who lives up to his title. Plunder mode where you go up against a fellow overlord, not to kill him but to try and pillage as much plunder from the village, and who ever collects the most gold wins; and if it looks like your losing, why not ambush the enemy while he is gather the gold and when he is near grab the gold for yourself. And finally there is Cooperative mode, where you and your Overlord friend go up against a ever increasing horde of enemies; basically like a survival mode.
8/10
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