One of my favorite games of all time is Pikmin 2 for Nintendo Gamecube. It’s still a shock to me that a remake or port has not been made for the Nintendo Wii. The game had a really addictive multiplayer mode that I still play if I can find an opponent to battle split screen with me. Until a part 3 or remake comes out, my Wii will continue to collect dust.
But then I played the first Overlord game for 360. I was stoked to see Overlord had the same strategy based gameplay as Pikmin. Unfortunately the first Overlord was riddled with camera and control problems. I never got past these problems in the demo, but obviously the game and idea had potential.
Well, let me be the first to tell you, the second installment definitely fixes all of the prior bugs and nuisances for the most part. You will laugh, you will get frustrated, but it’s a long and surprisingly fun journey. The game is packed with humor and I chuckled several times at some of the antics of the minions. At one point during the tutorial intro, you are required to obtain disguises for your minions to enter a party. You are in a snowy winter wonderland type environment and your minions end up raiding a children’s cabin to take all their warm clothing. When they come out dressed up in the children’s jackets and beanies, you here the whining and worried cries of the children inside saying they are, “sooo cold.” This same ruthless humor follows throughout the campaign, where you can even lure your mistresses into becoming “special friends”, and even better, you get an achievement for it!
Core gameplay here is basically real-time strategy in which your Overlord, (who looks badass I might add) takes control of a horde of minions to do his dirty work. These gremlin-like minions are quite funny and are more than willing to give their life, “for de mastah.” Although your dark-lord does have the ability to melee attack and damage foes and friends alike, much of the game is sent sending your minions to pillage and destroy. These minions will level up in the game by gathering weapons and armor to wear. They can also be sent to grab gold, life orbs and more importantly they can fit where your Overlord cannot often opening doors, levers or turning wheels to lower bridges. This is where the fundamental strategy portion of the game really shines. You will need to use your minions almost constantly to make your way throughout some astonishingly large levels. You will start off with solely Brown minions which are used for melee fighting, but eventually you gain control of Red, Green and Blue minions as well. The red minions are your archer-type fighters who will usually hang back and hurl fireballs at enemies. They can also walk through and absorb fire. Then you have your green minions. These guys are really only valuable for passing through areas with green poisonous gas. They also have a backstab attack mainly used for bosses that will allow you to sweep behind a foe to jump onto their back and stab the living crap out of them. Lastly is the blues minions. The blues are wimps in the fighting department, but can swim, absorb harmful blue goo and most importantly revive downed minions. There are a lot of tough sections in the game that really require you to use all of the types of minions efficiently. These minions will die, but can be replenished in levels via color-specific holes that rise out of the ground. These portal-like holes are everywhere, and replenishing your little dudes is never really far away no matter where you are.
Your Overlord is also able to use mana (magic) to either destroy enemies or enslave them to follow you. You can gain the ability to temporarily power up your horde, or to absorb them to gain energy. You can also resurrect your fallen favorite minions at your “tower.” The scripting and pacing is done quite well, especially in the latter end of the game where you can have a horde of up to 50 minions. The graphics are not amazing, but the art style is pretty awesome, as is the attention to detail. There is a few awesome moments of the game when you come up to a minion-control statue. These statues will shift the overlord leadership to one of your fearless minions to sneak through tighter and smaller levels while your possessed Overlord stays at the statue. One particular section even had the green minions sneaking stealthily through a fortress. It was a nice change of pace from the usual pillage and plunder.
Like I mentioned earlier, you will get frustrated. These moments of frustration will make you want to… wait for it… yeah, you guessed it… punch a baby. The ultimate of frustrations. For starters, the designs of some of these levels are painfully confusing. I did so much backtracking in this game I cannot even describe it. Down to go up, up to go down and everything in between. Some of these levels will have you pulling your hair out! In fact, I had to go out and buy Rogaine to help with the re-growth. Not a pretty site, but still, I soldiered on. The camera is also not perfect by any means. Although it’s a huge improvement over the first Overlord, it still acts up quite a bit. Often times the camera will do a 180 on you for no reason, which makes it a little disorienting. Control over minions in the first installment was also a problem, as “sweeping” them is mapped to the right thumbstick, which also moves the camera. It can be sluggish and frustrating, especially in the heat of battle and particularly during the boss battles. Another frustrating issue is the flick targeting system which is also mapped to your right thumbstick. It never locks onto the enemy you want it to and it lacks the precision needed in combat, especially during the final boss battle.
All and all I really enjoyed this game. I laughed, I cried in frustration, but I really enjoyed it. The game was loonngg. Make no mistake about it, this game is ruthless! Codemasters will have you clubbing baby seals, panda’s and even looking up ladies skirts. After the game was over I tried multiplayer but had difficulty finding games. I did squeeze in a territories type of game that felt a little lackluster and uneventful, but I’d love to give it another chance if the population builds up. Give this one a rent. Good times to be had!
Stay tuned for reviews of Wolfenstein and Batman: Arkum Asylum.
-DIGGITY OUT
The Gamer Report 
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