Overlord (PC)

Want to be the hero, the “Dudley Do Right”, the pinnacle of shiny goodliness complete with “bing” noise when you bare your pearly whites in true heroic fashion? Move along, nothing to see here!

If however your are hell bent on just wanting to see everything burn and to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting populous then please, step this way, and please do feel free to give the Jester a kick while you’re at it. That’s right, you’re evil, really really evil! Get it!

The Tolkien fantasy world has been turned upside down, with Halflings being far less cute then the Elijah Wood childlike innocent, and Unicorns have a tendency to be a bit erm, rabid. You awake with Alan Carr mischievous Gremlin types looking down at you, helpfully washing your eyes so you can see a bit clearer, before being given the “tour” by your minions, or mignons (as your mood takes you), and the oldest surviving minion Gnarl (who serves as both narrator and instructor). It seems some bothersome hero type people (seven of them who actually come to represent the seven deadly sins) came in and brought your predecessors life to a somewhat abrupt end, stealing some vital bits of your dark tower, and thoughtlessly leaving it in a post apocalyptic “night after” mess. Your aim is simple, rebuild your tower, recover the stolen artefacts, and be jolly well evil and nasty..and maybe have a small tinge of vengeance thrown in for good measure when you send your army scampering to pound something into the dust. Excellent!

Overlord was released in 2007 to a warm welcome, with witty humour, a fairly easy learning curve, and some nice graphics. The game is a standard first person perspective affair, with the “world” being fairly restrictive, but armed with the ability to control an army of minions as well as swinging your axe at hapless foes all at the same time. The left mouse buttons instructs your little imps to go forth stomping on toys and kicking over pumpkin patches, whilst the right mouse button recalls them to your side like a faithful Golden Retriever (albeit a rather vicious one). Ooh, and did I mention you can throw fireballs and things? I didn’t? Oh.

But anyway, these aren’t any old minions, they’re not even Marks & Spencer minions, oh no, these are specialised minions. You start off with only being able to control 5 “Browns”, the melee fighters, and as you go on through the game you gain access to more colours, and the ability to control more of them too. Red minions have a penchant for setting things alight or putting fires out, blues can revive your minions should they die and can swim (talented little fellows aren’t they), and greens, well, they’re just downright sneaky and underhanded. During your romp through the fairytale lands you can call upon the various types of minion once they’ve been unlocked to aid you in overcoming some rather tricky obstacles, on your mission to become the ultimate overlord, and tidy up your “home”.

But is all of this enough to make a good game? The simple answer is yes. Overlord isn’t without it’s flaws, there are times you try to send your minions off on an errand only to accidentally set fire to the shepherd who’s trying to help you, there are times when you’re trying to be sneak sneaky, only for one overzealous minion just to stray too far causing you to bid a hasty retreat, but with the tongue in cheek humour, and novel take on being the “hero”, there’s more then enough here to make up for it. The autosave feature is handy, and the game doesn’t suffer from the perennial “Surprise from out of nowhere” type npc spawning that annoy so many gamers. The camera control can provide a player with an altogether new challenge in trying to peer through trees or other bits of scenery, and the multiplayer feature is well documented as being somewhat flaky. But, sometimes, it’s oh so good to be evil! Well worth a look!