When the dice pulled this game in, there wasn't a question in my mind. After all, I was "technically" in the middle of the series, and I honestly enjoyed the hell out of the first one, so why not? Well, the game was going to show me why not before long. Come on in.
Story: Like father, like son could not be a truer phrase then in this game. As the son of the Overlord in the original game, you are destined for great and terrible things. But as the game starts, you are a child in a small out of the way village, scurried away to be raised in secrecy when your father literally disappeared in the events of the last title. Life's not been kind to you. The others in the village can sense there is something "off" about you and they treat you accordingly. It doesn't help you that you turned out to be talented with magic, and, also like your father, have a penchant for at the very least mischief.
But one day, your life would change for the worse. Without your father to lead the forces of evil, they retreated from the world and left a power vacuum... and nature abhors such things. So it wasn't long before a new power began to spread it's influence. Known as the Glorious Empire, it reached your village demanding it's rules be met... including the one about magic being illegal and all magical creatures (or people) to be surrendered to them for cleansing. Your village tossed you to the wolves.
But you thankfully did not have to escape from the empire's armies alone. Your father's minions found you and there was no better time to rush to your aid, helping you escape the town, into the forest, and ultimately to be raised by them in the netherrealm. You grew up big and strong and now, it's time to get your revenge and take your father's place as the TRUE master of the lands.
There are more details and side stories to get involved with to be sure, but how much I can not be sure. I had taken the town that had thrown me to the wolves and was now moving in on the elves territory when both the time limit I give a game to prove itself worth continuing (8 hours) and a bug that set me back at least an hour, probably more, hit, ending my game.
Still I can't say much against the writing I saw, though. This game is genuinely funny, taking a dark idea and playing it up for laughs effectively. From the mumblings of your minions to the instructions of Gnarl, to the "California hippie to the extreme" elves, to even potential mistresses the game will put in your path, everyone seems pretty much there to put a smile on your face during their cutscenes. But sadly the overall picture seems to have little rhyme or reason as to what is going on. You may have a reason to take over your home village, but after that, it's more like you are on the warpath because you can be more then you have an actual reason. In short it's funny, but it feels like the overall story is basically there as an excuse instead of something thought out... at least as far as I got.
Graphics: Like it's predecessor, this game is going to suprise you in the best way graphically. Designed for the Xbox 360 and hardware of that era, it scales exceedingly well, and while it doesn't look like a modern AAA game, it looks fantastic. The world is vibrant and colorful, reflecting where you are at any given time, be it your tower, the winter village, or jungles, forests, caves, and really several other places. Between the artfully built world and exceptionally well done (especially for the time) lighting and smoke effects that just makes the whole world pop.
But this does come with a counterbalance. Yes, the characters that make up the world are also exceptionally well detailed, but human and human-like faces tend to show their age much more poorly. Rather then looking nearly as correct as a modern game would, they frankly look like poorly maintained muppets, deep and well on their side of the uncanny valley. And anytime they are up close, they are gonna look terrible. You, of course, look fine, but that's because you don't so much have a face as have a dark space with glowing yellow eyes peering out of them.
In addition while not immune, the mistresses in the game seem to be hit a bit lighter with this ugly stick. And everything not human tends to walk with the feel of the world. It doesn't look quite real, but it looks simply amazing, from the man-eating plants to the killer spiders, to even the yeti and your minions (who are incredibly expressive... in fact some would call them adorable... I'm not sure I would, but I can't argue against how amusing it is when your mistress decides to dress them up like aristocrats and high-end servants in the tower).
8/10
Sound: Like the graphics, the music in this game held up surprisingly well. If anything this might blend in more with how modern games sound. True, you likely won't remember much of it after you turn off the game, but while playing it fits it's roll brilliantly and you will not be upset with anything you hear. This is also true of the sound effects, which are a fairly standard affair.
No what stands out here is like many games, the voice acting. Your character will never say a word, but Gnarl says more then enough to make up for it, truly carrying the game in the audio department. Not that this is a surprise for fans of the franchise. He did an amazing job in the first game, too. And when it's not him, it's the minions themselves, who's character just oozes through everything in this game.
8/10
Gameplay: Sadly, this is where the game falls apart. Much like the previous game, this is a 3rd person game where the core mechanics involve leading your minion hoards into battle against whatever dares stand in your way. Usually this will involve literally flipping the right stick around to move the group you have selected at the moment where you need them to be, which works almost as well as it did in the last game. I will say almost because it seems like in the time between, someone thought it would be a good idea to mesh the camera and minion controls. Where before holding a trigger button would decide if you were manuvering your view or your minions, now the moment you push the stick forward enough and rather then angle the camera accordingly, you are suddenly moving the minions. It can make for some akward control moments, which was my first hint that this game was going to get rough.
In addition to combat, you are going be using these little guys for mechanics puzzles (turning the right cranks or pushing the right buttons or even lighting things on fire once they are placed properly), which usually works very well. Although here, there are some design issues from time to time. Nothing that will stop you in your tracks, but sometimes room for error is EXCEEDINGLY small, so if you are already fustrated at this point, you are not going to be any happier at that moment.
And yes, you will get there, because this game has a "that moment" in which everything turns from overall fun to absolute garbage. If you want to read about it, follow the spoilers.
When you take over the first town, it's not long before you need a ship to continue your conquests, and when you get one, the game gets.. awkward. You gain control by having 10 of your minions board it... even though unlike everything else, there is nothing to target until you happen to do so by chance. Once you've done that, you take the helm and off you go: one trigger to move forward and one to move backwards. It feels cumbersome, but in a way suiting to a ship stuck in the waves. The issue starts when you have to fight another more war-built ship in this.
Now you will find yourself in a life-or-death battle with an elven ship that has a ram on it. Your goal is to dodge it's shots and have your red minions throw fireballs at it, burning it's sails. This works well enough as well, but once you've "slowed them down" they will run, and this is where the game hit the wall. That ship is fast, and you now have to chase it down as it flies around the island at top speed.... well, when you are close enough to it. And you can catch up... but when you do, be ready for mermaids to slow you down by the time you do, only letting you get a few shots in. Rince and repeat... many many many times. The redundancy is infuriating.
Unfortunately things do not get better from here. It wasn't long after this that the game took away all the minions but rebalanced everything badly and I began running into the real bugs I will discuss below that finished the game for me, rendering it a broken mess with what was for me, game ending bugs.
0/10
Bugs: Sadly, this game was far from bug-free. In fact a game-ending bug hit just as the game reached the 8 hours I demand before I deem it trash. Sometimes fate speaks in these things.
- Panda puzzle broke: This probably sounds weird, but early in the game, (as you are collecting your third minion type, but have yet to bring their nest home), you will meet pandas as an enemy type. These behemoths will generally leave you alone... as long as you don't cut down their bamboo. This in itself is fine, and in fact you are given a puzzle where you are supposed to lead one of these beasts around a circle to free up the path to those minions and use them for the first time. The problem is I cut the bamboo and ran... only to be ignored... at least so it seemed. Since it was cut, I couldn't try again, and ultimately had to punch the thing in the nose to realize it was stuck and couldn't move. Since I couldnt touch it without getting too close and I would lose by design in this match, this proved quite the issue... especially as this puzzle was necessary t progress the game. Ultimately I did get him to nudge free eventually and chase as necessary, but not before I was half-dead from attempts. And speaking of...
- Clipping can kill you: This is not a joke. This same panda took me out for my second death in the game... because his swat knocked me over and he landed on me, clipping me INTO HIS BODY. The game refused to let me move as I was forced to just take the damage and die... all because the game's controls ceased to do anything outside of spin the camera and try to wiggle. This is not the only time this happened: there were other places where that wiggle was all that kept the game from having to be reloaded (and I think one place where it was unavoidable). Your worst enemy in this game is not the enemies or even the terrible game design at times... it's the geometry.
- The map just disappeared: THIS was the game ending bug for me. In the same mission to collect the these new minions, it was discovered the Glorious Empire had captured it, so it's up to you to steal it back. This an exceedingly long mission involving possessing one of your new minion types and leading the others through an infiltration of the fortress. Unfortunately along the way, the game just forgot a large portion of the map, rendering it and anything in it (including your possessed minion and his crew) invisible and the area unnavigable. I had to reload, only to find the entire section (which tool well over an hour) would need to be redone. This is when I walked away from this game.
Overall: I REALLY wanted to love this one. After all, the original Overlord was a fun game that overcame the limits of first person army management magnificently. Had this been more of the same, it would have been another great outing. Unfortunately, the attempts to expand on it have had the reverse effect with many of the new additions proving more annoying then fun. Add to this some very severe bugs that literally killed the game and it was all downhill from that fun little introduction as the "witch boy." Slow at first... and then like jumping off a cliff.
Score:
System Requirements:
- Pentium 4 3.0Ghz/Athlon 64bit 3000+
- 1 GB RAM
- NVIDIA Geforce 6800/ATi X1600 (256 MB VRAM minimum)
- Windows XP SP2
- 5 GB hard drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 5 5600G running at 3.9 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Windows 11
- PDP DX Wired Controller (Crimson)
Source: gog.com
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