Unlike Pikmin though, Overlord does follow a bit more of a story, and provides players with a bit more of a purpose to develop characters and to expand to new areas. In Overlord you conveniently assume the role of an overlord that has been resurrected by an old minion who is seeking you to reclaim your previous strength and to bestow it upon whoever stands in your way. There are several locations to explore, and in typical fantasy style you’ll come across trolls, elves, dwarves, zombies and all sorts of other creatures that fit nicely in place with the fantasy theme.
In each area you explore you’ll eventually be given quests to accomplish allowing you to strut your evil side, or if you so wish, to be a goodie-two-shoe and help citizens with their problems and be the helpful overlord. As you continually fulfill each quest in these areas you’ll eventually come to the point where you must eliminate the level boss that’ll allow you to move further through the story, as well as to new areas. Rather than being forced along a linear path, only allowed to go to one area and then the next, Overlord provides players with some freedom allowing you to juggle between areas as you go. It helps liven up the game a little, but there are also only some quest and sections you can reach once you have a certain requirement, which leads us to the next important factor of Overlord – the minions you can control.
Like Pikmin, you’ll have a bunch of disposable minions that you can control at your will. At the beginning of the game you have your basic, strong melee minions, but the further you progress you’ll eventually be able to control three other coloured minions. Red Minions are weak yet can throw fireballs from a distance, Blue Minions are also weak but can revive fallen minions, while finally the Green Minions can camouflage into the environment to avoid detection.
The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. We don't need no water let the naughty people burn...
These minions help you do your dirty work, all the way from fighting and drinking down the grog to moving new objects to your tower. The objects you’ll often come across during your adventure will help boost your overlord’s health and mana, or provide better incentives such as new abilities and features such as being able to forge new and stronger weapons.
If you’re familiar with Pikmin you’ll understand the way the game controls. You’ll control your horde of minions by using the bottom analogue stick, controlling them out of danger's way or to hit specific spots. Additionally you can use the trigger buttons and some of the face buttons to perform precise movements or to target specific enemies. Unfortunately, the control layout and camera system isn’t completely flawless. There are only two different perspectives that can be used with the camera, and neither of them is effective in navigating through the tight areas that are in Overlord. Unlike Pikmin where your environments are spread open and tight corridors are kept to practically zero, Overlord is primary made up of tight areas meaning the camera will get stuck or slowly focus on areas that don’t particularly help you during battles. There is a centre camera button, though it isn’t effective enough to overcome the cumbersome camera system. Another disappointment to Overlord is that the game lacks a map. Overlord is an absolutely gigantic game, and understanding where you've been or where you need to go can become a tad difficult at times. Again, unlike Pikmin, the game isn't a wide and open game.
To extend the game’s appeal a bit beyond the story is the added incentive of indulging yourself in some of the game’s finer features. The game has a dungeon mode where you can pit yourself and your team of minions against previously encountered foes. It’s no easy task, but the rewards from successfully taking down enemies are a good enough incentive to tackle this area of the game. There’s also a fairly nice multiplayer mode that isn’t too bad if you trust your god-like skills in controlling minions. It isn’t too competitive, though it still has its moments of enjoyment.
Beauty is only skin deep.
From an artistic point-of-view, Overlord isn’t particularly appealing at all to be brutally honest. The art style itself is very bland and lacks atmosphere, and in terms of new generation grunt, Overlord lacks it. The game is often marred by the fairly average modelling work on characters and overall environment presentation, animation isn’t fluid at all and looks terribly awkward, shadows often flicker or are inconsistent with placement of objects or characters. The only real standout feature, from a graphical point-of-view, is the lighting used. More often than not, the lighting does a decent job of highlighting areas and often providing a certain mood depending on the location. Unfortunately, there are plenty of occasions where the framerate will take a huge nosedive, almost to the point where things almost become unplayable. These instances normally took place during boss fights, and quite honestly weren’t that enjoyable to witness.
Audio is another sub-standard area that could’ve been addressed a little bit more to have made the overall presentation of the game that much better. The soundtrack is practically non-existent in all areas you visit. The quality is so low and so poorly relayed that it’s probably best to turn off the music altogether. Add to that the fairly ordinary voice-acting quality, repetitive voice prompts from NPCs and incorrect voice cues and you’ve got a fairly dreadful sounding game. There were a number of occasions throughout the game where we would enter a new location and timing of music would be off by a little bit, sound effects or voice-acting would no longer play or sound just wouldn’t play at all. We’re not sure if those last few bugs were unique to our code, but regardless the overall quality of the audio is fairly ordinary and nothing to sing home about.
Overlord has a lot of problems, and quite honestly it’s just no fun for us, or you, to highlight them all, since it isn’t that bad of a game and doesn’t deserve that sort of belittling. It’s clearly enjoyable, and manages to provide players with a unique gameplay style and presence that deserves some sort of play through if the game sounds like your cup of tea – you just may be surprised.
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