Game Review: Overlord

Xbox 360, PC

Gaming has been my hobby of choice for most of my life. Some things have definitely changed over the years, though. Being limited on time means that I want my gaming time to be spent on games that bring the pain, those addictive haven't-been-able-to-put-it-down games like Okami, or Baldur's Gate, or Culdcept. If I don't have such a game at the moment, my gaming time is spent rotating between a few not-quite-there games and hoping one will catch me and become Nuts, like Dead Rising. Then there are those few and far between games like Overlord. Overlord is kind of like Couch's tainted Slim Jim from Big Boy, though this review doesn't end with me shitting anywhere. Sorry.

Overlord is a maddening, shitburger of a game, a Final Fantasy-type mess. It's so close to being a great game, it's just got a few major points that crop up often enough to suck all the happy right out of the experience. It's like when you're eating a box of Whoppers and you're happy and then all of a sudden - BAM! You get one of those hollow, soft, mushy ones that make you stifle a gag and possibly poop in your pants a little bit. It ruins the whole carton, it does. Thus far I've talked about Slim Jims, poop (twice) and Whoppers. The time has come to discuss Overlord, although since most of the few people reading this don't play games that aren't WoW, the poop and Whoppers may be more relevant.

Evil.

The story of Overlord is as follows: Once upon a time there was a great evil guy who had an evil tower. Then the 7 great heroes stormed the tower, kicked his ass and all was peaceful....until, of course, someone found a way to bring the evil guy back from the beyond. A very cliche' setup for a game, until you get to the part where you play the evil guy and it's your job to rebuild your evil empire and punish those 7 heroes who defeated you. You won't do this alone - you have minions: lots of little gremlin-type guys who do all of your dirty work for you (this is where the whole Overlord thing comes into play.) While your Overlord does have a melee attack and a few spells, the game is all about controlling your minions. They fight battles, move obstacles, pull levers, etc. The gameplay is essentially one part puzzle solving, one part realtime combat.

First, the good stuff. The game's setting is really great, definitely a breath of fresh air. The game is all about evil, but it's comedic evil, very tongue in cheek stuff. You have a jester who follows you around your keep and compliments you, and you're able to kick him on his ass anytime you feel the need. Whenever one of your minions finds something for you, he'll hold it up with both hands and run towards you like a child, exclaiming "For the master!"And the seven heroes you have to track down have, uh, fallen from grace since their triumph. I had to fight a huge, comically fat halfling and a lustful paladin who was shacking up with a succubus among others. Very reminiscent of the old Dungeon Keeper PC games, Overlord scores high marks for its tone. The graphics are beautiful as well. Everything is well animated and looks up to par with what's expected from a current-gen game console. Both the setting and gameplay are very unique, so kudos to Codemasters for that.

The picnic's over.

And now for the bad. First off, there's no map. The areas are large and sprawling, and quest objectives are bare bones with little to no explanation. I spent a lot of time wandering around, not sure what I was looking for, just trying to find whatever was required to advance to the next area. This might be more of a personal thing, as my ability to navigate 3D environments (like Earth) is shit. Anyhow, I spent a lot of time lost and more than once I quit, saying "Fuck this, I'll come back to it later when I'm not pissed at it anymore." The other problems stem from control and camera issues. You have 4 different types of minions under your control, and trying to order them around in the middle of combat while fighting a tricky camera and poor targeting system means you'll spend more time fighting the game itself than fighting the enemies. Your minions' slots sometimes fail as well, like my browns getting hit and not fighting back, or my blues not rezzing their fallen brethren when they should. And one last thing, the deal-breaker:

Overlord for the Xbox 360.

Long story short, I was stuck in an area, spent a couple of hours looking for a missing item I was sure I'd found previously, so I looked to the internets for help. Turns out I'd encountered a game-breaking bug because I'd saved and quit at the wrong time. The solution? Start over and don't do that next time. There's been no patch, and here's my buddy's response: "cripes i figured they'd have fixed that by now. sheesh i read about that over a month ago." So much potential, so close to greatness; this game is actually most reminiscent, in that regard, of Indigo Prophecy. So Overlord got traded in to Gamestop, credit towards Blue Dragon. Hopefully that one won't be broken.