Overlord game review

So I bought Overlord the other day for my 360. I’ve been playing it for about three days now, and so far I really like it. Playing the Demo first, I decided to buy it the day it came out.

I really wanted something new, and felt this might be it. While it’s no Gears of War, sometimes you need a change. This is also the kind of game that the 360 lacks in general, but that is slowly changing with a lot of future. The graphics are just beautiful and at times very Zelda: Twilight Princess like. It’s so nice to see these rich fantasy type worlds in HD, the one thing lacking on my Wii.

In the game you play an evil overlord in a funny tongue-in-cheek setting. If this game was more serious, you would be a character like Sauron from Lord of the Rings. You also have a horde of crazy demon like minions which growns in size as you progress through the game. There are four kinds in total, Browns, Reds, Greens, and Blues. You start off with only Browns and must find the other three minion hives to gain use of all your minion types. Each minion type has different abilities, and at times you will have to use a mixture to progress through an area. Its really a blend of RPG and stratagy.

The game progresses nicely, and although there’s a lot to do, its very fun and simple. You gradually progress throughout the game and learn new abilities and tactics, so you never end up feeling overwhelmed.

The major downfall fall with this game is the controls. While they are easy to use, they could still be better. Sometimes you feel confined as free look is not as free as it should be. The left stick moves your character and the right stick moves your minions. This is really cool, and once you get use to it you find yourself using the right stick a lot and the Overlord will just stand watching over, as your minions trash, pillage and smite villages, farms, and animals.

What’s not so cool is having to click the left bumper and use the left stick to look around. There are many times where you will find yourself wanting to just look around at the sometimes stunning fantasty world which surrounds you. It’s when you do this that you will feel confined, often not being able to fully look up or down. A zoom feature would have been nice too, so you could look at your minions up close. There is a toggle that lets you look at yourself from directly above in a top down fashion. This is very cool when outside, or planning a battle. Battle itself can also feel clumsy at times, but for the most part your minions are very smart and will work the way you want them too.

That said, Overlord’s strengths far outway its short commings. This game will not be for everyone, but if you enjoyed the demo, chances are you will enjoy the full game. There is much more to do, everything from building your dark tower, to finding a mistress. This game is all around good fun, and I think I will be putting many more hours into it.