Review: Overlord II

Who knew being an Overlord would be such hard work; there are maidens to bed, a home to refurbish, towns to terrorise, weapons to forge, minions to resurrect, the list goes on and on. The life of an Overlord isn't the nefarious slaughter-a-minute that I'd always thought it was.

While the main game does have plenty of elves to kill, gnomes to torch, seals to bludgeon and quests to complete, I could have done without the above distractions. I don't want to choose which signs to have hanging in my room, I don't care about the minions that have passed away (I am evil after all) and I don't want to have to walk from one side of my home to the other, complete with at least two loading screens, just to forge a new weapon. I want immediacy. I want evil to be at my finger tips not a loading screen away. Damnit I'm an Overlord and what I say goes.

When you're in the act of being evil, ordering your doughty minions to do your evil deeds, Overlord II shines despite its dark overtones. The humour is childlike but amusing, and the gameplay simple yet enjoyable. That is unless you've not played the original Overlord, whereby it may all be a little too familiar, in a 'I'm sure I did all of this in the first Overlord and it was better' type of way.

For once a decent tutorial

For those that didn't pick up the oft-overlooked original, the gameplay premise is simple. You as an evil Overlord are out to conquer the world above (starting with Nordberg) and in order to assist you with your quest your evil minions will do what you command. From smashing up crates for treasure, to killing a hapless enemy or setting something on fire, everything is either a touch of the right stick or a shoulder button press away. Of course you can get your hands dirty yourself, using one of your forged weapons to deal out a slice of death, or to sap the energy from an innocent bystander, but having your children of evil do it for you is much more rewarding.

The opening tutorial level sets the scene perfectly. You, as a young devil boy, are having snowballs thrown at you by the local hoodies. Intent on getting revenge you go after them, only for the minions to spot you and pronounce you their new Overlord. With minions in tow you set about causing havoc, your minions where the heads of the snowmen they destroy and you march into town. Blocked by a rude man at the gate, you must disguise your minions as children in order to get in to the town and enjoy the celebration.

With the help of a sweet girl you locate the children in a hut, send your minions in to cause some harm, steal their clothes and march your minions back to the town gates, singing 'ring-a-ring-a-roses' along the way. As opening levels go, not only does it demonstrate the control scheme perfectly, it's also one of the most entertaining I've ever played. The singing minions were a real highlight (one of those rare genuine laugh out loud gaming moments) and it teased the player with the type of action to come. Unfortunately though, despite coming close on occasion, the rest of the game never quite fulfilled the potential shown by the tutorial.

Overlord lacks control

The control scheme is a pain when you start controlling larger groups of minions and have to try and separate them into different groups in order to perform different actions (there are four different types of minions, each with their own strengths and weaknesses). Not only does the right stick control the minions, it also controls the camera. In theory when you press the right stick forwards and then sweep the stick, the minions move, and when you push left or right without pushing forwards the camera will move. In reality though this is hardly ever the case. It's not game breaking but it becomes old and tiresome very quickly.

There's also a sense of Overlord II being held back. There is the scope here for a truly brilliant Fable-esque open-world game, rather than the strictly linear game we ended up getting. The puzzles are far too weak, there's never any challenge and the game, at times, feels very last-gen with its narrow forest walkways and tiny towns. In 2009 I should not be playing a game where my character gets continually caught on scenery with only the tiniest walkway available to me (the collision detection with scenery is at times unacceptable) or one where, for no reason whatsoever, the game crawls to a halt with the frame-rate dropping to single figures only to inexplicably speed up again when the screen gets busier. Or where the audio has been so badly implemented that you can hardly hear the ambient effects, making the world sound lifeless, no matter how low you turn down the music and dialogue levels. Or when the background effects, music and speech all mix into one great big cacophony of noise so that you can't make out anything and miss out on important dialogue.

They're not minions, they're Pikmeans

But the main gripe I have is it's like Pikmin, only slightly more evil and less exciting. I loved how in Pikmin you could see a ship part or enemy but couldn't quite work out how to reach it. In Overlord II there's no such excitement. At times it almost plays itself with none of the satisfaction that Pikmin gave. Visually it's also a step backwards. The Pikmin were animated superbly and everything around them looked gorgeous. In Overlord II the main character glitches through scenery, the minions (or Pikmeans...guffaw) and enemies possess about five frames of animation, float in the air and jerk about all over the place.

I'd also say that I had more fun with the first Overlord. I thought it was slightly funnier and the story more interesting. The levels in Overlord II also tend to stick around for too long, with some taking close to two hours to complete. Other than the addition of the map (which removes some of the frustration of finding your next objective) everything else feels like a minor step backwards, or at least sideways. I had certainly hoped for more than that, and couldn't help but think that had they kept the bar at the level that the tutorial set that we'd have a genuine contender for one of the games of the year.

I can't help thinking that even those that really enjoyed the original might feel more than a little short changed with the new offering. It’s more of the same but arguably less enjoyable. Overlord as a game has so much potential and I really hope they get another crack at it with a third instalment, but they've certainly not done themselves many favours by playing it so safe with the sequel and not pushing enough boundaries.