Overlord

Every year we spend the weeks leading up to the Electronic Entertainment Expo meeting with companies and trying to make sure that there are as few surprises as possible waiting at the show. And every year there are a handful of games that manage to elude us, because the companies working on them are unfeasibly good at keeping secrets. The most surprising game for us this year, for a number of different reasons, was Overlord, which we found tucked away at the back of the by-invitation-only Codemasters booth. We visited Codemasters' UK headquarters shortly before E3, so the fact that we'd never heard of Overlord before was surprising in itself, but perhaps not quite as surprising as the fact that this promising Fable-meets-Pikmin adventure game is being developed by Triumph Studios, which is best known for its Age of Wonders turn-based strategy series.

What are you looking at?

The demo of Overlord that we were treated to during our meeting with Codemasters definitely ranks as one of the more enjoyable ones that we saw at the show, not only because the game looks promising, but also because the small army of minions being ordered around using the right analog stick had tons of personality. At the start of the game, all of the minions were naked and looked more or less identical as a result, but as they ransacked buildings and found items that they could use as weapons or armor they started to distinguish themselves from one another. The minion who found and equipped a chef's hat at one point, for example, reminded us of the evil Stripe in Gremlins, since he was easy to pick out of the crowd and was rarely up to any good. In short, Overlord came out of nowhere and showed a lot of promise--we can't wait to see how it turns out.

Finalists

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (PC)
Heat (PS3, X360)
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (PSP)
Star Wars 2007 (PS3, X360)