A OK hack n' slash RPG with an added something that reminds me of a better game...(full review inside)
Overlord is a in a very long drawn out named way a: Hack n' Slash RPG real time strategy game...with some evil stuff thrown in for kicks. And, the game is exactly what it says on the tin...metaphorically speaking of course...there is no tin encase your wondering...
Now, unfortunately, the worst thing happened when i played this game, it made me turn it off to play a better, yet similar game. You will come to understand why in this review.
GRAPHICS:
Overlords graphics are very nice, detailed and slightly cartoonist. In fact, it looks a lot like Fable, which all gamers who like RPG's must have played at some point. If not, its basically funny graphics and animations that have surprising amounts of detail.
SOUND
This games strong point is definatly its humor. Every few words is a insult of something, like roughly quoted: Sheep...bleh i hate those wretched things, i think they were meant for killing, go slaughter them. Ok, it may not sound funny but it is in a sick maniacal way..and if your playing overlord, you MUST have an evil side. The voice acting is good on everything but the things that arent main characters...in other words...most things are just repeated over, and over, and over again. Very tiresome. The sound effects are ok, and the music is forgettable.
CONTROLS
The controls are good enough for most of the game, however, they can get a tad unwieldy in some scenarios where you have to command all your minions(4 types) with perfect timing to kill a boss, whilst getting attacked by minor enemies...who have constant respawn. This makes playing the game more of a chore in some areas than anything else.
GAMEPLAY
The game lasts between 10-20 hours, which is a good length for a game as...shallow as this. Basically you are a Overlord (i know...who could have guessed) who controls minions (like most overlords) and your goal is to rebuild your dark domain and enslave all of man kind (which is the reason for an overlords existence any way). You also get to choose how you complete your objectives, in a an EVIL way, or a ULTRA EVIL WAY! otherwise known as a Corrupted way. This adds a bit of replay value. By doing some exploring you find hidden items that increase health, magic, minion count and spells. These all make you stronger but are rather tedious to collect as it can take AGES for your minions to carry back. This does however add a RPG side to the game making it a bit less shallow, but over all, a bit more pointless. Like all GOOD RPG's you can get new Armour and weapons. This costs a lot of money and for decent items even costs you your minions lives. Considering all the armours look nearly identical, and most weapons suck in the game, it makes this rather pointless as well. One of the good points however is how you can customize your dark tower...unfortunately this is then turned into a bad point as your towers only ever come out with one look, and just gives the impression you can personalizes it. The worst point though, is the fact playing it made me want to load up Pikmin 2. Which is better in every way.
OVERALL
Overlord is not a BAD game...its just not a very GOOD game by my standards and i would recommend it to those who want a game where you can be evil just cause you want to be. HOWEVER! Pikmin2 is the game to buy...(if you can find it...).
4/10
P.S. Id like to put down how I Score games (this is important if you want to understand why my score is so 'low':
1 - Utter rubbish
2 - Utter rubbish
3 - rubbish
4 - average
5 - Good
6 - Pretty good
7 - Great
8 - Greater than 7
9 - Awesome
10 - so great ill never review a game thats this good...period.