RSS
Overlord II
The minions are restless to wreak some havoc...luckily so is their Overlord.
July 31, 2009 | 12:25 AM PSTby: Jeff Rivera
Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What The Game's About
Overlord II is the sequel to the underground hit Overlord. The game is best described as Pikmin with an evil twist.
You control the Overlord, a magic-bearing man who was exiled as a boy by his home town. As a boy you show the ability to command the Minions, creatures that live underground and and seek to wreak havoc and evil upon the inhabitants--both human and animal--that live overground. There are four types of minions to order around to help you in your quest to dominate the land. Brown minions are your basic grunt fighter types, red minions are immune to fire and can throw fireballs, green minions are immune to poison and can do sneak attacks, and blue minions are able to pass through water unharmed. The Overlord himself has a few attacks and spells at his disposal, but the vast majority of the time he relies on the minions to do his dirty work.
What's Hot
One of the first things that will jump out at anybody playing Overlord II is that the game has a pretty enjoyable and consistent sense of humor. It seems that while you're carrying out evil deeds upon the land you're not forgetting to take some humor in it. An early example that blends evil and comedy is the first time you come across a group of baby seals and your minions are immediately disgusted by their presence so you order them to club the furry little things to bits. It's horrible, yet hilarious at the same time.
The game does good to give you two main factions to battle against. Many games that fall in the action genre relentlessly throw waves of identical enemies at you, but the Elves and Empire provide a good bit of difference in enemy variety. In battling the Empire, you'll need to deal with organized soldiers and find ways to approach their phalanx positions. When the Elves attack, it's more of a swarm and overcome scenario. At times you'll even come across situations where the Empire and Elves are fighting each other and you just clean up what's left.
The game offers an upgrade system based on loot gathering. As you progress through levels you'll find gold, jewels, and life force. You use these to earn more minions, to upgrade your Overlord's armor and weapons, to upgrade the level of your minions, or to impress the women you bring back to your lair. This dynamic will have you paying more attention to your surroundings as you'll not want to pass up stashes of loot.
What's Not
Despite the humor and loot gathering, Overlord II isn't terribly captivating. The novelty of commanding your minions to hunt down enemies, fluffy bunnies, and helpless baby seals only last so long until it becomes a little bit tiresome. Even the loot gathering dynamic only goes so far before you begin to grab the stuff out of necessity rather than for the fun of collecting and upgrading. The game's prompts will urge you to revisit areas you've completed, but doing so offers a lonely experience. Enemies do not respawn after they've been defeated, so when you do go back to an old level, it's completely empty. While it might have been burdensome to have all the enemies come back, a few token enemies per area would have been nice.
The controls can be a little frustrating at times and downright fury-inducing at others. To order around your minions you can flick the right thumbstick to gain control of them and then use it to sweep them about the environment. The problem is that the right stick also controls the camera. Often you'll accidentally send your minions where you don't want them just by trying to readjust the camera. Other times you'll be moving your minions but you aren't happy with the camera angle, so you need to stop moving your minions, move the camera, and then resume control of your minions. Also, as you move the minions around, they'll often get hung up on something in the distance that you can't quite make out and they'll bunch up and stop moving altogether. Other times they'll bunch up on something nearby and just plain refuse to go around the object easily. Anybody that plays through the elevator stage in the Everlight Temple will understand just how frustrating controls can be. I'd go into it, but I'd get angry over it again and it's best to leave it as a bad memory only.
At times your minions will often just do dumb things. Quite often you'll notice treasure or enemies near the edge of water and you'll send your minions to the area. Despite the fact that water will kill your minions (aside from the blues), oftentimes they'll trudge right into the water and drown. This can be infuriating if you're not near an area where you can summon more minions. This same thing can happen with areas that have fire, poison, explosives, or enemies that they're not ready to confront. Losing the majority of you minions in this manner is horrible.
Graphically the game looks decent, but there is quite a bit of pop-up going on throughout the adventure. It's somewhat distracting, but not usually too much of a big deal.
Final Word
It sounds a little bit like I'm piling on the criticisms on Overlord II, and to some degree I am. The game is pretty fun to play, but it doesn't really take that great of a leap forward as most sequels are expected to do. It's worth playing through the game to see how the story plays out and what happens to the Empire and the Elves as you bring destruction and slavery to their towns, but once you've experienced the storyline there's little to no reason to go back to the game. I do hope that the series continues and we can see a third installment, because the premise of the game and the setting is enjoyable, but there are definite issues with the controls and AI that need to be addressed. In the end I felt like the game should still satisfy those that enjoy the first Overlord game, but newcomers to the series might want to approach the game with a pinch of caution.
What The Game's About
Overlord II is the sequel to the underground hit Overlord. The game is best described as Pikmin with an evil twist.
You control the Overlord, a magic-bearing man who was exiled as a boy by his home town. As a boy you show the ability to command the Minions, creatures that live underground and and seek to wreak havoc and evil upon the inhabitants--both human and animal--that live overground. There are four types of minions to order around to help you in your quest to dominate the land. Brown minions are your basic grunt fighter types, red minions are immune to fire and can throw fireballs, green minions are immune to poison and can do sneak attacks, and blue minions are able to pass through water unharmed. The Overlord himself has a few attacks and spells at his disposal, but the vast majority of the time he relies on the minions to do his dirty work.
What's Hot
One of the first things that will jump out at anybody playing Overlord II is that the game has a pretty enjoyable and consistent sense of humor. It seems that while you're carrying out evil deeds upon the land you're not forgetting to take some humor in it. An early example that blends evil and comedy is the first time you come across a group of baby seals and your minions are immediately disgusted by their presence so you order them to club the furry little things to bits. It's horrible, yet hilarious at the same time.
The game does good to give you two main factions to battle against. Many games that fall in the action genre relentlessly throw waves of identical enemies at you, but the Elves and Empire provide a good bit of difference in enemy variety. In battling the Empire, you'll need to deal with organized soldiers and find ways to approach their phalanx positions. When the Elves attack, it's more of a swarm and overcome scenario. At times you'll even come across situations where the Empire and Elves are fighting each other and you just clean up what's left.
The game offers an upgrade system based on loot gathering. As you progress through levels you'll find gold, jewels, and life force. You use these to earn more minions, to upgrade your Overlord's armor and weapons, to upgrade the level of your minions, or to impress the women you bring back to your lair. This dynamic will have you paying more attention to your surroundings as you'll not want to pass up stashes of loot.
What's Not
Despite the humor and loot gathering, Overlord II isn't terribly captivating. The novelty of commanding your minions to hunt down enemies, fluffy bunnies, and helpless baby seals only last so long until it becomes a little bit tiresome. Even the loot gathering dynamic only goes so far before you begin to grab the stuff out of necessity rather than for the fun of collecting and upgrading. The game's prompts will urge you to revisit areas you've completed, but doing so offers a lonely experience. Enemies do not respawn after they've been defeated, so when you do go back to an old level, it's completely empty. While it might have been burdensome to have all the enemies come back, a few token enemies per area would have been nice.
The controls can be a little frustrating at times and downright fury-inducing at others. To order around your minions you can flick the right thumbstick to gain control of them and then use it to sweep them about the environment. The problem is that the right stick also controls the camera. Often you'll accidentally send your minions where you don't want them just by trying to readjust the camera. Other times you'll be moving your minions but you aren't happy with the camera angle, so you need to stop moving your minions, move the camera, and then resume control of your minions. Also, as you move the minions around, they'll often get hung up on something in the distance that you can't quite make out and they'll bunch up and stop moving altogether. Other times they'll bunch up on something nearby and just plain refuse to go around the object easily. Anybody that plays through the elevator stage in the Everlight Temple will understand just how frustrating controls can be. I'd go into it, but I'd get angry over it again and it's best to leave it as a bad memory only.
At times your minions will often just do dumb things. Quite often you'll notice treasure or enemies near the edge of water and you'll send your minions to the area. Despite the fact that water will kill your minions (aside from the blues), oftentimes they'll trudge right into the water and drown. This can be infuriating if you're not near an area where you can summon more minions. This same thing can happen with areas that have fire, poison, explosives, or enemies that they're not ready to confront. Losing the majority of you minions in this manner is horrible.
Graphically the game looks decent, but there is quite a bit of pop-up going on throughout the adventure. It's somewhat distracting, but not usually too much of a big deal.
Final Word
It sounds a little bit like I'm piling on the criticisms on Overlord II, and to some degree I am. The game is pretty fun to play, but it doesn't really take that great of a leap forward as most sequels are expected to do. It's worth playing through the game to see how the story plays out and what happens to the Empire and the Elves as you bring destruction and slavery to their towns, but once you've experienced the storyline there's little to no reason to go back to the game. I do hope that the series continues and we can see a third installment, because the premise of the game and the setting is enjoyable, but there are definite issues with the controls and AI that need to be addressed. In the end I felt like the game should still satisfy those that enjoy the first Overlord game, but newcomers to the series might want to approach the game with a pinch of caution.
November 20, 2009
