Overlord

A clever way of playing strategy, but in a third-person right there kinda way.

Overlord is one of those few games that puts you on the dark side. It’s theme is similar to Elixir’s Evil Genius and Bullfrog’s Dungeon Keeper series, and just like its ilk, it’s more of a parody than a bona fide ‘evil simulator’. The similarity ends there, though, because at its core, it’s a strict, third-person action game.

You’re an unnamed bad guy, resurrected by a creepy old demon to restore evil to the land. You’ll work your way through branching quests across smallish localised maps, all the while hunting for items to decorate or improve your tower. Even though you’re an axe-wielding, spell-casting super-villain, your main tool of conquest is actually an army of cheeky minions – obedient, psychotic goblins that tear the place up, loot buildings and harass sheep.

Here, Overlord offers something new over other third-person action games. You just target something in the world around you, throw a handful of minions at it, and they’ll scamper off and perform whatever they need to. If you point at a fat little hobbit in a pumpkin patch, your minions will hunt him down and most likely smash up his prize pumpkins. If you target a building, they’ll pour in through the door, set fire to it and bring you any treasure they find. They’re not totally selfless, though. If they see something they can use as a weapon or armour, whether it’s a zombie arm or said prize pumpkin, they’ll equip it and increase their base stats.



Aside from the ‘browns’, or bruiser minions, there are three other types: Blues, reds and greens. Reds lob fireballs from a distance and can walk through fire; blues can swim and resurrect recently fallen minions; and greens can backstab boss enemies, hide in stealth mode and withstand poisonous environments.

Waypointing brings a tactical element to the game. Rather than having all your minions throw themselves into the fray, you can set markers on the ground to have them wait or ambush. For example, you can put your reds on a hill to throw fireballs, have the browns charge up the middle, keep a couple of blues hanging back for resurrection, and have the sneaky greens waiting in the corner to jump out and stab the big guys in the back. When it works, it’s enormously satisfying.

You’ll also need your minions for more than combat. Most quests require capturing a device or treasure and sending it back to your tower, and you’ll need a set amount of minions to lift it and take it to a portal. These objectives bring a puzzle element to the game, where you’ll likely need more than one type of minion to succeed.

Controlling an army of different types of minions, in realtime, from a third-person perspective, while casting spells and swinging an axe might sound like a recipe for disaster, but Overlord’s slick interface holds it all together.



Minions are controlled by the mouse, where the scroll wheel selects type, and a left click sends the minions to perform whatever contextual behaviour is required on the target. A right click calls them back, and if you want to take direct control over a group of minions, just hold both buttons to turn your minions into a tightly unified mob, then ‘sweep’ your mouse to the destination – indispensable when navigating precarious paths.

One area where Overlord is lacking is, in fact, its goodness. Despite the looting and pillaging, you’re not really all that bad. The bosses you vanquish are often more evil than you are, and you’re rarely given the opportunity to do something evil, like destroy an entire township. Still, Triumph Studios subtly acknowledges that you’re being pushed into ‘good’ directions, with much of the humour centring on how thankful your subjects are to be in the midst of such selfless benevolence.

The overall style, writing, and visual design help move the game along at a cracking pace. The combat isn’t particularly deep, the puzzles are a little light, and you’ll be begging to break free from the third-person to get more tactical control, but there are so many interesting small touches that keep you going when the action loses steam. For example, if you want to customise your tower, you can buy embellishments, statues or decorations. If you want to get closer to the action, you can forge new armour and weapons, imbuing them with special powers from sacrificed minions. You can even try out some new tactics by heading down to your dungeon’s combat simulator and battling against any enemy you’ve encountered.

Overlord isn’t totally unique – if you’ve played Nintendo’s excellent Pikmin on the GameCube, you’ll be right at home – but Triumph Studios has worked exceptionally hard at packing in as much content and gameplay as possible. It’s not perfect, but it’s a genuinely funny, light-hearted romp that will keep you grinning like a madman for hours.