One of a kind. An RPG where you wander the world as the bad guy, doing evil with a horde of minions at your disposal
The controls are rather hard to get the hang of. Starting out you control your character, this overlord, and a small horde of 5 minions. One joystick controls man, the other the minions. In this case, it takes a while to get accustomed to sweeping your minions around the place as you sit back and watch. Once you've got the hang of it, it is great fun. The minions are cheeky, cheery and playful in an evil and sinister kind of way. They enjoy killing things, especially sheep and villagers. Saying that makes the game sound incredibly horrible, however this is not the case. The game is cartoony, quite charming and very funny. The worlds you explore vary from forests to swamps and deserts and when controlling your minions and yourself through these lands you will encounter different enemies and puzzles. As you progress through the game you will unlock new features you can add to you castle, slowly building an enormous tower of darkness to which all peasants will fear by the end of the game. You can customise your castle tower, buy and upgrade new weapons and armour and do most of what you expect from the most basic of RPGs. You can't enter houses; go into shops and such like. All that is left to the minions who plunder all, bringing you back all the gold and goodies they can find.
The game is however quite confusing at times. With no map, its easy to get lost in a level, wandering in circles looking for an objective. The combat is also very basic, restricted to the "X" button alone. This is not such a problem though since most combat is done by your minions, of which you have 4 different species, all special in different ways of fighting or healing.
The game does have multiplayer. In this, you are mainly stuck up against other players with their minions and have to accomplish a number of tasks faster or better than the others. Some modes will have you collecting gold and bringing it to base, while others will have you simply chasing each other with hordes of minions. All the modes are fun, but quite hard. Its is entertaining flocking your minions at an opponent and watching him sink into the ground as your minions clutter his body with strikes. Not so much when it happens to you.
That is all there really is to this game. Its a good lark to play, being funny and silly. People may have issues with the controls and lack of a helpful map or guide and also may be deterred by its linearity. Other than that, its worth a playthrough once. The Download Content, Raising Hell is also worth the money, being both fun and long.