Overlord is a failed attempt at combining RTS and action RPG game play. It has the heart & soul of an 8 but is flaw

User Rating: 4 | Overlord X360
By GrayHalo | Review Date:
Overlord should have been a dream come true for many fantasy fans and in some ways does succeed at creating a great fantasy atmosphere, but is drag down by several fatal flaws. It suffers in the same way many shooters due, too much attention to graphics and not enough on game play. The game looks beautiful artistically, it's a legend of Zelda not gears of war, the way it should be. The art style is very similar to Fable, a lot of the same lighting effects and color tones are used. If it wasn't for the minions this could have been Fable 1.5 with an evil only requirement. The other influences become apparent fighting the first group of enemies, half-lings, more famously known as hobbits. It’s obvious they borrowed a lot from the lord of the rings as the hobbit homes may as well have been from a LOTR game. As well as the overlord himself armed with a mace might as well be Sauron. And that isn’t a complaint, I knew that the designers meant the game to be an almost satirical look at fantasy so the use of Peter Jackson’s vision of hobbits was fine, and quite humorous as well; the first boss is named Underbelly, a play on Frodo’s traveling name Mr. Underhill. The music is fitting and sometimes humorously juxtaposes sweet happy music when you slaughtering sheep for minion souls. The voice acting is decent and the dialog can range from tongue and cheek dark humor to dull lines and bad play on words. The voice acting also ranges, from average to occasionally dull in either case, the voices usually fit and add atmosphere. The main component of the game is minions, summoned out of holes in the ground. At first only Brown “Fighter” minions are available and then red fire thrower, green assassin, and blue healer minions have to be found to be unlocked. The three specialist minions have resistances to certain elements. Reds are immune to fire and can put out fires to make a way passable; Greens do the same with poison clouds. Blues on the other hand can swim. Thus certain portions of the game require certain minions to make the way passable or force you to only use a certain type. Many times these obstacles or obstructions feel like nuisances because they are so simple. If it was a puzzle it would be more interesting and thus justifiable but its not, a fire blocks your path, use Reds to put it out, keep going. This doesn’t change. The first few hours of overlord are rather fun, and play off of many traditional RPG elements of looting and questing. But as the game progresses and all of the minions are unlocked the game begins to show, a lack of substance and no variation.
There are two key and fatal flaws to Overlord. The first is it’s an action game without action; the second is it’s a strategy game without any strategy. Let me explain. In an action game I want to do the fighting, I want to be the one in the thick of the action, swinging a melee weapon, cleaning house. In Overlord, instead of doing the fighting you have minions to do the fighting for you by “sweeping” them with the right stick. And that’s fine. I enjoy strategy games so let’s look at that element. In a strategy game you don’t do the fighting, you control other people to do the fighting for you. The key word is control. The game would be fine if you battled it out with your enemies implementing a strategy that the developer clearly intended you to use. Which is Browns engage the front, Greens flank behind, Reds pelt them with fire and Blues heal the wounded. But this is so beyond tedious, that it isn’t worth doing, not to mention you don’t need to do it to win. The sweep command is not as responsive as it needs to be, which the game often reminds you of when you are tasked with moving minions at a distance through some gauntlet, to open a door switch. In combat the controls again fail. The pre-described strategy requires you to hold LB then press Y to select Browns to sweep them forward, then LB + B to get Reds into firing position, then LB + A to get Greens to sweep around behind the enemy and then LB + X to sweep blues to get the wounded. If the minions don’t engage an enemy they come back to you, unless you remember to press Y to set a rally point. But once you set a rally point you can’t move them, unless you press B to get them to return to you one at a time before sending them out again or holding B which recalls all of your minions regardless of color. To control your minions in a way as to implement a strategy you need to be able to micro manage your units and the controls simply don’t accommodate. This leads to a sloppy and unsatisfying tactic of selecting all of your minions regardless of what type they are, and sweeping them en-mass at the enemy. But because the specialist minions are physically weaker then the Browns you almost feel like not having them around until you hit a barrier that forces you to use them, like fire, water, or a poison cloud. What hampers using strategy even more are the enemies, whose behavior and presentation is more akin to an action game. They are easy enough to defeat and so unorganized that you don’t need to use strategy to defeat them. It’s hard to say if that’s even a bad thing, because if you needed to use strategy to defeat them and couldn’t implement it because of the controls that would be unreasonably frustrating. But at the same time, easy enemies that you sweep over is the epitome of boring.
This reinforces the idea that Overlord is an action game with no action and a strategy game with no strategy. So underneath all of its heart and soul, charm and atmosphere is disappointment and a whole lot of boring. I can’t suggest buying Overlord, when I can barely suggesting playing Overlord to anyone.

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