Controlling your minions is very reminiscent of
Pikmin (with a touch of the magnificent
Dungeon Keeper). They follow you around until you dispatch them on their various tasks, either all together or in groups by their types. You can leave them guarding an area by dropping a guard marker, or even move the marker to guide them to exactly where you want them to go. Ordering them to attack is as simple as locking onto the target with the left trigger and sending the minions out with the right one. They will attack the target you have chosen or, if you don't lock onto a target first, they will find the nearest thing to kill or smash on their own.
The quests you have to complete are standard fantasy RPG fare, which is a little disappointing. You are supposed to be evil, so why should you worry that the Halflings have stolen your local village's food supply or imprisoned some of the villagers? The only twist to the quests is that you are given the choice to complete them normally or in a corrupted way; you can return the food or keep it for yourself for example. These choices are reflected in your corruption meter and will affect they way you are treated within the game. Respect or fear, the choice is yours, but be warned; it doesn't make much difference to the game either way.
The quests are made more difficult by the lack of a map or even a compass. At one point you are told that the Halflings camp is to the East, this means very little to you since there are no directions anywhere for you to refer to. You end up wandering around until you find the right exit from the village. The amount of time I spent wandering around the forest of Evernight until I realised I'd been everywhere I could was just crazy. The design of the areas seems to depend on you having the right types of minions available, thus forcing you to attempt the first few quests in the "correct" order or you end up frustrated, stuck or running round in circles.
The minion game mechanic is interesting to start with, but can quickly become tiresome, especially when you have to backtrack to the minion gates in order to change the composition of your horde because you encounter a situation that requires a minion type that you have run low on or didn't take with you in the first place. Since this is the central mechanic of the game through which everything else is managed, this is a bit of a let down.
As you might expect from the basic premise of the game,
Overlord is full of humour and satire of more staid fantasy properties. The local village of "Spree" is so close to
Lord of the Rings' "Bree" that you have to draw the comparison; and your armour and dark tower seem to be modelled on those owned by Sauron in the
LotR films. The minions are a demented cross between the Gremlins and Andy Serkis' Gollum, the latter is especially noticeable in the way they cry "For me" when picking up weapons or "For the Master" when giving you treasure.
Conclusion
Overlord is a well produced fantasy-based action RPG with a slight twist (you are evil not sickeningly good) and a (slightly) novel central mechanic - minions. While it is entertaining and fun to begin with, the limitations of the game begin to grate after a while.
SPOnG Score: 74%
