Overlord II (2)

Sequels are great, they allow devs to fix up what's wrong and boost what's right. That's the theory. Unfortunately Triumph didn't get that email, and have instead broken what was fixed.

The danger in all action adventure games is that play devolves into nothing but holding a thumbstick and watching the player character trog around 3D areas which took god-knows how much time to put together, whilst being bored out of their wits. It killed Tomb Raider and is exploding the 'sandbox gaming' myth before our eyes (see GTA4). The original game avoided this with tight areas where new enemies and situations kept things fresh. Here? No.

After rescuing the umpteenth minion from a spiderweb only to see the same scripted descent of attacking spiders it becomes abundantly obvious that this didn't occur to the devs. The sprawling areas dotted with not a lot and nowt really make it worse.

The big 'thing' with the game is being THE Overlord, no niceties, hapless peasants are enslaved or butchered. Cute, but if that was the intention then why have they thrown in these pointless minon-possession macguffins? These sections (where you control a minon, for no real reason) are artificially limited by force-fields and irritating as sin.

The other misc. problems include the constant loading, the fact that the Overlord's tower is now more spread-out than ever (more loading, more holding that thumbstick up), an apparently drunk floating camera, and most new additions achieving nothing. Minion mounts are .. well they're meaningless in the grand scheme, the new Roman army 'menace' is just a bunch of guys standing around with shields (big whoop) who need to be defeated using the same sloppy minion controls. Deciding whether to enslave or slaughter the populace involves chasing them down and whacking them (snore) or zapping them with the enslave ability which takes several seconds (zzzzzzzzz).

There's several things that could have been done to change the game, not least having mistresses accompany you. But no, they just hang around the tower, apparently cleavage provides reason enough, and titilation for our TOTALLY EVIL anti-hero. Er, no, try again. The minion control's sloppyness prevents combat being anything more than sweeping over enemies or dumping greens and waiting for them to backstab, that part of the game really needed work in order to stop it being 'small enemies = sweep browns, big enemies = backstab with greens'. There's no variety. The Overlord also continues to be outwitted by small embankments which he could physically step up on, invisible walls and other drivel, so much for being the man, he can't even lift his feet up.

The Overlord's equipment now has a lot of different effects (such as doubling the value of souls absorbed) which is a nice touch. I wish there was something else to big up, but after several hours play that's genuinely it.

With the sprawling, boring play area, completely uninspiring additions and retention of the downsides from the original this feels like a huge step backwards. The most damning evidence for me personally is that I've not managed to get the disc back in the console after the last time I stopped, revisiting crusty old Oblivion is a far more interesting proposition than playing through Overlord II.

Wait until it's £20 or less, there's no way this is worth top-dollar and the devs shouldn't be rewarded for handling this sequel so cack-handedly.

Set in the new age of the glorious golden empire, the evil overlord returns...

Overlord 2 is set in a world where a new empire has sprung up and conquered all the lands, banishing magic from the realm. The empire itself although not good, is the main source of order with in the now peaceful, lazy, world and it is our job as the chaotic and evil overlord to bring back some of that evil old charm back to civilisation!

The bad/okay:

Okay for starters, for those that played Overlord 1, the controls are somewhat similar, as well as the sometime anoying camera angles. The minions are back in full force with blues, greens, reds and browns doing the same as they did before. This, i was a little dissapointed in as i thought that for overlord 2, they would possibly bring something new to the table but i suppose the old minion spec's were always quite good anyway! The armour system has been scrapped and replaced with a new and, i must admit, duller system then before! Plus your 'keep' seems to have gotten MUCH bigger then previous and... well i found it actually a little anoying. The save system also frustrated me, as you cannot save whenever you want and must return to your throne to save if your not relying on auto's.

Also something i found quite anoying was that in the old overlord you could choose good or bad choices to determine what overlord you were going to become. BUT i found that the choices werent particularly obvious in this one... to the point that they have pretty much gotten rid of it throughout most of the game...

The good:

Okay so the minions might be the same, but they can now ride 3 different types of mount! Which is actually really fun to play with... especially the wolves! The game remains funny as well as challenging throughout which is always a winning combination!

Conclude!

I have listed quite a few bad point i found about this game, but dont let that fool you... OVERLORD 2 is a decent game, its pretty much the same as the first one but with a few tweeks... which i suppose is good, however i just found it lacked what the first had and by the end, i just wasnt nearly as interested.

I would advise anyone to buy this game if your want something funny and decent to play... The minion system after all is fantastic! But to be honest, i found myself loosing interest half way through and in parts, i had to force myself to play.

Story - 2.5/5
Visually - 3.5/5
Gameplay - 3.5/5
'WOW' factor - 2/5

The humor of Overlord 1 is still there, the missions and objectives are entertaining, and the length of the game seems ok. There are plenty of new features such as minion mounts. So far so good, but for me the "good" stopped there. I completed the first game, and (somewhat subjectively) I don't recall the camera control, fortress navigation and in particular the save system to be quite so frustrating.

Several times you get stuck in sections where you have to complete a rather significant, and not entirely easy, stretch of gameplay, which at least once included two boss battles, and yet another time consuming stretch of minion handling between autosaves. If you want to do a manual save, you have to run all the way back to a portal, navigate your fortress, do a manual save, and then run all the way back. If your gaming usually gets interrupted every hour or two, like mine does, having to retrace, and refight bosses, get tiresome very quickly.

The idea of this game sounds great, sending hoardes of your own kitted up minions out into the world to cause havoc and devastation, however the reality is very different.

Humour

The first thing you're really introduced to is the games humour, which should play a big part and unfortunately it does. Rather than being witty and funny it is anoying at best, it seems very little has gone into the writing.

Game Play

When you actually start playing the game there is no real introduction into any of the controls so you pretty much have to work them out for yourself. This isnt that difficult but it is frustrating. You also quickly discover that the controls you have both over your minions and the overlord are minimal and lack imagination. You can either send all your minions in on a target or have them run around with the right stick. The right stick however, also controls your camera! So you end up not really being able to see properly, and the control of the minions is pitiful.

Also the maps are confusing at best, it's very difficicult to get around and you find yourself often wandering aimlessly due to there being almost no guidace to what you are supposed to do.

As well as being out in the wide open world finding it awkward to control your minions there is also the matter of your underground fortress. Here you can make new weapons for yourself and upgrade your minions. However the place is a maze and takes ages to get to anywhere, rather than having a quick menu system you actually have to move to where you need to go, this can get very frustrating and time consuming.

Story Line

There is bascially no story line so I won't bother trying to cover that.

Graphics

The general scenery and world graphics aren't too bad, although they aren't great either. Obviously they aren't supposed to be realistic, but even then they aren't anywhere near the standards of a game such as fable 2.

The game play graphics are very poor. Enemies and minions are extremely jerky and you often see them randomly tumbling into the air and coming down again and the sound effects are appauling, especially the fireworks sound which is almost none stop in one of the early missions of the game and actually gave me headaches!

Verdict

Poor graphics, awful sound effects, terrible controls, none existant story line and comedy not worth talking about means this game has to be avoided. I was extrememly disapointed. You will probably enjoy it for half an hour or so, but even then you'll notice the cracks and soon get fed of feeling confused and generally lost in the game. Then you'll very quickly get fed up and take it back.

this game is awesome ,it is very fun commanding minnions to do jobs. Great for gamerscore,if you liked the first one you will be outstanded by this one please buy it.