Derrick
ლ(ಠ_ಠ )ლ
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,085
- Reaction score
- 5
Recreational tyranny has never been so much like a holiday in 800 AD
The first Overlord game was criminally underrated. Be your very own monstrous bully, command your very own legion of slavishly devoted goblinoid minions, and lay pitiless, fiery waste to an entire fairytale world, stroppy self-important elves and all? Yes, please. Except I don't know anyone else who played it. Shame on the lot of you.
Anyway, for those few (elite, super cool few) who did play the first one, Overlord II is just a whole bunch more of the same, with a whole bunch of improvements – you want mini-maps, we got your mini-maps. You don't need to even read this review, just rush out and buy it immediately. For the rest of you (spit, hiss), Overlord II is a sort – an ineffably evil sort, mind you – of mishmash of adventure (you explore), strategy (you plot), and action (you kill). As Gnarl, the ever-sage court advisor, says, “Evil always finds a way.” Usually with big swords and fire and a bottomless barrel of itty-bitty troopers too stupid to think of forming a workers' union.
The game more or less involves you sauntering around a series of picturesque landscapes, your mob of adorable goons in tow, and wrecking stuff. This time around, you'll be stomping a gentle, snow-dappled realm under threat from the encroaching Glorious Empire, who look like they tripped and fell out of an Asterix comic. Recreational tyranny has never been so much like a holiday in 800 AD.
Meanwhile, assembling and organising that mob of adorable goons is a significant part not only of the game's narrative, but also of the core gameplay. These little guys come in four fiendish varieties. There's the Browns - the bog standard grunts, good at breaking things and killing things. There's the Reds – pretty rubbish with anything more complicated than a mid-sized stick, but they chuck a mean fireball. There's the Greens – master assassins and backstabbers extraordinaire. Then there's the Blues – they're totally weeny and useless in a brawl, but they can resurrect fallen comrades and, unlike their chums, they can swim. You'll be deploying your mob of adorable goons to do most of the fighting stuff for your Pernicious Overlordship, as well as negotiate the game's many environment puzzles. You'll even occasionally possess one for some real hands-on field work.
Elsewhere, you'll be hoarding loads of cash from all those wretched towns in your way, and you can blow this on upgrades for your stylish subterranean babe lair, a New! Improved! arsenal of meat punchers, or boosting up your mob of adorable goons. There are also a number of collectibles thingies hidden around the place for you to claim, increasing your army size, health and mana pools, and suchlike. And there are thousands of gnomes to murder.
Overlord 2 is a wicked delight through and through. With the plot and superb dialogue penned by none other than Terry Pratchett's daughter, Rhianna Pratchett, and 20-odd hours of terror to bring upon the woolly heads of Nordberg's sorry denizens and beyond, this is a game that's going to keep you entertained far more than any of that other dribble you're currently playing.
The first Overlord game was criminally underrated. Be your very own monstrous bully, command your very own legion of slavishly devoted goblinoid minions, and lay pitiless, fiery waste to an entire fairytale world, stroppy self-important elves and all? Yes, please. Except I don't know anyone else who played it. Shame on the lot of you.
Anyway, for those few (elite, super cool few) who did play the first one, Overlord II is just a whole bunch more of the same, with a whole bunch of improvements – you want mini-maps, we got your mini-maps. You don't need to even read this review, just rush out and buy it immediately. For the rest of you (spit, hiss), Overlord II is a sort – an ineffably evil sort, mind you – of mishmash of adventure (you explore), strategy (you plot), and action (you kill). As Gnarl, the ever-sage court advisor, says, “Evil always finds a way.” Usually with big swords and fire and a bottomless barrel of itty-bitty troopers too stupid to think of forming a workers' union.
The game more or less involves you sauntering around a series of picturesque landscapes, your mob of adorable goons in tow, and wrecking stuff. This time around, you'll be stomping a gentle, snow-dappled realm under threat from the encroaching Glorious Empire, who look like they tripped and fell out of an Asterix comic. Recreational tyranny has never been so much like a holiday in 800 AD.
Meanwhile, assembling and organising that mob of adorable goons is a significant part not only of the game's narrative, but also of the core gameplay. These little guys come in four fiendish varieties. There's the Browns - the bog standard grunts, good at breaking things and killing things. There's the Reds – pretty rubbish with anything more complicated than a mid-sized stick, but they chuck a mean fireball. There's the Greens – master assassins and backstabbers extraordinaire. Then there's the Blues – they're totally weeny and useless in a brawl, but they can resurrect fallen comrades and, unlike their chums, they can swim. You'll be deploying your mob of adorable goons to do most of the fighting stuff for your Pernicious Overlordship, as well as negotiate the game's many environment puzzles. You'll even occasionally possess one for some real hands-on field work.
Elsewhere, you'll be hoarding loads of cash from all those wretched towns in your way, and you can blow this on upgrades for your stylish subterranean babe lair, a New! Improved! arsenal of meat punchers, or boosting up your mob of adorable goons. There are also a number of collectibles thingies hidden around the place for you to claim, increasing your army size, health and mana pools, and suchlike. And there are thousands of gnomes to murder.
Overlord 2 is a wicked delight through and through. With the plot and superb dialogue penned by none other than Terry Pratchett's daughter, Rhianna Pratchett, and 20-odd hours of terror to bring upon the woolly heads of Nordberg's sorry denizens and beyond, this is a game that's going to keep you entertained far more than any of that other dribble you're currently playing.