game
Overlord cackles and crackles with the droll and dastardly spirit of Dungeon Keeper, Bullfrog’s late-’90s series of games that cast you as an evil force bent on building up an empire of minions to crush those goody-goody heroes once and for all. As Dick Cheney proves to us every single day, there’s nothing quite as fun as being evil.
 Want to feel like the master of your domain? Wreak havoc—or have subservients do it for you—in Overlord. |
As the game opens, the land’s been overrun by self-serving halflings, elves and dwarves, and you’ve been awakened, in your decimated dark tower by a troupe of gremlins who are now your new best friends. It’s time to kick some hero butt.
When it’s not deftly blending real-time strategy and role-playing elements, Overlord draws its oh-so-British charm and humor from several venerable sources, including Fable, Pikmin and The Bard’s Tale. Controlling your fearsome Overlord (in third-person view) is one way to wreak havoc, but hell, any evil bastard can do that. Instead, use the right control stick to sweep your minions in to do all the dirty work—slaughtering sheep, guzzling ale, battling monsters and grabbing goodies that seem out of reach. Unleashing minions is ridiculously fun and, for the most part, they’ll do exactly what you need them to, even when you’re juggling the four different types the game adds to your evil arsenal.
The graphic detail of your minions is remarkable. (The same can’t be said for the cut-scenes, which is odd because, in most games, it’s generally the other way around.) Watching your band of pointy-eared pals shredding a pumpkin patch or group of elves, then lovingly bringing back treasure and life essence to you gives Overlord an emotional heft you rarely get in a standard real-time strategy game.
As in Fable, your Overlord’s appearance darkens as your evil deeds mount, and the game generally lets you be as nasty (or nice) as you wanna be, although the consequences for going all Sauron on this fantasy world are more funny than game-altering.
What’s truly evil is the game’s lack of a map function, a glaring omission that comes close to torpedoing the fun. Wandering around the countryside with your horde of grinning gremlins, you’ll quickly stumble into five or six quests you can’t complete until you discover the item or new minion that’s located…well, somewhere else in the countryside.
How ironically appropriate that an otherwise evil genius is tripped up by something so simple. I’m sure Dr. Evil and Goldfinger can totally relate.