Tobold's Blog
Saturday, June 16, 2007
 
Overlord first impressions

Would you like to play a fantasy game which is a bit, well, different? I am thinking of buying Overlord, a single-player fantasy game where you play the evil overlord, battling halflings and heroes to dominate the lands. Fileplanet, where I got the demo from, called it "an evil version of Pikmin", which isn't a bad description. And an "evil Pikmin" is good news for several reasons. Pikmin itself is only available on the Gamecube, so Overlord is the first time PC players get that sort of gameplay. And directing a horde of minions to burn down halfling farms (Overlord) is obviously more fun than directing a horde of flowers to rebuild a space ship (Pikmin).

So I suggest you get the demo and try it. If, like on my computer, the demo fails to run due to a missing file d3dx9_29.dll, you can get that file from many places on the internet, just google for it. Besides having an interesting gameplay mechanism which is unlike other PC fantasy games you might have played, Overlord also has an evil sense of humor, which made me laugh several times. Burning down fields and sending out minions to pillage is a lot of fun. Recommended.
Comments:
There's also Dungeon Keeper 1 & 2 as well as Evil Genius. These games reversed the dungeon crawl game formula and let you design mazes, set up traps and curse when the trespassing heroes/secret agents massacred scores of your inept underlings.
 
I also tried Overlord and will most likely buy it. It seems like a very cool game.
 
I think this game is even coming for ps3. I always enjoyed hack/slash crawlers.

Diablo 2 was golden, and I currently play titans quest and its expansion.
 
I downloaded the demo, but it refused to display because of the taskmanager replacement I use (Process Explorer). Never had a game do that before, so I uninstalled the demo and I won't be buying it.
 
The game demo is cool :) I got it on Xbox rather than PC, so didn't get the DX error.

Control system works quite well, and what it adds has been missing from a lot of game design recently: fun.

If you're concerned about "being evil" (and it bothered me a bit, I try and play the holy-knight type in my gaming) don't be. This game is a lighthearted voyage and it portrays the journey well.

It's all in the details I find, and when you see your minions equipping pumpkins as helmets or riding sheep around, then you know you're onto a good thing.

I think it's going to be diablo-meets-dungeon-keeper, which can't be a bad thing. I agree with Tobold, you need to check this one out - it's very good.
 
I adored the demo on the 360 - the sense of humour did it for me. I'm very much looking forward to the full release.
 
I thought it interesting that your first encounter (in the Demo) is with a farmer besieged by Halflings, who've tied him up while they ransack his farmhouse. Although quite mad (numerous talking vegetable references abound), the farmer begs for your help and after slaying the offensive Halflings your head minion refers to the Black Mist fleeing their bodies as being something unique to evil creatures.

Excuse me? Aren't I playing an evil Overlord? So why am I helping a farmer, even an insane one, by killing evil "Halflings" instead of adding them to my army?

I promptly slew the defenseless farmer, and was much appeased.
 
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