Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6241 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Codemasters Limited
• Released on: 2007-06-28
• ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
• Platform: Windows XP

Amazon.co.uk Review

Morally ambiguous characters are all the rage in video games nowadays, but they always tend to be violent crime games. This is essentially a cross between the old Dungeon Keeper games and Nintendo’s Pikmin, where you play a Sauron-like dark lord in a fantasy world fill of so many corrupt and unpleasant people you often end up playing the de facto hero. Like Pikmin this is a mix of third person action game and a real-time strategy, the obvious difference being you’re now in charge of a horde of goblins instead of cute little flower creatures.

Although you directly control your bad self in the game you’ve only got some simple axe attacks and magic spells. Instead your main interaction with the world is via your goblin minions. You can either target an enemy and tell them to attack or control the biggest group directly with the right stick. One of the main currencies in the game then is lifeforce, with which you can instantly generate a new minion. This can be obtained from some enemies, and also sheep, but also from innocent villagers if you want to be really nasty. Although the game may lack moral complexities the capacity for strategy is more developed, as you eventually gain the ability to set ambushes and cast spells on minions. The game’s graphics are generally attractive, even with a jarringly short draw distance, but it’s the gameplay that really impresses here with something genuinely out of the ordinary in terms of both strategy and motivation.

Manufacturer's Description
Discover how corruptible you are in Overlord, the twisted fantasy action adventure where you can be evil (or really evil). In the game's seriously warped fantasy world, players will become the Overlord and get first-hand experience of how absolute power corrupts absolutely". You could be a regular run-of-the-mill Overlord. However, with incredible power at your disposal and a team of evil-minded impish critters, the Minions, on hand to do your bidding, how will you resist the temptation to be wonderfully despotic?!

The Overlord has the power of concentrated badness right from the start and you'll know how much more of a total bad-ass you're becoming as the game tracks your 'corruption' throughout.

How corrupt you become depends on how you handle any given situation, your actions and how their consequences impact the game world. For example, if you and your minion horde dispose of a bunch of particularly nasty, violent Halflings that have overrun a once-peaceful village, the village's original peasant occupants will herald you as their liberator. Now each time you pass through, the peasants will welcome you as their new lord and protector, cheering your arrival and giving you offerings.

However, as an Overlord, it's worth seeing what more can be obtained from the peasants' gratitude. If you exert some proper feudal repression, they'll tremble and fall to their knees when you're in town. If you become truly mean, the poor peasants will resort to cowering in your presence, pray for their lives and even offer up their daughters in order to appease you.

Customer Reviews

"If you want to get straight to the smiting..."
Overall, think of this game as Dungeon Keeper 2 meets Jade Empire. Maybe not as polished as Jade Empire was (that'd be a hard target to hit), and not quite as manic as DK2.

What makes this game stand out though is that it is *fun* (as well as being a break from being the good guy). Sending your horde of goblins into a halfling village (the halflings really deserve it) watching them bash the doors in, and run out later amid clouds of smoke carrying gold, squeaking "treasure ! this is for you !" is just comically fun. Or watching as they improvise anything into weapons and armour - even down to making helmets out of the pumpkins you just told em to trash.

The landscape is also quite combustible, so watch out when throwing fireballs around.

The castle-building aspect of the game, while not exactly rocket science, also works well, unlocking extra abilities such as being able to craft your own weapons and armour (though to get good stuff you have to sacrifice some minions), or maintaining a bigger horde.

The only reason I gave it 4 stars not 5, was that I spent a long time looking for the green goblins (there are 4 different types with different powers) - I went off to the Heaven's Peak area first and spent ages trying to find a way around the poison gas before realising I had to go back (though it was good because I'd also missed some other good stuff).

Good bit of harmless fun
I am really enjoying this game, I have got all 4 types of minion and have covered most of 3 lands, one land left and several quests to get back to.

This game has unfolded quite nicely, whilst not a "real" RPG it is interesting how the puzzles develop and how you have to use the minions correctly. One quest involves killing 6 "roots", but initially you only have browns/red minions and need greens/blues to complete the quest, so this is one that you have to come back to and therefore involves some thought.

The minions themselves are pretty funny, and the humour generally is pretty good and quite a mickey take of the whole D&D industry, very tongue in cheek!

I saw some reports that this game only takes around 10 hours, perhaps if you only focus on the main quest and don't wander around doing side quests and having some fun then you may do it that quickly, but I reckon there is 20+ hours available here.

Overall a light and very funny game which doesn't take itself too seriously, well recommended!

Awesome smiting action
This is quite honestly one of the most fun games ive played on a PC. While some people say that it shouldnt be a PC game, i say that its ideal with the mouse and keyboard. The game is fun to play, the mechanics of it, especially when the brown minions pick up anything as a weapon or helmet. One of them even used a zombies arm and the head of a slug as weapon and helmet. The game is not too violent as you may expect but the 16+ rating is well founded as you find out at land 3. All in all i recomend this to anyone who likes games for fun.