Overlord II

Ever hear of the phrases “Bad guys have all the fun” or “It pays to be evil” or “Being evil is so totally awesome”. Ok so I’m pretty sure I made the last two ones up but my point is that it’s fun to be evil in games - if not in real life. And developer Triumph Studios’ latest game, Overlord II allows you to heavily indulge in that very same urge. Overlord II serves as a sequel to Overlord in which you wreak havoc as an evil overlord helped every step of the way by your loyal gremlin-esque minions.

In case you haven’t played the first game, the premise is very simple. You control your Overlord, the way you would control any third person action game protagonist while you can send your minions to attack, pillage, plunder people and objects alike. It’s essentially an action adventure with minor elements of strategy and RPG tossed in for good measure.

Overlord II grants you two views to choose from. You have your regular third person camera for a more up close and personal view of combat while the isometric view gives you a wider view. In both views however both the minions and your camera are controlled by the right stick. Now this creates a certain amount of conflict at times as you’ll send your minions scurrying across somewhere when all you want to do is get a better view of your surroundings and vice versa. This tends to get a lot more problematic when you’re up against bosses.

Not much has changed as far as core gameplay is concerned. Your Overlord is restricted to just moving around and smashing people with his weapon or zapping them with a few spells. Don’t go expecting a deep combat system over here since the minions and not your Overlord are the starts of the show here.

Unlike the first game (that I barely played for an hour) your minions in Overlord II have new found awesome abilities. They can now ride mounts like wolves and spiders, sail the open seas, use stealth to kill unsuspecting enemies etc. Initially you’ll have access to just one variety of minions but as you play through the game you’ll gradually unlock more. There are four variants altogether: Browns, Reds, Greens and Blues. Browns are your basic grunts and are adept in close quarter melee combat. Reds dish out some fiery attacks and are good at ranged combat since they can obliterate enemies with fireballs from a distance. Greens are sneaky little hand-claw (think Wolverine) wielding devils that are perfect for stealth attacks while Blues are adept at magic.


Once you get access to all these minions how you use them is entirely up to you. You could send in your greens first to kill unsuspecting enemies, following it up with a full frontal attack using your browns while your reds keep hammering away on enemies from a distance. During certain levels you’ll even be able to possess a minion and play as the little critter. These levels are thoroughly entertaining and offer a much needed respite from the ‘kill-everything-that-moves’ formula.

As opposed to the first game, Overlord II offers a healthy amount of environmental variety and you’ll find yourself moving from snow laden villages to tropical islands to the Roman empire. While variety is appreciated, path finding leaves a bit to be desired and there were times when I found myself moving around in circles clueless about my next goal. Also the game’s mini-map isn’t very accurate in displaying your goals.

Visually the game is impressive. Environments are vibrant and very well detailed thoroughly immersing you in the game’s twisted fantasy world. Character modeling is top notch and watching your minions in action is just plain entertaining. Humor is the game’s strong point as every dialogue is laced with tongue-in-cheek humor and/or a satirical look at modern society. Some of it worked for me while some was just plain unfunny. The minions are on the other hand are a constant hoot and their constant demented babble is guaranteed to make you smile if not roll on the floor. Your Overlord himself is the silent brooding type and isn’t half as entertaining as his faithful minions.

So yes Overlord II is a lot like Overlord; only this time developer Triumph studios has injected it with a good amount of variety. It can get repetitive after a while so I suggest you play it in short bursts. It has a few multiplayer modes (that I sadly didn’t get to try out) and the single player itself is pretty lengthy so you’re looking at sinking 15 – 20 hours into it, especially if you end up doing all the side quests as well. Even if you didn’t much care for the first game, I suggest you give it a shot while if you’re new to the series, I’d definitely recommend it. I mean how does killing baby seals using gremlins not sound like fun?