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Overlord Review - Xbox 360

Introduction

Second only to the First Person Shooter, the Role-Playing genre of gaming sits atop a pedestal of both fandom and respect that few other styles of gaming can compare to. For years the genre has continued to raise the bar of interactivity, emersion and sheer game time for players around the world. With titles such as Diablo and Neverwinter Knights, it is difficult to find a gamer these days that doesn't have at least one RPG that's close to their heart. However, since the genre's creation, it has had one major criticism to it's name, and that's a simple lack of innovation. The storylines are usually similar, or at least share similar hallmarks, and the definition of classes rarely, if ever, change. With this being said, there have been those that have broken the mold and taken the genre in entirely new directions, enter Overlord. With the move to all but withdraw the main character from battle, and instead, allow him control of a legion of minions to do his bidding, the title has already earned a crown of creativity, but is it enough to set it apart?

Gameplay

First Impressions

When I first loaded up the game, I was extremely impressed with the graphical detail shown. Granted, the game isn’t on the scale of something like Two Worlds, but the draw distance is sizeable enough to cause some games issue. The detail shown was very impressive, especially that of the Overlord himself. So, who is the Overlord?

When the single player campaign is loaded up, the player is met by a character reminiscent of Yoda, named Gnarl, who informs the player that he is the Overlord, leader of a vast minion army and dark embodiment of evil. I don't want to ruin the opening scene, so I will pretty much leave the storyline here. As the player emerges, there is a short tutorial on how to control the minions that serve you, their strengths and weaknesses, etc. This was quite useful, as the game does have a decent learning curve to it, understanding all of the spells and minions and how best to use them can be daunting at first.

I was also impressed with the mesh of realistic, though fantastical, medieval setting, and the underlying comical nature of the game. Rather then being serious the whole time, like many RPG, this game has some great one liners, especially from Gnarl, and an overall amusing feel to it, however morbid it may be. Again, I won't give too much away, but this game had me in stitches quite often, which was a pleasant surprise.

Gameplay

The gameplay itself is quite innovative, while the player controls the Overlord himself from a third-person perspective, he/she also has the ability to control several minions (hence the name 'Overlord'). While the character can run into battle wildly swinging his axe, and mashing anything that moves, the outcome won’t be too favorable. Instead, the (continued next page)