Adi's Reviews: Overlord II

This second review was a tad more difficult for me, purely because I had no idea what to review next. In theory it shouldn't have been as my mountain of games just continues to grow both console and PC wise, so when it came down to actually sit down or lie down in my case and write this I drew a complete blank. I tossed around the idea of Mass Effect 2 for a while and then leant over to Ghostbusters but whilst trying to make my decision I would take a 'break' and go play Overlord II. I did this several times before deciding to just actually review the game I was playing.


Overlord II was released in 2009 and developed by Triumph Studios. It is a third person action-adventure game set in a fantasy realm where you the player take the role of the Overlord. Let's face it gamers, it doesn't take a genius to figure out the plot of a game like this. You either destroy or take over each town you come across because that is what an Overlord does apparently. Just quickly while on the topic of the plot some of you may be interested to know that it was written by Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett. Score one for us Brits! Anyways, the game is a sequel of sorts to the first Overlord game and follows the same sort of pattern. The Overlord takes on what is in essence the Roman Empire, but in Overlord II is called the 'Glorious Empire'.

Onto my second favourite part of reviews. The Game play. I absolutely loved having control over my minions, it is literally an Overlord's dream. From the tutorial level I was hooked. Who doesn't want to control lesser beings to order around and destroy random stuff? Each of your minions have a set colour. Brown, red, blue and green. In the beginning you only have the brown minions to control but as you progress on you obtain the rest in true Overlord fashion. Each colour minion as their own speciality which I won't spoil but from the colours you can pretty much guess what they probably are. Hint: Red is fire. Now you can still fight as the Overlord swinging your big....sword around or axe if that takes your fancy but I preferred to send my minions in to do the dirty work. You can send the minions to fight for you, kill off gnomes that run around as they clearly started the fight or one of my favourites (not really!) club baby seals. One of the options is to directly take over a minion's body at certain stages by way of a possession stone, this allows you to get to places you couldn't normally as the big burly Overlord. I loved the game play simply because it was simple. The minions have their own distinct personality and lines which generally consist of master which I never tire of. Who doesn't want to be called master? Well I assume quite a few but still! Aside from the single player mode you also have cooperative options, which include capturing sections of the map against another Overlord or working together to defeat powerful enemies.I almost forgot to mention, you get to have more than one mistress in Overlord II as well. Just thought I would throw that in there for the guys out there, yes the Overlord has his fair share of women and quite rightly so!

Compared to L.A Noire there isn't that much to review on as it's not as in depth story wise or even game play wise. Overlord II is simply one of those fun games you play to chill out, saying that I did get pretty stressed out when those bloody mermaids brought my ship down. Sometimes even the controls had me gritting my teeth. Yeah controlling the Overlord can be a bit stiff and he didn't always seem to move where I wanted him to, same with the minions as well. They just occasionally wouldn't lock onto what I wanted them to burn down or would burn items too soon. Ah well, most of it can be forgiven simply because I AM THE OVERLORD. *coughs*

I would recommend Overlord II if you are looking for something fun to play whilst waiting for your next major game to come out, but for in depth story and back story. Choose L.A Noire or Mass Effect or almost any other game really.

Till next time, keep on gaming.

Adi out.