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CG rating |
The Bad
- The humor
- Voice acting
- The minions
- A few cute puzzles
- Embarrassing save system
- Extremely linear
- Underdeveloped customization options
- The "Destruction / Domination" choice is just for show
Review
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Overlord 2 is a clear case of false expectations. It is a sequel after all, so I was expecting something worthy enough to justify the name, and make a clear distinction between a follow-up and an expansion pack. I did have some ideas about how it should have been, but almost none of those ideas came to fruition in the sequel. It’s basically the same game, with a couple of added extra features. Still, it’s just as funny as the first one was, and it still has that „x factor” keeping you glued in front of the screen. The above decent console port job helped matters too.
As you can see, there isn’t much of an intro for this article. No background story, lore, or something to put things into perspective. The reason is the complete lack of anything worthwhile to be said about the world the game takes place in. I’m not saying it’s game breaking, or even required, but it would have been a nice bonus nonetheless. You will get some extra value out of the game’s ending if you have played the first title, but that’s about it as far as history goes.
Overlord 2 can be easily described in a just a few sentences: you have (the same) mute evil Overlord, an insane pack of minions with a few screws loose, and your personal advisor, going by the name of Gnarl. The objective remained the same too: conquer the kingdom in the most evil manner possible, with the important note that in the game’s universe, „evil” actually equals „funny” for most people playing the game. Even if the antagonist is the „Glorious Roman Empire”.
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Not taking itself seriously is a major plus for Overlord 2. The overall design is hilarious (even though it’s a bit grotesque on occasion), and the storyline will generate some chuckles in the 15 to 20 hours you’ll need to beat it. Triumph Studios didn’t mess with the formula for the sequel, so you’ll still get plenty of irony, black humor and above average jokes and punch lines. There’s plenty of subtle (or less subtle) hints towards other games, there’s a lot of „funny” visual design; overall, there’s plenty of reason to keep playing .
The main campaign will task you with conquering 2 cities, assaulting the third, and liberating 4 breeds of minions (browns, reds, greens and blues). The more havoc you wreck along your way, the more the game rewards you with money and items for you minions and, in turn, these spoils of war can be used to upgrade your personal evil dungeon. Unfortunately, the upgrading part is quite limited, and setting exorbitant prices for these upgrades didn’t help either.
Your insane minions can equip themselves with the stuff they find in the game, they level up and can ride various creatures. If you happen to like one more than the rest of the bunch, you can resurrect him in the probable case of him dying by using lesser minions (level wise), which eventually leads to sacrificing half the minion pool to summon 2 maximum level minions. Granted, they DO look retarded (in a good sense), with geese feathers decorating their stupid looking heads, a ragged cloak on their backs and a bat bigger than their body size in their hand.
The fact that you can upgrade your evil tower and customize and resurrect your minions is one of the main reasons I kept playing, which is why I found it so disappointing that these aspects of the game are so sparsely developed.
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The control scheme is better this time around and you still don’t have direct control over your minions: the Overlord issues orders and the minions obey, in a hilarious display of destruction at the hand of a pack of overgrown rats of different colors.
The less hilarious part is the excessive linearity. It’s so horribly linear you remain stuck in collisions that shouldn’t exist, just because the game dictates you should go in a straight line through an otherwise empty field which shouts „go wherever you like”. The game is comprised exclusively from narrow pathways which always lead to the same place even if they sometimes intersect, maze like, in such a restrictive manner it can become extremely annoying: you are THE OVERLORD, but for some reason you can’t collect the health upgrade located 1 meter ahead because there’s a half a meter wooden fence in the way. Basically, what the game is saying through this restrictive technology is that I’m a wimp, and I’m wearing full plate armor and a 10 kilometer long sword just for show...
The world itself is very small, and the actual content is very crowded in this limited space. The crazy minions and the hippie elves wearing rasta hats do help in diminishing this overall negative impression, and you will burst into laughter when your arch enemies start speaking with surfer accents, but still, these restrictions will start to get on your nerves after a while.
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Limited or not, the game world serves as a playground for your minions. I found myself attached to the little bastards after a while, watching them obey my every order with unquestioned loyalty, while displaying an idiotic happy grin on their stupid faces, even if the order was „go jump in the lava”. For this reason, one of the game’s best new features is having the possibility to directly control one of your minions.
There are a few puzzle zones, where you can transfer your essence to one of your minions, which will then infiltrate the enemy camp under your direct control. These missions are awesome, and I really wished there were more along the game. While playing as a minion you get to witness some in-game personality of the character your controlling, as opposed to your mute and boring Overlord, especially considering the „fake” choices you get to make along the campaign.
To quote the developers, you can be „evil” or „more evil”, aka the 2 distinct paths that are laid before you: Destruction or Domination.
If you pick Domination, you transform the inhabitants of your cities into slaves, which in turn will offer long term bonuses, like gold farming, and weapon forging for your minions. The Destruction path will turn you into a psychotic killer, devastating the entire city instead of enslaving it, which offers basically the same benefits, only you get them now, instead of later. As a result, the distinction (from a reward point of view) is a little vague and useless.
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Comments [Add a new comment]
| Yes | |
 | 59% |
| No | |
 | 27% |
| Haven't decided | |
 | 14% |
Total: 1666 votes
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