Dark fun for Friday

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Sitting in stop-start rush hour traffic every morning and evening, I'm afraid I've found myself slowing leaning towards the dark side. Mostly I've been thinking that perhaps a little mini-Apocalypse wouldn't be too bad. Imagine 1 million less people in every city. Imagine the idiot-free, uncongested roads... Perhaps just a dash of bird flu, maybe some SARS, a little evolved super AIDS or even some sterilising agents in the water supply for a Children of Men future...

Anyway, speaking of evil fantasy, I've been tracking the development of PC and Xbox 360 game Overlord (from Age of Wonders developers Triumph Studios) for a while now.


Honestly, Overlord is probably my most anticipated game of 2007. From the first full trailer below it just looks like so much fun - setting idiot peasants and bouncing sheep on fire, dueling with unicorns and all the while monitoring your devoted, if easily distracted, army of Gremlin-esque minions.

Finally a return to Dungeon Keeper style dark fantasy, but with the colourful, cartoony-stylise look - and action-adventure, third person approach - of Fable.



You can watch the similarly hilarious original Overlord teaser here.

Overlord's plot:
Controlling a mysterious figure that has inherited the legacy of the evil, long-dead Overlord, the player emerges, near death, from the ruins of the old Overlord’s Dark Tower. Only the player’s actions will determine if they will rise to become the new all-powerful Overlord; it’s all down to how much of a bad ass they want to be in order to succeed... evil or really evil! Played out with plenty of black humour and dark irony, the game will immerse players in twisted parodies of classic fantasy scenarios and characters.

Overlord’s key innovation is the introduction of an array of impish creatures - the Minions. They believe you are the old Overlord reborn and will use their unique skills to fetch, fight and die for you. Throughout the game players will actively control a horde of these gremlin-like critters and they’ll follow your every instruction no matter how despotic or, for the Minions, life threatening it is.


According to the Wiki article, your actions will centre on killing the Seven Heroes who destroyed the original Overlord, and have since evolved into living embodiment of The Seven Deadly Sins.

Anyway, Overlord is set for release around the middle of 2007 - apparently 30 June in Europe.


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Oh, unrelated, but I've been a part of the Facebook social networking craze for a while now. Come sign up for free and join the fun. If you need further incentive, Paul and I have just started a Anti-"Save Paris Hilton" group, to counter the apparently 11,000 strong petition to save the slag from serving her much needed 45 day prison sentence.

And a little heads up: The next Girlz 'N' Games comic should be online as of Monday.

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