Gaming First Thoughts: Overlord
With assorted downloads and updates for my new PC, I kind of went waaaay over my ADSL cap for January, so I thought it better to stay away from the online realm last night, take a break from World of WarCraft (until the cap reset at midnight), and try out one of my other recently acquired PC games: Overlord.
For those of you who don't know, Overlord is a twisted third-person adventure game with a dark sense of humour, in which the bad guys take centre stage. Basically you assume the role of a dark lord seeking to take over a peaceful fantasy kingdom, and remove all opposition to your rule.
Such a quest for world domination would be a tough task for one person, but fortunately you have an army of mischievious, masochistic minions at your disposal as you embark on your power-crazed mission. Typical activities include the slaughter of gambolling sheep, setting fire to fields full of hobbits, terrorising buck-toothed idiot peasants and kicking about jesters. You can be evil... or really evil.
I didn't get much further into the game than I did when I played the demo months back, but here are my first impressions anyway:
- Visually the game is colourful and stylised - quite similar in fact to Fable in terms of its very pretty cartoonishness. It's a pleasure to be able to run it at full detail and screen resolution without any frame rate jerkiness.
- I'm still getting used to the controls (for the record I'm playing with a gamepad as opposed to keyboard) as it takes a bit of co-ordination to simultaneously control your overlord (who has some useful magical ranged attacks) and sweep his minions across the battlefield.
- What really "sells" the game is its twisted sense of humour. Apart from the commentary and one-liners by your minion guide Gnarl ("Don't inhale the fresh air, my lord"), the behaviour of the minions is especially amusing to watch. Position them too closely to a table of beer and they devour all the booze, and promptly urinate everywhere. Kick them and they ask if it hurts you. The attention to character animation is fantastic. My especial favourite is the minions' glee when they rush back to the overlord to proudly present him with the treasure they've stolen.
- Overlord is far more free-ranging than I thought it would be. I was expecting to be completing quest objectives one at a time; however you can accumulate multiple objectives and complete them generally in whatever order you desire (as long as you have access to the best type of minion for the job).
- The game uses the Autosave feature, one of my pet gaming peeves. There have already been a few battles I would like to re-attempt, but was unwilling to replay a whole stage just to get to that point again. And I was horrified to watch my nicely equipped minion squad burn to death when I accidentally ran them into a burning building.
- The camera control is just so-so. The only other option apart from standard "from behind" view is an overhead view for a better grasp of battle areas ahead of you. Sometimes it would be really useful to spin the camera around and find out exactly where your minions are, because sometimes they wander off/get stuck instead of rejoining the squad.
That's about it so far. I'm looking forward to exploring the world of Overlord further in the coming weeks.
Speaking of video games, Kalahari.net is currently running a game sale, with up to 60% off selected titles (covering all gaming platforms).
There are some pretty impressive games with VERY reduced prices on that list, including Overlord, Jade Empire, Okami, Prey and Loco Roco. Most are in the region of just R100! Stocks are limited though, so if you're in the market for a good new-ish game, you better get browsing soon.
For those of you who don't know, Overlord is a twisted third-person adventure game with a dark sense of humour, in which the bad guys take centre stage. Basically you assume the role of a dark lord seeking to take over a peaceful fantasy kingdom, and remove all opposition to your rule.
Such a quest for world domination would be a tough task for one person, but fortunately you have an army of mischievious, masochistic minions at your disposal as you embark on your power-crazed mission. Typical activities include the slaughter of gambolling sheep, setting fire to fields full of hobbits, terrorising buck-toothed idiot peasants and kicking about jesters. You can be evil... or really evil.
I didn't get much further into the game than I did when I played the demo months back, but here are my first impressions anyway:
- Visually the game is colourful and stylised - quite similar in fact to Fable in terms of its very pretty cartoonishness. It's a pleasure to be able to run it at full detail and screen resolution without any frame rate jerkiness.
- I'm still getting used to the controls (for the record I'm playing with a gamepad as opposed to keyboard) as it takes a bit of co-ordination to simultaneously control your overlord (who has some useful magical ranged attacks) and sweep his minions across the battlefield.
- What really "sells" the game is its twisted sense of humour. Apart from the commentary and one-liners by your minion guide Gnarl ("Don't inhale the fresh air, my lord"), the behaviour of the minions is especially amusing to watch. Position them too closely to a table of beer and they devour all the booze, and promptly urinate everywhere. Kick them and they ask if it hurts you. The attention to character animation is fantastic. My especial favourite is the minions' glee when they rush back to the overlord to proudly present him with the treasure they've stolen.
- Overlord is far more free-ranging than I thought it would be. I was expecting to be completing quest objectives one at a time; however you can accumulate multiple objectives and complete them generally in whatever order you desire (as long as you have access to the best type of minion for the job).
- The game uses the Autosave feature, one of my pet gaming peeves. There have already been a few battles I would like to re-attempt, but was unwilling to replay a whole stage just to get to that point again. And I was horrified to watch my nicely equipped minion squad burn to death when I accidentally ran them into a burning building.
- The camera control is just so-so. The only other option apart from standard "from behind" view is an overhead view for a better grasp of battle areas ahead of you. Sometimes it would be really useful to spin the camera around and find out exactly where your minions are, because sometimes they wander off/get stuck instead of rejoining the squad.
That's about it so far. I'm looking forward to exploring the world of Overlord further in the coming weeks.
Speaking of video games, Kalahari.net is currently running a game sale, with up to 60% off selected titles (covering all gaming platforms).
There are some pretty impressive games with VERY reduced prices on that list, including Overlord, Jade Empire, Okami, Prey and Loco Roco. Most are in the region of just R100! Stocks are limited though, so if you're in the market for a good new-ish game, you better get browsing soon.
Comments
Wait until you have enough gold and have to 'please' your mistress by buying her things (like castle upgrades) - that's where the fun comes in.
I love those minions. They're both so cute and awesome!
Thanks for the advice, Lord Spaceman.