Okay, let’s talk about video games. A few years ago, a little company called “Codemasters” released an equally little game called Overlord. It was met with mixed response; some reviewers really dug it, and others, well, just didn’t get it. IGN, for example, was one of the latter, though you wouldn’t know it given their recent review for Overlord 2.
The thing about the first Overlord was that it was like reading Giambattista Vico instead of Descartes, and seeing an alternate and wonderful way that games could have gone. Now, obviously, this new path wasn’t as developed as the same old trail that games like Halo, Madden, Metal Gear and so on stood on, but it was, well, new. And I’ve always been a big supporter of new frontiers, especially when the old frontiers are so old that they’re stagnant.
Of course, Overlord was a far from perfect game. But here’s the breakdown of the good: you play as basically Sauron from Lord of the Rings with little gremlins instead of Orcs running around to do your evil bidding. The gremlins, bluntly called minions, are controlled via the left joystick in a giant, semi-autonomous cluster that leaps, smashes, beats and loots whatever you direct it into. Whichever is appropriate. The right stick controls the Overlord, who, if you power him up, becomes a potently dangerous force of his own, with sword, axe, or Sauron-like mace.
What brought it all together was the attitude: the minions take genuine joy in whatever evil you have them execute in your name, whether it be looting and burning the countryside, beating down Halflings, dwarves and townsfolk, or sacrificing themselves by jumping into a giant vat of molten iron to make your armor stronger. My little heart melted at their gleeful cries of “Treasure! For yooou!”, “Maaasta!”, and when they found something they could use, “For me!” while plopping a pumpkin down on their heads.
The world in which these little terrors lived was as colorful as they were, a brightly inversed spoof of High Fantasy, in which unicorns are just white horses with a bloody horn, Halflings are the scourge of the dale and dwarves are, well, dwarves. But more dickishly. On the further end of it all were the Heroes, the white-knights of legend after the tales had run out, putting on weight and imposing their obnoxiously high and mighty agenda on the fiefdoms. It just made you want to beat everything with a giant mace and then burn it to the ground. Thank goodness you brought a giant mace, and some fire.
The bad, then. First, the minions on the left joystick meant a fixed camera, and less than perfect auto shift. Second, minions could die, and they took their weapons and armor with them. While not intrinsically bad by itself (I would expect some penalty for death) it became a little ridiculous when you throw insta-kills into the picture, in all their glory, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, such as in fire, poison, beneath a boss, or, most frustratingly, touching water. In any capacity. Plus, they’d follow you in, like lemmings on an island. The steady increase in these sorts of death zones later in the game made it frustrating in the extreme, when you’re A-Squad was annihilated by, essentially, a deep puddle and you were left with a bunch of unarmed noobs. It got to the point where you’d just buff the hell out of your Overlord and leave your team at home.
But all that’s behind us now, and really I only talked about all that for context, so I could talk about this. So. Needless to say, the cultists had their way and an Overlord II was released. Thank God. Let me be perfectly clear, I loved Overlord. For all my bitching, I really only gripe because I care enough about its existence to wanted it to perfect its experience. And, apparently, I’m not alone: see, Codemasters addressed pretty much every gripe that its players asserted from the first game, which is a rare virtue in game-makers. It almost makes you believe that games are still made for gamers, and not merely created cynically for cash alone.
They fine-tuned the controls so that to move your minions you had to push up on the joystick, whereas left, right and back were camera controls until the horde was activated. They added a “River Styx”-esque revive station, manned by an adorable little minion death, scythe and all. They fixed the minion A.I. and basically touched up all the problem areas. All this gave way to the much more polished experience of Overlord II, complete with a few addendums, like mounts, formations, a few new minion powers, et cetera, et cetera.
So, was Overlord II the perfect experience I was hoping for?
Unfortunately, no. But before I talk about why I’d just like to add that, again, these complaints are out of love. If anything, this game was even more fun to play than the last one, and I really appreciate all the work that Codemasters put into it. Honestly. No sarcasm.
First, and most importantly: insta-death remains, rearing its hideous face. While a little less painful than Overlord the first, there are still sections that are teeth-grindingly frustrating due to the high chance of losing over half of your highly polished team. While the gesture of adding the revive station is much appreciated, the better your minion, the more it costs to revive them. Meaning that mass slaughter late in the game, where it is most crucial that they are revived (and, for that matter, where they are most likely to be mass slaughtered), becomes very, very expensive.
Second, while the red minions have been ridiculously improved, hurling handfuls of genuinely damaging fire at soldiers until they actually were set alight (doing damage over time, happy shiver), the greens, on the other hand, have been utterly nerfed. The greens were perhaps one of the most enjoyable groups from the first game, as they leaped with gusto onto whoever was nearby, dealing massive damage as they plunged their claws into the hapless enemy’s back and hissing. In OII, they don’t err on the side of back-stabbing. Instead, if they’re controlled less than perfectly (i.e. don’t approach from the exact behind), they try to go toe to toe in an all-out melee fight and refuse to do their actually damaging attack. Also, apparently they’re made of feathers and soap, because one, possibly two hits results in their messy demise. Basically, I got used to the idea that greens were expendable and disposable, and I pretty much stopped using them except where the game expressly forces me to.
Finally, while the lines between the two alignments, “Destruction” and “Domination” have been much improved and refined, the actual effect on the game is that it has become far more linear. The decisions that are made merely define your motivation, rather than the act itself. Rebels have stolen the town’s food supply and are stealing a ship to escape. Domination: stop the rebels and get a ship. Destruction: go get your ship. Oh, that the rebels have. You should probably deal with that too. Also, the pillaging, destruction and so on, becomes distinctly final. Houses remain burned down, people remain dead. Like real life. I don’t want real life that that turns, essentially, conquered towns into wastelands. But everything else respawns, including treasure chests. So why deprive me, a domination overlord, of the fun of pillaging and looting?
For fear of becoming too involved in my bitching, let me wrap it up. I advise you buy Overlord, and Overlord II if you want a unique gaming experience. Maybe not at full price, if you don’t dig it like I dig it. It might make you old-school frustrated, which really only means that it hooks you, with a barb.
