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Review

Overlord

7.5

Format PC

Developer Triumph Studios

Publisher Codemasters

Genre Action, Adventure

27-Jun-2007 Oh good lord

8 Comments

Behold: I am the Overlord. Ten feet tall and armoured from head to toe, my pale eyes glow stark against my black, featureless visage. Wherever I travel, destruction follows. Enemies are crushed beneath the swarming onslaught of my minions. I am the scion of darkness. I am the God of hellfire, and I bring you... your bags, Miss. Anything else, dearie? Oh, bless.

This is not the fantasy roleplaying game we were promised. It was supposed to be fairytales gone wrong, a moral choice between evil and more evil, with the ingenious device of an army of semi-autonomous imps to do your dirty work for you. It was supposed to be Black & White, if slapping your monkey was ever encouraged. It was supposed to be Dungeon Keeper, if the keeper moved out of the dungeon to wreak havoc topside.

Instead, the fires of evil burn lukewarm. In your mission to turn the world towards darkness you'll travel through a Tolkienesque fantasy world filled with halfling encampments, human cities and elven forests. The remit is destruction and parody: turning the fantasy tropes on their head by making you a villain rather than a hero. But there's no wit here that reaches beyond farts and vomit. The setting is never anything but convenient imitation, and you'll commit more heinous acts letting the trucks crush your amphibian friend in Frogger than you'll manage here.

The wider world of fantasy fiction is filled with enigmatic evil. A lighthearted, cartoon-styled game of scarring babies, slicing younglings and possessing souls would be welcome. Overlord isn't it. Its convictions are weak, and its malfeasance tepid.

Take, for example, the siege of Castle Spree. Under attack by raiders with some magical back-up, my mission, as I have no choice but to accept it, is to investigate. Seeing smoke and being quietly disappointed that someone is starting fires who isn't me, I find a way inside and, after watching a short cutscene, meet some humans who have locked themselves behind a gate for protection from the villains. The real villains. Not from me.

A bossy woman named Rose tells me she's been helping plague victims from the nearby city, and trying to stop the spread of the plague. The raiders have taken her luggage, however. Can I help her find it?

Naturally, I say no. I am the Overlord, Destroyer of Worlds! I smash the gate, kill the wretch and bring pestilence and suffering to all those who lie before me.
I ride upon my chariot of savagery and sow my poisonous seeds all over this once fertile land. I spawn a smoking orb of nothing and watch, laughing, as the puny humans gaze upon their ruined domain within.

Except, I don't. I can't. If I want to progress, I have to help her. So off I sulkily go, killing raiders, breaking crates and looting corpses. Or at least, I order my minions to do that.

Those minions are Overlord's big gimmick. Given your stature and inability to walk up even slight inclines, there are a lot of areas in the game you simply can't reach. In these instances, you send your gleefully enthusiastic homunculi to do your bidding, either with a simple point in the direction you wish them to charge, or by directly controlling their movements with the sweeping motions of your mouse or analogue stick.

The result is that the minions are essentially extensions of yourself, with just about enough intelligence to expedite otherwise dull tasks. The simple hack and slash combat is more fun, more tactical, as you're able to attack with a band of psychotic goblins rather than with swings of your own axe or sword (which remains an option). Direct minions towards dropped items or treasure and they'll gather it together, keep the weapons and armour for themselves, and excitedly carry the loot back to you.

Direct minions towards an enemy and they'll automatically surround it, throwing fireballs, swinging pitchforks and climbing on its back to lunge for the neck.
You learn to position your different minion types to best utilise their particular skill - be it sneaky backstabbing, ranged attacks or gung-ho face-punching. They also bring the largest bounty of humour, as they fidget, gurn, wear pumpkins as hats, and become violently drunk.

Watching them swarm, smashing and crashing as they go, is beautiful both in terms of their character-packed animation, and as the one time the game's brutality is appropriately measured. They're not graphic, but nor are they too tame. They're just awesomely chaotic.

But then we get back to Rose and her lost luggage. After killing the raiders, turning a lever to open a locked gate, and smiting a magical, floating, be-tentacled eye, I order my minions to pick up the lady's sizeable belongings. Sigh. I bet Sauron never carried anyone's bags.

When I return, Rose is impressed. An avatar of wrath who can carry a woman's things is clearly worthy of his own line of fantasy novels. Deciding that someone like me could use someone like her, she comes back to my Dark Tower (no, not a euphemism) to apply a woman's touch (still no) to the decoration of certain newly available rooms. I'm not sure she really understands what 'evil' means, but some cushions would render my self-titled Mighty Throne of Hate more comfortable.

The Dark Tower is your fortress of not-so solitude; the warped, brooding seat of your monstrous power. You're unearthed there at the start of the game by a staff-wielding, wizened old minion who explains the story so far. Your predecessor was destroyed by some 'supposed' heroes, and as a result the tower has been looted for its valuable parts by the halflings nearby. Early missions focus mostly on recovering these missing items - the Tower Heart that powers your portal to the world's realms, the smelter that allows you to forge weapons and armour, and so on.

But it's those 'supposed' heroes who provide the game with its overall structure, providing a number of boss battles with once noble men who have since become corrupted. Each one is representative of some sin or another: the first, a greedy halfling named Melvin Underbelly, who has become bulbous through over-eating; the second a former hero who, in the face of invading enemy forces, was too lazy to repel the attack. Given that the world's leaders are already so corrupt, it's hard to know why you're needed. But it continues in kind.

This is why your tower is so important. It gives meaning to accomplishments that wouldn't otherwise mean anything, transforming from rubble and ruin into a monument to your evil and not-so evil deeds. Previously defeated enemies can be re-fought in your dungeon for practice; captured maidens wander your throne room in scantily clad outfits; and a short, irritating jester proclaims your victories thus far with titles like "Restorer of the Dark Tower," "Exploder of Melvin Underbelly," and, pathetically, "Rescuer of the Distressed Damsel."

It's the inability to commit that renders Overlord so impotent. It betrays its own premise within ten minutes, with the very first task you're asked to complete. Outside of the tower, heading towards the town of Spree with a small number of minions in tow, you come across a farmer called Bob. Bob is made up like a scarecrow and stuck in a pumpkin patch. Halflings have stolen his farm. Can you help him get it back?

Yes, sadly you can. You run on down the hill, direct your minions inside the farm and watch as they kill the halflings and destroy the farm. Better a destroyed farm than one possessed by halflings, says Bob. He's happy. You've helped him. You've done a good thing.

You feel dirty. You feel dirty because you feel so clean.

You head into a new location, you kill all the enemies, you tell your minions to pull a lever and open a gate, and then you continue until complete. The enemies change - sheep become fire beetles, humans become elves, trolls become minotaurs - but the story remains the same.

Choice is only an occasional gift, and it rarely if ever has consequences. After locating a village's stolen food, you can either keep it for yourself (gaining power) or hand it back to the humans. If you choose to keep it, you do so by killing the witnesses. The villagers find out anyway (how?) and hate you for it. But their hatred makes no difference. You still had to complete the food-finding mission, since doing it unlocks new areas, and the option to betray humanity wasn't given till right at the very end.

Later, you're given a choice of which direction to turn: one path leads on through the game, while the other leads to a giant waste of time. You choose the third option, plunging your forehead hard against the keyboard in frustration. It's a game about being evil, and they forgot to let you actually be evil.

If Overlord is a villain, then it's one of those buffoon-ish sidekicks in a Disney movie. It tries and tries to be dark, to carry out depraved deeds and thwart the heroes. But it just can't help but cutely (and it is cute) bumble every attempt, conform to clich�s at every chance, and grin gently at its own sophomoric humour. And of course, in the end, it always changes to the side of good. Just not good enough.

Graham Smith