Everyone have a good weekend? I hope so. Mine was full of busyness and little gaming, unfortunately. I did get some time in with Overlord 1 and 2. I bought the second first, since I’ve gone through most of the first already, but while playing it I noticed gaps in my memory of the game’s story — since I never completed it. Thus, I got the first and am playing through it… first.

Something to know about Overlord — it’s not your typical good-guy hero RPG (though there is a silly amount of ‘good’ things to do… nonsense all of it). You play an evil overlord bent on destruction and subjugation. To aid in this evil-doing are your minions — essentially little goblins that come in four flavors: brown (melee, tanks), red (ranged, nuking), green (melee, roguish), and blue (support, rez’ing). The number of minions you control increases during the game, allowing more strategy in your setup. The game plays like a third-person action/adventure/puzzler… you run around with your minions killing things and getting past obstacles. It’s somewhat repetitive in that sense, but the puzzles do change and get harder so if you like them you should have more than enough fun. The biggest enjoyment in the game, to me, is the darker comedy and actions you can take. For instance: you come across the last sacred area in an elven forest… it’s completely untouched — save for the bloody, crazed unicorns sitting in the tall grasses, blocking your path to a health increase. There are several elven ghosts floating around, pointing out the sacred grove and offering the health increase to you… but how to get it? Certainly you could fight all the unicorns, but they’re a bit tough and you’ll likely lose several minions that way… or you could set fire to the tall grasses and turn everything a crispy charcoalish black! The elves may be sad, but hey — they’re dead already! Such is the fun you get to have while being evil. That’s the typical choice you get to make in Overlord, it’s usually pretty black/white as far as morality goes — which is good for the light-hearted/comical setting.

All around, it’s a solid game with a lot fun moments. The second seems to be much of the same, with some improvements all around. Try the demos — you’ll likely enjoy them.