Overlord

Overlord. From GameSpy.com

Considering that Overlord 2 had just come out at the beginning of this month, I’d thought I’d go back and revisit the prequel. One thing that struck me as strangely fun was how you could just smack most characters in the game with abandon until they kick it. Be they innocent bystanders, your ever-loyal minions or the various enemies you encounter, a few swings of your weapon never fails to send them sprawling across the ground.

Of course, considering that there’s not really a lot that the game offers in the way of personal combat other than a few interesting spells and the ever-identical swings of your weapon, the “smacking things around” part tends to get dull after a little while. As such, I sometimes find that I leave most encounters with the enemy to my minions, who never pass up a chance to cause death and destruction.

One thing about getting minions is that they require lifeforce in order to be summoned, created, or whatever you want to call it. Lifeforce is gathered by killing sheep, enemies, or peasants. There are four different types of lifeforce we can collect, and different creatures drop lifeforce of different colors.

As such, there are four different minions that we can summon for our army. Brown minion, Green minions, Red minion, and Blue minions. Each type of minion plays a different role in our army.

Well, nobody said Browns were smart... From GameSpot.com.

Browns are the fighters. They are the strongest and most common type of minion, all-round fighters and able to take the most damage.They’re basically cannon fodder, for the lack of a better term. Green minions are the assassins, capable of sneaking up behind their opponent and striking with their razor sharp claws.

Red minions are the archers, capable of throwing fireballs over distances. They’re incapable of melee combat, though, so keep them away. Finally, the Blue Minions are the healers, using magic to deal damage, as well as resurrect fallen minions. Kinda like a motley bunch of misfits, if you told me… Ah well, whatever works.

One rather annying thing that I’d found about the game was that it sometimes requires to revisit areas. That, combined with the way the game seems to require us solving puzzles, means that things can get rather frustrating quickly. A little dull, too, but that’s besides the point. The main problem to this, I would think, is that some map can get confusingly large.

...Haven't I been here before? From GameSpot.com.

As a result, you sometimes never realise that you’d already fully explored an area, because the area links to several others, some that you’ve already explored. I remembering spending the better part of a few hours wandering around a certain map because I could never remember where I’d already gone, and thought there was more to the map than I’d found.

In the game, there are items that we can, and sometimes are required, to find. These items allow the game to progress, and some allow your Overlord to get stronger, too. These objects include the smelters of the Tower Forge, which allows you to forge new weapons and armor, and several “power-up” objects that benefit you someway or another.

Oh...treasure! From GameSpot.com.

These “power-up” objects can benefit you in four ways. The first two, most obvious one would be to increase your maximum health and mana by a certain amount. An integral part of any game, I’m sure. One other would be to provide you with spells. These spells come in four different categories, with four(three, really) levels to each of them. The last would be to increase the maximum size of the army that you can have with you at any one time.

The Tower Forge allows you to create armor and weapons (one you’ve found the smelters, that is). Armor and weapons come in three different kinds of metals, each stronger than the last. You also have the choice of imbuing the lives of your minions into your armor and weapons, giving them unique powers. More minions imbued mean more powerful…. powers, but do remember, doing so takes lifeforce.

Burn, baby, burn!!! From GameSpot.com.

Spells, as I’ve mentioned above, come in four different catogeries. Fire spells, which, as their name suggests, burn things; Domination spells, which allow you to control opponents and turn the battle to your favour; Shield spells that protect you, and finally, Minion spells that allow you to power-up your minions, at the price of losing control of them for periods of time.

Now, I’d said that each category of spells have four levels, but in actual fact, we can only have a maximum of three at any one time. The last two levels are actually choices decided for you by how evil you really are. If you’ve got a low corruption rating, you get the “Uncorrupted” version of the spell, and if your corruption’s high, the “Corrupted” version. Don’t ask me what happens if your corrution level’s at 50%. Never done that before.

Well, I guess that’s it for today. Am I missing anything? Ah, heck. I’ll see you guys… whenever…

-Jonathan Tiang