OVERLORD

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Triumph Studios And 4J Studios

Publisher : Codemasters

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Fantasy Action-Adventure

Release Date : June 26 , 2007

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : Intel Pentium 4 Processor / AMD Athlon XP 2400+

Memory (RAM) : 1 GB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 64 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce FX 5900 Series
ATI : Radeon 9500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 4.5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

The game begins where Gnarl and the Brown minions awaken the Overlord from his tomb. From here they suit him in his armour and proclaim him Overlord in his old and dilapidated tower – the previous Overlord having been killed by heroes, ready to reconquer the lands. The Overlord first turns to the Mellow Hills, where the Halflings and their leader Melvin Underbelly are using the townspeople of Spree and Red minions as slave labour. The Overlord storms the Halfling Homes, slaying Melvin and reclaiming the Reds and Spree (to the peasants’ delight or disgust depending on whether the Overlord returns their stolen food). Castle Spree however has come under attack by bandits. After flushing them out, the castle mistress Rose offers her service to the Overlord. At Evernight Forest, the roots of a tree where Oberon Greenhaze sleeps cover the Elves' home , extinct after being ransacked by Dwarves. The Green minions are found and Oberon is slain. The Elves' sacred statue, however, has been stolen by the Dwarves , angering Jewel, the Thieving Hero, who wanted to steal it for herself. At Heaven’s Peak the town is overrun by Zombies and Demons. Here the Overlord gains the Blue minions. At the town’s inn, it is discovered that town leader Sir William the Black had fallen for a Succubus , calling off his wedding to Rose’s sister Velvet. Killing Sir William in Angelis Keep, Velvet offers her services to the Overlord and he must choose between her and Rose. The Overlord then turns to the Dwarven Golden Hills and their leader Goldo Golderson, who has become greedy for gold. Here the remaining enslaved Elves claim the last of their women are being held in the Royal Halls of the Dwarven Keep. Meanwhile at the Dwarf construction site, Gnarl recommends that the Overlord stash a few minions inside the Elf sacred statue and allow Jewel to take it in order to follow her to her homeland, the Ruborian Desert. Back at the Royal Halls, where Goldo is defeated, the Overlord can either take his stash of gold or free the remaining Elf women before the halls collapse. The Ruborian desert is found and Jewel is captured and interrogated. An enraged Kahn the Warrior, protective of Jewel, strikes back and the Overlord now has to save Spree and Heaven’s Peak from his wrath. Back at the tower the minions submit to the previous Overlord who has secretly possessed the Wizard, originally father to Rose and Velvet, and who now lays claim to his previous title. The old Overlord tells the current one that he was originally the eighth hero who came to slay him, yet fell from a great height and was left for dead by his companions while they looted the Tower. The Old Overlord however put him in the sarcophagus to heal his wounds in order to use him to defeat the other heroes. The Overlord battles the Wizard, during which the Wizard brags of being responsible for the corruption of the heroes. Upon the Wizard’s death the Overlord reclaims his tower and minions. Depending on the Overlord's corruption and choices throughout, the ending will show 4 of 8 different ending cutscenes where either the Overlord is met with bliss and praise or he pillages and scorches the land and tortures the inhabitants. Regardless of the player's unique ending, the Jester is shown performing some sort of ritual, with Gnarl narrating "Evil will always find a way", opening up the events for Raising Hell.

Overlord starts out strong, and the first few hours offer some light and easy fun as you sweep your horde of minions across the countryside, slaughtering sheep and peasants and pillaging anything that appears even remotely pillageable. There are some RPG trappings to the game, in that you can upgrade or buy new weapons and armor, learn new spells, and increase your capacity for health and mana, as well as the number of minions that you can control at once. Still, the story is pretty linear. The game takes its time introducing the different types of minions, and you'll be several hours into the game before the strategy elements of the game start getting complicated. The tightly designed environments of Overlord are very deliberate in their layout, often requiring you to direct a single type of minion. It's not difficult to alternate between controlling one type of minion and another when you're not under the gun, but there are certainly moments where it'll feel like you're struggling against the controls as you're juggling multiple groups of minions and trying to issue a series of specific commands. You can choose whether certain characters live or die, and there are situations that can be resolved with varying degrees of bloodshed, but the choices you make have little impact on the course of the game. Good and evil are subjective concepts, and if there are no real negative consequences, there's no way to determine if your actions qualify. The pure joy of commanding a small army of malicious minions more than makes up for Overlord's minor shortcomings.

GAME REVIEW :-

7/10

Overlord Trailer :-