Reviews for Overlord

A solid if forgettable trip to the dark side. . .

Strengths: Unique blend of role-playing and strategy, strong graphics, solid minion AI, lots of minion personality

Weakness: Control issues, not all that evil for a dark lord, linear game play, T-rated evil

Overlord attempts to put a dark fantasy spin on Nintendo's Pikmin franchise, and while its subject matter becomes somewhat watered down by the Teen rating, Overlord's highly animated and personable army of minions keep things interesting through this mostly linear adventure.

The ESRB Teen rating pulls Overlord back from truly exploring how evil your army of darkness can be. While this makes the game suitable for kids, it also undermines the entire premise of a resurrected dark lord wrecking havoc. The surprisingly intelligent minion army keeps the game entertaining though.

Well into the game, control becomes an issue as you face harder enemies with a more diverse group of minions, but the game's humor and personable minion army overcome much of this. Action RPG and strategy fans looking for a darker take on the Pikmin franchise will find it here. For $20 or less, most kids and adults will be suitably entertained.

0% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Get in touch with your evil side

Strengths: Amusing concept, great character animations, perverse pleasure that comes from ordering minions to do your destructive bidding

Weakness: Controls take awhile to master

Great twist on the real time strategy genre. Graphics look wonderful on the Xbox 360, and the evil minions are very entertaining to watch. Game never achieves profound depth, but the enthusiastic fun of being a force for chaos makes that a minor fault.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Overlord

Strengths: Quirky and unique experience on the 360

Weakness: Very easy to get lost with no minimap display

In Overlord you start off the game as an apparently deceased evil overlord being brought back to life by some other power. You are then set up in a ruined tower with a small band of minions. These minions are small orc-like creatures. At first you simply start off with ones called "browns" who are tough fighters but without any special abilities. As you play through the game you acquire 3 other types ("reds", "greens", "blues"). As you might suspect each of the additional types has powers tied to their color: reds are immune to fire (and can throw fireballs), greens are immune to plant poison (and can jump high to attack), and blues can swim (and resurrect dead minions). You start off just with the browns and come across a halfling invasion of a human town. You soon find out that you can actually choose to be fairly good (save people, return their food, etc) or truly evil if you so desire. The choices you make will effect the way people react to you and the way your tower looks but otherwise does not lead to different endings. When you teleport from your tower to a new land you select minions from spawning pits - you are limited to a certain number until you find items that will increase your minion capacity. The minions follow you around and you can direct them to attack or pick things up either by pushing a button (they will run the direction you are facing) or by taking more direct control of them using the right analog stick. Since the right stick is used for controlling the minions, controlling the camera is somewhat troublesome and this can cause problems in certain tough fights. You can also help out your minions by attacking directly with your character via an upgradeable weapon and a magic attack. As you progress through the story you will find out where you came from and who is behind your resurrection. The story is interesting enough to keep you engaged throughout the game. The biggest problem with the game is the lack of a map or any indication, really, of where you need to go next. This can particularly be a problem if you don't play for a while and forget what you were doing before. I probably spent a total of few hours running around trying to get the next event to trigger at various points. This has apparently been fixed in the Playstation 3 version of the game by the inclusion of a mini-map but the 360 version does not have that. Overall, however, the game is a lot of fun and offers a unique experience on the 360. There is also online play (battling other Overlords and their horde of minions) and a fairly extensive expansion for the single-player campaign is available to download as well. I played through the entire expansion campaign and found it to be very well made and worth the price.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Overlord (Xbox 360)

Strengths: Impressive graphics, funny storyline, good replay value

Weakness: More RTS than action game at times, some control problems.

Overlord is a part-action/part-RTS game, where you play an evil overlord in his quest to control the lands. This is assisted by summoning minions of different types, very much like Pikmin on the Nintendo GameCube. Minions do different tasks and help fight enemies and plunder the land. The gameplay is very well done, though can be a bit more RTS that is likeable for some people. With the numerous minions on-screen, controlling them can be an issue at times. The game has great replay value with going through the single player campaign multiple times, as well as having online multiplayer and co-op play, with the co-op being a recent addition. The addictive gameplay wins out overall.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Control your minions - Overlord style

Strengths: Nice graphics, Variety of minions, Good humour

Weakness: Minions control can be a pain sometimes

This game seems to be inspired by "Pikmin" on Gamecube, but has a more mature & darker theme. You control an army of minions which keeps on growing as the game progresses.
There are different type of minions & their color determines what special powers they have.
It fells nice to order them around & watch as they wreak havoc. But sometimes they die easily in combat or with fire or water & that gets frustrating.
The story is good & keeps you interested. Also dialogues are really funny & will keep you smiling even in intense moments. Gameplay is nice & depending on your actions you can choose to get darker on be more the good side. Some funny bosses & characters adds to the humour
The idea of this game may not be original but that does not take away anything from its beautiful premises & the unique presentation

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

The OOOOOOhhhhhhhh-verlord!

Strengths: Game plays well.

Weakness: A little too tounge in cheek.

Overlord siprised me a bit. I was expecing more of a top down strategy game and it's more a first person building game. At elast with what I've played so far. there are missions that involve silly mayhem and it's a good bit of fun. it's a little too cheeky for its own good but it's not bad for a nice cheap game. There's an expansion on xbox live too if you really like it.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Overlord

Strengths: Fun and entertaining game.

Weakness: Not quite that evil for a dark lord

This game puts you in the role of the Overlord and you control his minions (all with their own personalities). The gameplay is a cross between a role playing game and a real-time strategy game. You move about and give orders to all of your minions (hilarious little guys) in order to achieve the objective for each mission. There is downloadable content for multiplayer and some additional missions. This is a really fun game and shouldn't be missed if you are even slightly interested.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

overlord

Strengths: good change being bad, nice visuals, funny dark humor

Weakness: little replay value, camera

This game was recommended to me from a friend so I had no expectations going into it. The game plays a lot like Pikmin on the Gamecube. You play as an evil Overlord and control groups of minions to carry out certain tasks for you in similar fashion as Pikmin. I thought it was nice to be the bad guy for a change. The humor in this game is hilarious as well. The fantasy style setting/graphics look good too. I enjoyed the game so far, but there were a few times that the camera got in my way during certain puzzles. Also, I can’t see myself playing through this game more than once. Recommend this game for anyone that is looking for something different.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Plain fun and highly addictively

Strengths: High reply value and very good graphics

Weakness: No in game mini map

Overlord is a fun game that puts you in charge of a character called the Overlord who controls little warriors called minions. The minions are entertaining and fun to control. You have the option of playing a good or an evil character. Whether you slaughter the peasants or help them is up to you. Most things you kill give you life force which is used to summon minions. The replay for overlord is very high. Thumping it again with 0% corruption or 100% corruption

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Overlord

Strengths: Extremely humorous, great graphics

Weakness: Controls can be limiting, short, little replay value

Overlord provides a nice combination of RPG and RTS elements to bring a refreshingly enjoyable gameplay experience to the table. The stereotypical good guy vs. bad guy roles have been reversed: You have the choice to be "evil...or really evil." I admit, it was the irresistible tagline that got me to buy this game and I've been extremely pleased with it. The dark humor in this game is just plain hilarious. It's fun wreaking havoc on innocents and slaying *heroes* to progress through the storyline. Overlord definitely gets some major points for ingenuity and creativity. The graphics look great as well.

One thing I didn't like so much is that towards the end of the game, the balance between RPG and RTS shifts towards the RTS end and with the control scheme, it's sometimes difficult to accomplish what you need to do. It would also help if the minion controls were explained a bit better -- for the longest time, I had no idea that the green minions would blend in with their surroundings only if they were guarding a location.

Overall, I'd say this was a pretty enjoyable game. Highly recommended if you're looking for something fun, different, and amusing.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Ahh, it's good being evil

Strengths: Hillarious. Addicting. Fun! Oh, it's a good time!

Weakness: Get's kinda confusing at times..and that darn camera gets in the way once in a while.

This is fun.
You get to be evil, and that's a good thing! You control your minions to do your bidding..and you sorta get to choose your storyline. Do you help the villagers at the end, or steal their gold? Meh, just steal it. Who cares, right?

Being evil is a ton of fun in this game. The best part, is that there is A LOT of evil to be done!! VERY long game..and that's a good thing! Plus the achievements in this game are fun working for as well. If you want them all you will have to play through this game at least twice.

Got some time to kill? Pick this game up!

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Overlord

Testseek.com has collected 20 expert reviews for Overlord and the average expert rating is 76 of 100. The average score reflects the expert community’s view on this product. Click below and use Testseek.com to see all ratings, product awards and conclusions.

Read Full Review

Overlord

Overlord receives an overall TopTenREVIEWS rating of 3.07 out of 4.00. It is ranked the #2,343 game of all time and #111 Xbox 360 game of all time. The rating and ranking is based on an average of 37 critic scores, awards and other criteria. To see a breakdown of the game ranking, read individual critic reviews, or see how other games ranked, click on the link below.

Read Full Review

Overlord

With games like Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, Saints Row and more letting you play as some of the more seedy elements of society, a game like Overlord seems like a sure thing. Set in a robust fantasy universe, Overlord gives you the ability to play as a Sauron-like evil king as he sets his minions across the countryside to loot, plunder, and lay waste. The gameplay is a unique blend of action-RPG...

Read Full Review