Overlord - Raising Hell

Codemasters gives you the chance to become evil Overlord of the world, by any means necessary.

Although this title has been out a while on other formats, Codemasters have decided to release it on PS3 with the Raising Hell add on already integrated. And although the theme is evil, its decidedly good fun.

Here’s the scene: you have been given the task of rebuilding the evil dominion and taking revenge on the heroes who destroyed both your predecessor and his hold over the populace. Now, this game contains halflings, elves, dwarves, hordes of evil minions and the rebuilding of a huge tower from which to base your nefarious campaign. The character you play is a faceless, iron-masked Overlord. All sound familiar? It may well do, but despite the hefty sounding theme, it is all handled without the weighty epic nature of other fantasy worlds. This is instead approached in a lighthearted way, with silly humour abound and a unique approach to evil-doing.

You are guided through the beginning of the game by your cackling Minion Master who babywalks you through the simple but effective controls of both your Overlord and his personal entourage of minions. The left analogue stick is you and the right can be used to ’sweep’ your minions where you want them, with the shoulder buttons employed to provide more specific orders. This system, though simple, can occasionally be frustrating, but overall it works well and makes for a pretty unique and fun gameplay mechanic.

These minions are your key to your quest and therefore the main tool for solving the game’s puzzles and fighting battles. There are different types with different strengths and weaknesses. The red fellows can put out fire for you and attack enemies from afar by hurling fireballs at them. The browns are the hardy footsoldiers who can fight close quarters best and take most damage. Your blues can swim and revive fallen minions, and your greens can take care of poisonous foliage and are adept at attcking from the rear. You, as Overlord, can control all at once or one group at a time, stationing one group here, one group there according to the tactics you’re employing. You’d be forgiven for thinking this sounds awfully complicated for a console controller but its actually rather simple and effective, and the game doesn’t give you too much to handle all at once. As you progress through the game, you get more minions to control (the maximum is 50), which in turn leads to more puzzle oriented tasks which are less easy to complete just by plowing all your minions into the fray and winning by sheer weight of numbers.

The game gives you the ability to teleport back to your tower at any point and then to any of the teleport points you’ve encountered thus far. This is a useful feature as it can be frustrating navigating the landscape from time to time, wandering around whilst trying to get somewhere specific. There is a small HUD style map in the corner but on occasion it isn’t much help as there are not enough points of reference. A larger in-game map would have been most useful at certain points, seeing as you are navigating around a large interconnected world which can look very daunting and the smaller map doesn’t provide you the larger perspective you are sometimes screaming for.

There are little aspects of the game which can be improved upon. The camera system is somtimes clunky and not as responsive as you’d like, particularly in intense situations. Some of the voice acting is woeful and the character speech can be repetitive which detracts from the sense of immersion this game is clearly trying to achieve. Sometimes minion control can still be clumsy, but if you’re feeling generous you could put this down to characterization - these aren’t highly trained soldiers you’re commanding, more along the lines of brutish, dim but oh so loyal gremlins. These flaws are not overly cumbersome, however, and don’t detract from the overall enjoyment.

Another plus point to this game is the length; this is no small mission, you won’t fly through it in a couple of sittings. The tasks you undertake can be done with an element of choice and certain things can’t be done until you’ve done other parts but the game leaves this to you to discover. This provides for a satisfying experience and a feel of value for money.

Also present is the ability to choose your ’destiny’, as such, by making choices. If you free the village the inhabitants will like you and thank you every time you go near them. You can then choose, if you wish, to kill them and loot their wares. This sort of behaviour affects your corruption level which ultimately affects the course of the game and changes it from if you’d left the downtrodden villagers alone.

One little problem which may detract from the title is the pricing. You can pick up the original version of the game on PC or 360 for a fair bit cheaper. This is offset by the fact that the downloadable content and add-ons from the other formats is already integrated, but this won’t be much consolation at the till for PS3 owners.

The game has an online feature too, and although fun and diverting for a while with its true-to-form game types and the like, this game is all about the single player game and there is more than enough of that to satisfy.

Overall, the game is not perfect and probably won’t get hailed as a classic, but it has its own little quirky charm and quite subtly sucks you into its world. It is the kind of game that may well get a good audience but remain underrated, which is not always a bad thing. It provides a lighthearted yet engaging relief from some of the big-hitting, weightier titles that are out at the moment and does so with humour and style.

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