Overlord: Raising Hell

Codies raise it again

Specifically, various puzzles connected to each in-game mission require the clever use of the minions and their particular skills, and it's down to accurate selection by the Overlord to ensure that the right minions are trailing, ready for action. Of course, gathered life force dictates how many minions can be summoned at any one time - as does the player's advancement - and the proliferation of each breed also requires life force matching its specific colour class. This means that the discerning Overlord would be wise to occasionally revisit well-travelled areas in order to cull some weak enemies and build an expansive backlog across the breeds for the game's progressively challenging missions.

The gameplay blend of almost effortless directorial destruction and patient puzzle-solving certainly complements Overlord's definite sense of humour and its appealingly pretty presentation. Indeed, "sweeping" minions into on-screen areas the Overlord himself cannot access, and then watching the little terrors wreak havoc on his behalf, is always satisfying, especially as the minions automatically retrieve and equip abandoned weaponry and armour from downed foes. They also scavenge around for treasure, life force, magic power (Mana) and health "For the Overlord!" which they duly gather up and bring straight back "For the master!"

While it rarely pushes the next-gen graphical envelope, Overlord is never anything other than pleasantly attractive, and its character and environmental designs are convincingly fantasy-faithful without ever crossing the line into downright cheesy. The screen can be viewed from two camera perspectives - one low trailing the Overlord, and one that's close to being isometric but stops short of flattening the game world. Either option is passable for control, although the higher option is preferable when battling many foes or working out obstacle puzzles - it's worth noting that both have been adjusted for the PS3 version but can still be troublesome when in tight confines.

Animation is perhaps a little weak, especially on the Overlord himself, who tends to stomp about as though his armour has been overly starched back at the dark tower's laundry room. Again, however, the minions are the real stars of the show and their responsive dispersal across the screen is wonderfully energetic as they pilfer houses, hack through pumpkin patches, and gleefully smash their way through crates, chests, and boxes searching for useful goodies.

Game sound and music is befitting of Overlord's 'borrowed' source of inspiration, particularly from a Lord of the Rings angle, and the soundtrack ebbs and flows at all the right moments to paint a Hollywood-esque accompaniment to the on-screen action. NPC performances are well executed and character voices all arrive as regional (overtly tongue-in-cheek) UK English that smack a little of Lionhead's Fable in their easy delivery - which is a good thing.

In terms of correcting slight deficiencies that popped up to sully the original game's execution, Codemasters has introduced a handy onscreen mini-map to help budding Overlords traverse through those environments that tend to look rather samey (dungeons, dark forests, etc.). And, further to that addition, the mini-map feature even includes a 'fog of war' element that only clears as the player moves to map areas not yet explored, which helps avoid wasting too much time on confused backtracking.

Also, minion A.I. appears to have been tweaked so that the evil little wretches focus more on returning to the Overlord after a brief time whenever the player stops sweeping them. The original minions would occasionally fall foul of continued marauding or searching out treasure amid dangerous attacks, which would see them all-too quickly isolated from their brethren and killed off by enemies. However, the entire pack seems a little more intent on providing dedicated protection for their master this time around.

Other slight improvement arrives courtesy of a more attuned lock-on targeting system (it could be frustratingly twitchy in the original) and - as mentioned - a game camera that follows the action more smoothly and doesn't cause quite as many overtly obvious obstructions to the player's trailing viewpoint. Overlord for the PlayStation 3 also offers up a cooperative split-screen mode that tasks two players to spread their corruption while, well, raising hell? Sadly, however, the co-op game mode is hard to recommend due to it being sorely hamstrung by lapsing frame rates that occasionally render the on-screen action almost unplayable.

That being said, swinging the sword of oppression as the evil Overlord and releasing a drooling pack of mayhem-hungry minions upon both the guilty and the innocent remains a fun quest, which, for the most part, demands player attention and ably holds it in single-player mode. However, once the four minion breeds have been safely gathered, the game does tend to somehow lose its bite, falling back on environmental puzzles and dull life force building rather than evolving the Overlord's more obvious power and might.

Other aspects do strive to keep the gameplay moving forward, such as locating stolen elements of the dark tower to help restore it to its former glory, adding smelting forges to the tower to widen the Overlord's weaponry and armour options, and even finding a good woman to watch over the tower in the Overlord's stead. Sadly though, the longevity of the game slips inexorably when its focus becomes more distinctly 'Pikmin' and less 'Lord of the Rings' - and no amount of secondary quests can prevent that from happening.

Ultimately, if it weren't for an oddly skewed sense of gameplay delivery that offers two separate genre types (action and puzzle) rather than a comfortable mixture of both, Overlord: Raising Hell would be the thoroughly refreshing genre experience that the Xbox 360 version couldn't quite become. As it is, despite the game's platform-specific tweaks and its plush design, genuine humour, and intuitive minion controls, the game still doesn't lend itself to being anything other than a smile-inducing distraction... that is already available for a far smaller asking price on the Xbox 360 and PC.

75%

By Stevie Smith