Overlord II Co-Op Review

Review System(s): XBox 360, Playstation 3, PC

Mike "pheriannath" Katsufrakis Monday 03rd of August 2009 08:19 PM

Who hasn’t dreamed of commanding a horde of minions, blazing a path of destruction through their enemies while cosplaying as Sauron and brandishing an outlandishly oversized weapon? …What? Why am I the only one who has that dream? Well, I suppose if you’re a deviant like me, then Overlord 2 may just be your perfect game.

You begin the game not as an Overlord, but as the Overlad: a terrifying youth with magical powers, shunned by the village you live in. One day, while being chided by the village children, a group of minions find you and encourage you to terrorize the village with your powers, proving to them that you are fated to become their Overlord. The resulting tutorial becomes a sort of demonic Dennis the Menace simulation, wherein you terrorize the populace and knock over snowmen to be spiteful. You then become the supreme Overlord, and must command your army of minions to dominate the world, battle an evil (but not as evil as you) Empire, take on four wives and kill a pack of PETA-esque hippie elves.

The heart of Overlord 2 lies in controlling your various minions, memorizing the rock/paper/scissors-ish relationship that each type has with enemies, and deploying them to great success. Defeating enemies causes their armor to splinter and break, as well as their weapons to drop to the ground, and sending your minions out will cause them to pick up whatever happens to be lying around and equip it, increasing their damage output and chances of survival. In a nice twist, you'll see minions wearing oversized centurion helmets, brandishing swords, and in the case of the tutorial, wearing baby seals as hats. You can also attack with your Overlord and use spells to kill/enslave the populace, but most of your time will be spent ordering your minions to commit devilish acts. I can't overstate enough how much personality is put into the minions- it's as if you took all of the best parts from the Gremlins franchise and mashed it up with the sense of humor displayed in the classic Dungeon Keeper games. They're sinfully delightful to behold.

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Tags: 2 player co-op overlord ii

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Reader Comments

ShadokatRegn at 12:03 AM on 8.4.2009

Well...it sounds like the single player game hit the nail on the head. But, once again, the co-op falls short...still may have to do it anyway.

Zonf86 at 04:27 AM on 8.4.2009

I loved the game - mind you I loved the first one too. Still *some* issues with the camera, but I forgive them for that. The minions had me smiling for most of the game

'Hewwo Spidey!'

Co-op wasn't so good in either... but introducing it to the true main campaign would be a great addition to Overlord 3 - which better get released in the future. Or else.

txshurricane at 11:58 AM on 8.4.2009

Darn it. For the sake of the people that liked the first Overlord, I wanted this to be great.

pheriannath at 12:12 PM on 8.4.2009

Well Jim, it IS great. Just not as a co-op title, which is just unfortunate.

ShadokatRegn at 12:31 PM on 8.4.2009

I agree with the single player is great aspects; the demo that I played was the first game, with a few tweaks and improvements. The one thing that REALLY bothered me about the first game was the lack of any sort of map.

Don't give me the "you're a girl, so you need directions" bit, either. Every person (guys and girls alike) I talked to that played the first game got horribly lost fairly often - especially in the forest.

With this one, I was worried that making a co-op mode would be incomplete, and it looks like it was...there will hopefully be next time for them to do real co-op, though!

hedgehogaj at 12:49 PM on 8.4.2009

I could say "you're a gamer, so you need directions" .

I do think we've all gotten too used to having guides in games like this though. The problem with Overlord 1 is that it lacks a map AND landmarks.

txshurricane at 02:14 PM on 8.4.2009

For someone who enjoys single-player games as much as co-op games, that's good. But for many, the lackluster co-op will seal the deal. Myself, I don't even find interest in games that are themed outside of my tunnel vision unless they have good co-op. This is one of them, and I was kinda wishing for a reason to be interested.

Total Comments: 7

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