Overlord: Raising Hell – PS3 – Review

In a world ravaged by evil, you are an overlord.
As the king of the darkest, creepiest creatures in the land, you command their
strength like the mother of all minions. Their power, as luck would have it,
is that of fire, water, stealth and brutality. These evil buggers are ready
and willing to fulfill your every destructive desire.

Players are used to video games with graphic
themes, even those with a comedic twist such as those offered here. But it’s
what Overlord: Raising Hell does inside the game that makes it so much more
than the average thrash-everything medieval adventure. And it’s all thanks to
real-time strategy combat, whose moves, character formation, button layout and
gameplay executions are nearly identical to Pikmin, the undervalued GameCube
hit.

But Overlord wasn’t designed to meet the “all
ages” criteria found in most Nintendo games. Its dark themes and
anything-but-friendly atmosphere are so aggressive that the average Pikmin-hater
(and especially those who haven’t played it) may not even notice the
incredible similarities.

Console-Made

There’s a reason why most RTS games suck on
consoles: they were originally developed for PC. Even with the greatest
gameplay and control tweaks, you still end up with a PC experience that’s
tailored for consoles.

While I can’t say for sure that the Overlord
series was envisioned as a console game from the start (the default camera
perspective and semi-stiff character movements are suspiciously similar to old
PC action games, making me skeptical), the final product most certainly was.
Most gamers won’t love the way the overlord controls but they’ll definitely
accept it. If you’ve played a hack-n-slash game then you know what to expect.
There’s just one catch: this is a strategy game, and the overlord is far from
the most important warrior on the battlefield.

Whether you like the overlord’s controls or
not, you will surely be engrossed by the stellar command of his allied units.
These minions are living, breathing freaks that attack and react simply but
seamlessly. With the tap of the R2 button, one minion runs straight into
combat. If there are no enemies to attack, he’ll look for something to destroy
– crates, plants, pumpkins, etc., anything at all that he can get his hands
on. When held, the R2 button sends your whole team into battle. They too will
seek out crates, unearth valuables, and carry large collectibles back to one
of the mysterious teleportation devices, which transports goods to the
overlord’s lair.

Gotta Collect ‘Em All

Once discovered, minions are obtained very
easily. Any living creature has a soul, and every soul corresponds to one of
the four minion types: brown, green, red and blue. Minions will pick up
wandering souls automatically, but you can use the overlord to grab them
manually if you wish. When at least one soul has been collected, players can
summon new minions from the fiery (or is that frothy? It’s hard to tell)
openings that form in multiple locations of each stage. Each soul is equal to
one minion. But only a certain number of minions can be summoned at one time.
As you likely guessed, that number rises with the game’s progression.

Before any minion can be summoned, however, it
must first be found. You start out with the brown team, a vicious bunch that’s
ready for action. They’re a great, well-round crew but lack the special
abilities of the other colors. Only red minions – who throw fireballs but are
weak at close combat – can walk through fire. Only blue minions – who cast
damaging spells and may resurrect fallen comrades – can swim. If this sounds
eerily close to that Nintendo game I mentioned, you’re not alone. If this
doesn’t sound familiar at all, you’re in for a moderate learning curve. Even
hardcore RTS fans will find something new to master, as Overlord has nothing
in common with any other strategy game except for you-know-who.

As leader of the minions, you won’t just order
them to fight and walk away. You’ll have to intervene often and keep a close
eye on things always. When narrow paths, low passageways or steep hills are
too much for the overlord to conquer (he says he’s not old but I think he’s
secretly a member of the AARP), players can sweep their minions anywhere they
please with the right analog stick. The minions move together in a giant
cluster, attacking enemies along the way. It’s a great move and is just as
seamless as the other minion controls.

Look Ma, No Camera!

But if the left analog stick controls the
overlord and the right analog stick controls your minions, that can only mean
one thing: you don’t have any control over the camera. Though it can be
snapped into place with a tap of the L1 button, the camera is generally stiff.
It’s not an unforgiving beast; you won’t lose a game because the viewing angle
wouldn’t cooperate. But given the game’s massive environments, attractive
graphics, and the large number of minions/enemies shoved onto the screen at
one time, I’m surprised the developers didn’t give us some sort of camera
control.

On the controller end it would have been easy;
to move the camera, players could theoretically hold a button before pushing
the right stick. That button would prevent the minions from moving, allowing
players to move the camera instead. But I suspect it was an issue far more
complex than that – one that Nintendo fought as well when designing Pikmin
(you can’t control its camera either).

Overlord is a quick RTS, and this new
PS3-exclusive edition offers split-screen play for two – a solid addition that
many will enjoy but no doubt be annoyed by the camera problems (which are
typically more noticeable when two games are thrown onto one screen).

“Happy Halloween!”

If you’re looking for things that Pikmin
doesn’t have, Overlord offers magic casting, multiple weapons for the overlord
and his minions, and a lead character that can actually participate in combat
(as opposed to Pikmin’s leader, who stands back while the Pikmin do all the
work). Overlord also lets you choose between being good or evil. Either way
you slice it, he’s an overlord and is still pretty bad. But when it comes to
everyday humans, you can choose to attack or let them live. The latter choice
may be worthwhile but remember: you can’t be a completely evil and revered
overlord without mindless bloodshed.

Review Scoring Details for Overlord: Raising Hell