Overlord II Review (PS3)

The game picks up a short while after the last - where the previous Overlord -  putting you in the shoes of a brand new antagonist. Controlling the Overlord essentially relies on issuing commands to your legion of Minions of whom will do your evil bidding whenever you should require it. There are a range of Minions to control; Browns are battlers, Reds throw fire, Blues can swim and Greens can stealth attack. Naturally you see the pattern that you'll need all of them to succeed certain puzzles/battles. You'll come up against a range of enemies in the world of Overlord, and while they're interesting in design, we couldn't shake off the fact that when the game was telling us we were evil, it felt more like we were saving the world against an even greater evil.

Overlord II has a pretty lengthy campaign and some online options.

Overlord II has a throwback sense of humour reminiscent of classics like Discworld and even Monty Python. There's a strong British feel to it that's represented via the charm of the universe and the comedy of the characters. The voice acting is actually really good and while it gets repetitive when phrases are repeated, it's hard not to smile when playing this game. The visuals may lack technical prowess but they make up for it in bags of style. The universe certainly won't be everyone's cup of tea, but we found it pleasantly refreshing.

Overlord II gives you a good sense of building an empire. While your deeds aren't always as dastardly as the game would like you to believe, it's pretty cool building up an army and customising your empire. You'll be able to level up your Minions, forge new weapons and much more in order to make your time in the battlefield more successful. If you really get into the game there's lots of fun to be had just by customising your army.

Overlord II takes some pretty hilarious stabs at various groups and stereotypes. The Roman empire are turned into an hilarious group of dumb warriors. The elves are homosexual PETA campaigners and the Minions are your stereotypical gravel voiced antagonists. The characters are comically designed and are brought to life by some excellent voice acting.

We're certain some people will find Overlord II kinda tedious. After all, we did. Controlling your Minions is pretty fun, but it gets so darn repetitive. You'll be flanking enemies, going on wild goose chases and generally moving from one seemingly never-ending objective to the next. It's dull and repetitive. The game does provide the odd breather from time to time by putting you at the helm of a battleship or behind the trigger of a Gatling gun, but you'll spend most of your time walking, holding R2 and pressing the X button. Thankfully you can pick and choose objectives when you like, although an unwieldy save system makes jumping between areas awkward.

Overlord II can be played in a third-person view or an isometric view. We found both unsatisfactory. Third-person means much of the battle field is obscured, where isometric makes the camera almost impossible to control. We actually found ourselves with a headache while playing this game.

Overlord II features a complete competitive multiplayer component which we'll cover in more detail when we've spent more time with it.