Here I stand, peasants. Ready to unleash my demonic throngs of minions so I can rule this pathetic, fertile land.

That’s what I like to say every time I boot up Overlord. This game is plain, ol’ fashioned fun! The premise is that you are an overlord that is woken up by like gremlin type creatures. These little guys provide a lot in the way of humor as well as destruction. You have the ability to send out these little minions to do your bidding. As they are busy rampaging, they will return to you with their spoils. Or, if they happen to find themselves some makeshift weapons, they will gladly outfit themselves followed with some witty commentary.

In an effort to not give away too much of the game, you are in charge of a total of four different groups of minions (there are the stronger fighters, and then the fire/water/poison minions) that you must unlock as you advance throughout the “world”. I quoted world because it mainly of consists of different stages, not a traditional open roam experience that you would expect. To me, this is ok, as I wasn’t necessarily focused on a roaming experience, more on the interaction between myself, the surroundings, and the minions.

Which gets to my next point. The minion controls are solid with the ability to send out the minions of your choice with merely a push of a button. You can also send out all your minions or post them in a strategic position with ease. Calling them back is also a one button operation, which is very helpful when dealing with enemies from all angles. Your amount of minions also increases as you advance. This gives you the ability to take many different combinations of minions.  Accruing additional minions is as easy as going back through early levels and killing off sheep or small creatures. Once a creature is attacked, the minions will grab the life force which, in turn, goes into your stock of minions. This is great as there are some enemies that will take several minions to get through, so there is never a worry of running out!

Speaking of minions, you can also use them to upgrade your armor and weapons. You can increase your own skills by sacrificing different amounts of the four minions. This adds to the strategy a bit as you don’t want to kill off an entire section of minions while increasing your personal stats.

You also determine how “good or bad” of an overlord you become. You have several choices throughout the game that helps determine the fear level that the peasants have of you. In this round, I am choosing to be a generous bad overlord. I shall play it once more as an evil emperor once I am finished.

The one negative is the camera controls. While you do need all of the xbox buttons to move and control your minions, i find the lack of decent camera control for your overlord to be hindering. Many times, you can be attacked from the blindside and not have a real understanding why or who’s attacking you. With that said, it doesn’t happen enough to take away from the game, just enough to be a pain in the behind.

So my overall for this is 4.75/5. I enjoy the “evil Pikmin” aspect and I think that there’s a lot of fun just going through the levels and creating 100’s of minions. Plus, the thought of sending others out to act out my evilness is always a plus to me! I’m just waiting now for some friends to get this game so I can check out the online multiplayer!