MERCH!
Giant Bomb - a website about video games and the people that make them

Fun Game That Outweighs The Flaws

Published June 28, 2009
4 out of 5 starsScore: 80/100

SHORT AND SWEET: In Overlord 2 you play as a evil dude who has minions to do his evil deeds the game does have some pretty annoying issues about checkpoints and where to put them, also some camera issues however I think the atmosphere, story-line, core-gameplay and dialog more than make up for the faults of this game, to me those things are what set this game apart from the rest of the pack buy this game if you dont frustrated easily and enjoy  RPGs like Fable.

LONG REVIEW SOME FACTS WITH PROS AND CONS
FACTS:
MULTIPLAYER:
2 player split-screen or online its not very fun and feels very tacked on its cool to try out and if you wanna take a break from the single player its pretty ok distraction but dont think of it as a full-mode
LENGTH : about a solid 20 hours you might be able to cut it to 16 if you knew exactly where everything was and ignored some side missions and never went back to get more crystals/gold/dint want to craft anything to get all the achievements you need to at least play through it twice

CONS:

  • can be vey very frustrating at times however if you play pretty carefully you should be fine the problem is the fact that some parts the check points are really really far back forcing you to replay it, however to avoid this problem you just need to know your limits dont try and rush in with your guy because you will die use your minions. SO PLEASE DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME IF YOU GET FRUSTRATED VERY EASILY YOU WILL HATE THIS GAME
  • magic to me is pretty underpowered and not much variety its also a little strange to control in the first game you select spells using the  d-pad in contrast overlord 2 uses a combo system so if u want to cast an area of effect fire spell you would hold down x then hold down LB for a little while until its charged and the release it this makes it pretty confusing and a little annoying. However what you come to realize that holding down X on a target which zaps them to death and upgraded to max is really very proficient at killing enemies one at a time pretty quickly but overall its disappointing the game couldn't have a simpler way of using spells and some other spells are pretty bad IMHO.
  • some achievements and tasks are either impossible because there is some glitch or are really pretty hard. For example two of the quests involve enslaving or killing two towns in the game. Which doesn't sound hard but for the fact that these towns have 100 people in them and you cant just send your minions and tell them "kill everything" you yourself have to go to every single person a 100 times once i realized that i was like "nope not going to do that" those two tasks are not required for you to finish the game its just an achievement and its in your quest log but still its annoying the developers coudnt find a better way of doing this.
  • the camera can get annoying however i dint find this to be huge issue since u just need to tap RB to center it back up

 

So far your probably wondering where the good of the game is lol, here it is:

PROS:

  • The addition of a mini-map is great and it really helps from the first overlord
  • being able to sacrifice your minions at any time to regain health instead of going to shrines like in the first game is great
  • the dialog to me is pretty funny stuff not huge LOL but still pretty good stuff its still refreshing to see a game be funny as the bombcast has said its hard to be funny in video games and I think this is one of the few games that does it
  • The graphics are pretty good landscapes are pretty impressive many many people will tell you about the frame-rate problems while that is true i would add that the environments are much more detailed this time around and to me the frame-rate drops arent too noticeable in an otherwise pretty gorgeous game
  • The core gameplay of having four minion types and tactically moving them across a battle filed against many different type of foes is really really fun using your red minion as long range and using your brown minions as tanks etc.... is really pretty sweet stuff with the addition of mounts it makes the game all the more enjoyable
  • the atmosphere of the game to me is very unique playing a pretty evil guy is fun and I really enjoy pillaging and destroying areas and having Mistresses its a lot of fun
  • You can also spend hours upoun hours of this game pimping out your overlord just trying to farm certain enemies who drop certain crystals and getting the gold and stuff to pimp out your tower and the forging of new weapons and armor is more useful than the first game it can go on for a long time complestionist people will play this game for a long long time 
  • Your new base the Dark Tower is I would argue the best part of Overlord 2 way more detailed than the tower in the first Overlord it makes you feel very badass to be in this hell-fire place with many sub-rooms and with the addition of collectible items that are actually hidden around your tower you have a reason to look around your tower

The views here are this user’s only and are not representative of Giant Bomb's thoughts and opinions on the discussed video game. GB's official reviews reside at giantbomb.com/reviews.