Overlord 2 review/discussion

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Overlord 2 is out and that means a review. or discussion if you like.

First the basic system requirements, right from the box:

CPU pentium d 3,4 gig
GPU Nvidia 6800 or Ati x1800xt

This is do-able for a lot of old pc's. The rest of the requirement are obvious: dx9, a harddrive you know the drill.

What is Overlord? It is something special. It is not a shooter or a rpg or an adventure. it is a type of game on its own.

What are the controls like? It is console based but with mouse and keyboard it is not bad. PC controls will not be a problem.

What must you do? You must control creatures trough a sort of obstacle course filled with dumm but very funny enemies. While walking trough towns, forest and other places you demolish everything that is there. Now end than puzzle's are place in your way. Some easy, some you need a walktrough for.

How is the combat? you steer gremlin/goblin style beasts to kill almost everything that moves by pointing and clicking with the mouse. Much can be demolished, almost everybody killed. The creatures do it in a fun way that keeps amusing you.

Enemies in the game: You get the creatures by killing ferocious beasts like Panda's or those wicked babyseals who are just asking for it. Fat mermaids, roman soldiers, hippie elves with ears a mile long, enormous fat priestesses etc etc. Fun Fun and Fun. Those drop life-force orbs that you need to summon more creatures.

Central hub: The easy central hub is used. It has a few things to do like housing a mistress, or several. The basic things like a forge, clothing cupboard. Looks nice but is simple in its use.

Item fever? No not really. upgrade you find in the landscpae but no item fever as we know it.

Replay-ability? No not really. Perhaps a year later.

Role playing? No. Perhaps a bit behind the comma.

Savegame: No. I repeat: No. it has autosave. Yes it means that you must redo the whole level if you get killed at the final yard before a savepoint. This system is terrible.

So much for a few basic facts. Now comes my gameplay impression. It is nice, addictive and fun but there are some major faults with the game. Non of those are linked with pc stability. The game is polished and has not crashed in days.

The problems for me are the savegames and things like what to do next, i have been running around for 2 hours and stil am not a step further.(If I quit the game I have to the whole thing again).

I give two examples. The first was in a temple complex that the romans used a lustparadise. I have been running around what to do next for 3 hours. looking for the last windlass to open a door. I cannot explain how much I adore those people on the net who make walktroughs. The ones on youtube are great.

Second is later on. I must place two keystone in sockets, so far easy. Even the ambushes. eventually it leads to the levelboss. if you quit you have to place the keystones again. So there I was blundering around at the levelboss an decide to check the walktrough. I am going to replace the keystone for the third time and hope not to die at the levelboss. Well I replaces the kestones and did the mopping up of small units to get to a semi-levelboss. No spoiler intedend so it took me a while. next a few small unita and the levelboss. That boss took me 45 min of nerve-wracking gameplay to find out, no savegame. I had to do 3 more mouse controlling sequences that failed a few times, bringing me back to the bottom. Savegame finally. 75 min of gameplay. if I would have failed at the last hurdle.....

My final thoughts about the game. Is it worth full price? No. Not the hard earned 50 euro. this is a 29,95 game. It still is fun though. But keep the walktroughs coming. Wiht out those I cannot end the game by myself.

I get angry from this kind of ****. Rant...

 

Thanks for the review. Had been thinking of picking it up some time, but if there's not a proper save-system, I'm now sure that I'll wait for the price to drop before getting it. Stuff like that is sure to annoy me, and probably will make me quit playing the game all together if it makes me loose hours worth of gameplay.

 

I just ha a mission to get the blue's. So there I was crawling to the mouse maze turning wheels and manipulating minions with the mouse. A few difficult things costing me half an hour but ok. Then the famous sweeping move again. You hold both mouse buttons pressed to steer tehm to a target zig zagging with average pathfinding. At a mere blink of an eye something happens, not both buttons are pressed, short combat and dead. 1,5 hours of gameplay gone.

Why? No(insert many bad words) savegame. The autosave is at the start of the level. 1,5 hours wasted, and I have to do it again. if I get killed by misclicking, I HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN, AND AGAIN.

I have a 80 euro mouse with 4000 dpi.

Pick this game up later when all the cheat codes and reviews are out. Games are made to relax, not to frustrate. This one frustrates to much to compensate for the good parts.

I still have half an hour left before it is time to sleep, being a working day. I cannot play the game since I know I will not get to the next savepoint in time.