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Nintendo: Wii Reviews

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Review

Overlord: Dark Legend

65%

Format Nintendo Wii

Developer Climax Entertainment

Publisher Codemasters

Genre Action, Sim / Strategy

26-Jun-2009 Do bad guys really have all the fun?

21 Comments

On a scale of one to ten, with ten being absolute, world-destroying evil and one being sticking chewing gum under a bus seat, wrecking your sister's room - as happens at the start of this game - hovers at around a 1.5. In Overlord terms, that's really rather reserved, even if the act was conducted using an axe the size of your head.

Yet every great hero (or for this matter, villain) starts from humble beginnings to achieve greatness, and Overlord: Dark Legend takes its time to flesh out your path from avenging sibling to Destroyer of All. That entails setting the world to order before you start tearing it all down again. This part-action, part-RTS fantasy adventure keys into that childish joy where destruction is just as much fun as (and as much an integral part of) the painstaking construction of something beautiful.

Not So Happily Ever After The titular overlord starts off as a princely whelp who inherits his late uncle's armour and the ability to control a legion of goblin-like creatures known as minions. As the player, you must control the two simultaneously, commanding the minions to attack enemies, fetch items, or pull levers as you clear the surrounding lands of troublesome Halflings, deep-voiced Tooth Fairies and even a slightly creepy Gingerbread Man.

It's a dark, humorous twist on traditional fairy tale creatures, channelling Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas rather than Dreamworks' Shrek. Yet it retains a humour that's quaintly and amusingly English, such as the section where you are charged with shepherding a familiar red-hooded girl through a wolf-filled forest to her grandmother's house.
That forest stroll underscores the problems that stop Overlord from mounting the Throne of Gaming Greatness. The control and camera systems force you to start uttering some phrases that you'd never find in a Lewis Carroll or Tolkien tome.

Those camera problems first. Lil' Hood turns out to be a flesh-eating Wolf Queen and draws you into one of the first (and annoying) boss encounters. The camera locks onto the beast as it charges around a circular cavern. Great, but there is no manual-unlock. Instead, you're required to hold the C button and pan the camera around manually with the Remote. With the camera hovering close to your back you're blindsided from dodging any attacks.

I Cannae Control Her M'Lord
As for the controls, let us first ask you this. Try and pat your head while rubbing your belly. A little bit tricky? That's what's required when controlling both the minions and overlord at the same time. You have to cycle through the different minion types with the D-pad, sweep the Remote while holding B to make them charge, and tap A to call them back.

For much of the game it works okay, but it doesn't hold up when more complex commands are required. Creating a Minion Marker that'll send your chosen minions to a designated point is easy enough, but having to deselect the minions by highlighting the marker first, whilst you're avoiding enemy attacks, and trying to command another set of minions to launch a flank attack? It gets twitchy and irritating far too quickly.

Case in point is another boss encounter, requiring you to send a lone minion to pick up a rocket, direct it underneath a flying witch, then launch the projectile at the witch to knock her off her broomstick so you can duly whallop her good and proper. We haven't mentioned that she's throwing exploding cakes at you that you need to dodge. As you move, the camera tracks you, but doesn't pull back enough to keep your minion in view.

To make matters worse, the witch is pirouetting in quick figure-of-eight motions. Although the on-screen instructions detail how to control a single minion and pick up the rocket, it hasn't told you how to launch the damn thing. A fight that should have been enjoyable dissolves into a 20 minute argument with Remote, with television, and anything or anyone else that comes into your line of vision.

It spoils what is for the most part an engaging and funny fantasy adventure. Boss encounters and large-scale combat are supposed to test your gameplaying skills. Not test how quickly you can grind your teeth down to stumps. Do the overlord and his gang all live happily ever after? You might not have the patience to find out...

Tom East