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Roderick

Overlord

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So I finally have my Xbox 360 and it hasn't yet exploded, and this weekend I got a few games for it in the bargain bin. Splinter Cell: Double Agent and Overlord.

I've been playing a bit of Overlord and it's great! I love the extremely detailed landscapes with a lot to see and interesting winding roads everywhere. I don't mind at all that the areas themselves are small, because this way the developers were able to really make everything interesting and 'designed'. No kilometers of samey landscape like in the huge worlds of most MMO's. At the same time, it surprises me how tricky it can be to find out where you're supposed to go next or what to do. The game is rather linear and the areas as I said small, but still I got stuck multiple times during my five-or-so hours of play. I like it; it poses a challenge.

I also like that there's no map. Let me explain that, because it does have its drawbacks. Of course it's less convenient to navigate and you'll get lost a few times when you enter a new area. But the effect is that you feel a lot more involved, the world feels far more alive, breathing, bigger than it really is. It usually bugs me in games that feature a good map that I spend far too much time looking at it. It makes a game more abstract. The world itself becomes iconized and smaller, because you see on the map exactly how it runs and where it ends. The illusion is broken. This is particularly true for a game like Oblivion, where there's actually gameplay on the map (teleportation), completely ruining any sense of scale and exploration. But the areas in Overlord force you to explore them on your own and make a mental map of them based on the way roads run and landmarks. It's trickier in the beginning, but endlessly more satisfying in the end. It won't be suitable for any game, but I say; let games be less dependent on maps!

Of course, there are some problems with Overlord. The game falls just short of reaching Nintendo levels of smoothness; with some puzzles getting not enough hints so you don't know what to do, and some weird pacing issues (I had to skip back and forth between two areas with a completely different atmosphere and quests to finish them both, which feels very jarring and contrived). The controls are surprisingly smooth if you look at the amount of stuff and micromanagement you can and have to do, but they can still befuddle you in a hectic situation, requiring far more deliberate thinking than is allowed at some moments. The game makes up for these nibbles plentifully though, with its heaps and piles of charm and little touches like your minions picking up just about anything and using it as weaponry and armour.

And I just went into a forest filled with dead, incredibly emo elves lamenting just about everything about their existence in overwrought, pretentious oneliners. Delicious satire! :clap:

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I just went from not having heard about this game to definitely getting it, exclusively (but not only) because of this:

I love the extremely detailed landscapes with a lot to see and interesting winding roads everywhere. I don't mind at all that the areas themselves are small, because this way the developers were able to really make everything interesting and 'designed'.

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I played and really enjoyed the demo, but not enough for me to go out and drop a bunch of cash on it while scrimping for university. After getting tuition out of the way, I'd mostly forgotten about my intention to check this game out. If, as you say, it's made it's way to the bargain bins, now may be the time. Thanks for the refresher!

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I don't know if it's on sale everywhere. I got it for 25 Euros at a local gameshoppe that wanted to clear out its stock. Wasn't exactly a national chain thing. Still, it seems now is the time ;)

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They should put that on the box.

"... not even a complete waste of time."

- Some guy on the internet

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I liked Overlord. Played it on the PC. The whole castle decorating thing was useless. A nice feature of Overlord is that you can always return to the places you previously visited.

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Wow, I don't even remember him doing that. I'll check it again as soon as I've finished it.

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Sorry that was taken out context I was replying to the previous comment about Jericho.

Overlord as far as I can see has had nothing but good things said about it. Though not many people bought it. I accidentally threw my copy away when I moved countries. Feel a bit stupid for doing that as I hadn't even played it.

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Apparently, Overlord was on the top of the charts in Germany for a while. And I was thinking about that; are there any charts that confirm that the game performed better in Europe than in the States? For some reason, despite it broad-appeal Fable-like atmosphere, the game feels very 'European' in its sense of humour and theme. That sort of self-mocking fantasy satire.

And of course, playing the bad guy is what Europeans always want to do. For the Horde! We'll leave the Alliance to you Yankees ;)

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I bought it and didn't like it. The demo had a kind of humor and charm that didn't really persist after the opening segment of the game (especially after the elf part Rodi was talking about). It got very gamey in its mission goals/structure and had no story.

I was hoping for something similar to "Armed and Dangerous" in terms of story/witty-banter/gameplay balance. Overlord was much drier. I couldn't finish it.

Still, an honest effort.

EDIT: By "drier" I didn't mean dry humor. I meant parched. Barren. Waste-landesque.

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Was Armed and Dangerous worth it in the end? I played through the demo when it first came out and loved it from the moment a robotic knight and a giant mole waddled onto the screen and the words "Based on a true story." came up, but I never went out and bought it, probably because my computer was utter crap at the time. Is it worth picking up now?

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Was Armed and Dangerous worth it in the end? I played through the demo when it first came out and loved it from the moment a robotic knight and a giant mole waddled onto the screen and the words "Based on a true story." came up, but I never went out and bought it, probably because my computer was utter crap at the time. Is it worth picking up now?

I'm not sure if it holds up. I remember at the time I thought it was very funny (RemiO's mojo review was very positive, you could read that for a better idea of what its like); I'm sure the actual action-gameplay element of the game is just standard fare.

You can probably find it for 4 or 5 dollars, so I would say give it a play.

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I loved Armed and Dangerous a whole lot. It was added in the last BC update for 360, so that's probably your best bet for playing it now, as I find that old games look and play better on console than on PC for whatever reason. I played it on PC back when it first came out and giggled my way through the whole thing. The levels themselves play out very similarly to the MECC levels from Giants: Citizen Kabuto, which is very tolerable but nothing special. The cutscenes on the other hand will keep you moving from level to level and enjoying the game. Given how many of them there are, it's totally worth it.

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Today I heard there were some showstopper bugs in Overlord, so I went online to see if there was a way to avoid them. The PC version is patched, but they're still working on the 360 update. It seems the two biggest problems are a glitch where you can't progress if you leave some specific area in the middle of a puzzle (which I'll never experience because I compulsively clean out every area before leaving it) and apparently some part where your savegames can be deleted. But I couldn't find any specific information on that, on why it happened and where, so it could be just a rumour.

I'm now over 10 hours in, and I'm still enjoying it. I can see there isn't much of a story, but that's not really a problem for me. I rightly perceived the game as having more of a 'narrative setting' rather than a real narrative. One thing that slightly annoys me is that there are many situations that are set up for a strategic use of your minions, but it's far too easy to accidentally slip up everything into a chaotic brawl. I understand that it was a compromise they had to do lest the game would have been too complex to control with all the micromanagement, but it is a pity that some potential is lost.

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I've finished the game at 30-odd hours. Near the end it seems like the game gets a little bit sloppy, it could have used a trifle more polish, but it never detracts from the charm. Overlord then, despite its rich settings and well-designed micro-management ideas, remains a diamond in the rough on exactly the areas that other, often uninspiring games, do get right. That, when you defeat a boss, you get a satisfying climax with good audio. Things like that. Overlord is a bit crude in those respects, but it really makes up for it with massive charm.

The ending may have been a bit unpolished; the ride was fun throughout. Never a boring minute.

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