Overlord 2

Charm, it's a difficult concept, what can be hilarious, entertaining and absorbing to one person, can be irritating and off-putting to others. Overlord 2 is a game that desperately wants to be charming, the only problem is that it relies so heavily on it's style and humour that it has the potential to alienate certain people before they even get far into the game.

Overlord 2 sees you playing as a dark lord with the character development of a red shirt, who is going out to rule the world for no other reason than to prove how much of a bastard he is. To do this he enlists an army of multicoloured minions to do his bidding.In doing so he'll come up against the armies of a Roman style empire in between subjegating poor simple folk to his will. The style is disturbingly close to Fable 2, from the cartoonish look to the folksy ye olde English language and humour. Given that you start as a child in a snowy village in both games, it's a miracle that Lionhead have not yet sued.

Most of the game will see you rampaging across various multicoloured levels, using your different classes of minions (fighting, fire, stealth etc.) to cut through any opposition. These are controlled by a simple, if unrefined targeting and movement system. While you can split your minions up for more coordinated attacks, a simple mass assault with all your followers is by far the quickest and easiest tactic. The downside to this is that the game quickly becomes formulaic and repetitive - often at the detriment of any real fun. The worst thing however is that both the movement of your minions and the camera are assigned to the right analogue stick, meaning that you often have no control over either. It's frustrating and goes a long way to spoiling the game. The bright spark who made this control decision quite honestly needs to taken  out and hung from the nearest gibbet.

The odd stealth section (tm) and focus on simple enjoyment do improve the game somewhat, and the fact it encourages you to massacre baby seals is alone enough to get it some credit in my books. The problem is however that Overlord 2, for all its options, simply lacks the depth to prove itself a worthwhile way to spend twenty odd hours. While you can upgrade your dark lord, who begins the game looking like a poor mans Sauron, there really isn't that much point. The same goes for chasing magic upgrades or collecting wenches, the rewards really are not all that satisfying. More over, many of the levels feel needlessly stretched and convulted, getting lost is far too easy and you will quickly tire of having the same few fights over and over and over.

Whether you enjoy Overlord 2 or not will really depend on how much you like the humour. Some people, particularly younger children, will find it fun and enjoyable, both random and crass enough to earn a degree of charm. The voice acting is well done and while the graphics are not massively impressive, they have a nice athestic. The thing is though, many others, may find the writing to be rather hackneyed and predictable to the point that no matter how hard the voice actors try, the lines themselves simply are not funny. If you don't find this game funny then you'll quickly find that the mechanics lack the depth to keep to playing for long. In the end it's all about what you find charming.