Little devils

by ERIK LEIJON

Since Peter Molyneux’s Populous in 1989, there have been dozens of games where the player adopts the role of a god. If games are about living out impossible dreams, then being an omnipotent ruler has to be near the top of the list. Who wouldn’t get a kick out of ransacking a town or destroying valuable crops and livestock on a whim?

Overlord: Raising Hell (PS3/Codemasters, Triumph)—an expansion on the 2007 strategy/adventure game—satisfies these innate desires in a unique way. Instead of barking orders from a cloud, the overlord character comes down to a medieval-epoch earth with a gang of miniature demons to terrorize the lowly mortals in person.

The overlord, who looks like a demon in shining armour and walks without nearly enough frames of animation, can summon and order hordes of tiny monsters (referred to as minions). When it comes to god games, it’s always the medieval serfs who get abused and tortured at the hands of a god they worship unconditionally.

MORTAL MASHER:
Overlord: Raising Hell

In this case, there’s an impressive balance system to Overlord, where he must occasionally kill humans and commit random acts of evil in order to develop certain spells. The overlord is also in the process of building a massive tower in his honour, and his actions will be reflected in the ever-growing palace.

Although a real-time strategy game at heart, ordering around minions is designed to be simple enough for consoles—like a hellbent Pikmin. Alternating between different minion types and magic attacks takes a few moments but the action moves at a sensible pace. The minions are pretty smart and will attack nearby enemies or loot houses without being prompted. With battles involving dozens of friends, foes and random third-parties, occasionally the auto-target button does more harm than good since the game tends to lock onto the wrong targets in especially busy areas.

Massive battles also expose certain problems surrounding the camera. The manual camera adjuster is difficult to use since the right analog’s primary function is to direct the minions, while the L1 auto-lock only works if the Overlord is pointed in the right direction.

There’s a surprising amount of depth to Overlord considering it’s a console-friendly strategy game. Similar to Battlefield: Bad Company (which I reviewed last week), dying isn’t a huge deal because your character respawns with none of his progress reversed. In Overlord, if your character dies halfway through a battle, he’ll return to his tower, but can warp almost immediately back into the action with his fallen enemies unable to respawn.

Although a handy feature for the time-constrained, it largely removes the fear of failure from the game. If anything, it encourages players to jump into battles head first, absorb massive casualties, then return later to pick off any bad guys still breathing. With more games being developed with multiplayer in mind, the rules on respawning are becoming cloudier.

E3 fallout

So this year’s E3 was an even smaller shell of last year’s show (which in turn was a shell of its former self two years ago), but despite the lack of jaw-dropping announcements, there were some developments concerning a few already known titles.

Sony’s puzzle/action/customization game LittleBigPlanet will be released later this year, and looks to bridge the gap between old-fashioned gameplay, mutliplayer cooperation and user-created content in one graphically sharp package.

EA’s Mirror’s Edge is bringing parkour action in a modern setting with a twist—as a first-person action game. It’s ambitious and looks incredible. Mirror’s Edge should be released in 2008, in addition to a six-issue DC comics special explaining the game’s backstory.