Overlord II (PlayStation 3)

Well things didn’t go so well for the Overlord at the end of Overlord: Raising Hell. Although he managed to defeat the final boss and claim hell itself for his vast empire, the Jester once again crossed his plans and doomed him to forever be trapped down there. But was it really the end of the Overlord? Not really. He may be gone (for now) but he left something behind: his son, the Overlad. Smuggled to the icy lands of Nordberg, he managed to grow up in peace until his evil instincts surfaced and he was found by the Empire. Although he managed to escape, he fell into ice water and was doomed to freeze to death. But not to worry: Minion-master Gnarl finds his new master and after 50 years frozen solid it’s finally time for vengeance upon the Glorious Empire and its leaders.

This time setting up shop in the Netherworld, the player takes over the control of the Overlad from a 3rd-person-perspective in order to reclaim the lands. To help him with that task he has once again access to four different types of minions: browns, reds, greens and blues. While the browns are good melee-fighters, the greens are immune to poisonous gas and the blues can swim. This comes in handy for the player to overcome the many obstacles in his way like angry elves and legion soldiers or burning road-blocks which can only be removed by the reds. Again the minions increase their strength by collecting helmets and stuff from dead enemies or broken chests. The Overlad can also increase his strength by finding new spells, armor and weapons and forging the latter in return for a minion-sacrifice in his tower. New this time around is the option to resurrect fallen but valuable minions as well as the ability of the minions to ride mounts like wolves, giving them access to new skills like jumping over obstacles and such. Also new: at specific points the Overlad can take direct control of one of his minion and by doing so access areas that were unreachable before.

The game also features a multiplayer-mode for two players over LAN, WAN and thanks to split-screen even on one machine in which they can either work together to survive wave after wave of enemies or kill a very powerful Centurion or fight each other and win by collecting enough gold or killing the other Overlord enough times.