Overlord II was first officially announced on 14 August 2008 alongside the Nintendo spin-offs Dark Legend and Minions with the intentions to massively increase the scope of the original concept. It was released on 23 June 2009 to North America, 26 June 2009 to Europe and on 9 July 2009 to Australia, along side two spin-offs, Overlord: Dark Legend and Overlord: Minions. Overlord II was developed by Triumph Studios and published by Codemasters. Overlord II is the sequel to the 2007 video game Overlord and falls under the genre of third person action-adventure with an ESRB rating of T for Teens. It borrows the core gameplay from the previous Overlord game, with the player controlling the Overlord character in a third-person perspective who has command over hordes of small goblin-like creatures known as minions to travel the landscape and defeat various civilizations with the Roman-style “Glorious Empire” being the prime enemy. In addition to that single-player campaign, players also have the option to play various multiplayer modes online and offline, both competitive and cooperative. Among some of the competitive modes include Dominate where rival player Overlord attempts to capture sections of the map and in Pillage where the hunt for land is replaced by large portions of treasure. On the other hand, cooperative mode sees player overlords working together to either defend against a constant onslaught in Survival and attack powerful foes in Invasion.
Reviews
Overlord II is a demon-controlling adventure in which the little minions from the previous instalment have learnt to operate machinery, wear disguises, sail the open seas, ride mounts and get possessed by their evil master, as well as develop an uncanny talent for attacking baby seals, making Overlord II a more varied experience than the first game. It retains the gleeful maliciousness of the series but still has the tendency to cause frustration as the in-game camera is still shaky, targeting is spotty, and the minions apt to do some very dumb things.
“Overlord, an original game by Codemasters, won over fans with its creative blend of humor and Pikmin-style gameplay and then went on to sell over a million copies. The call for a sequel was heard loud and clear and now Triumph Studios is hard at work with the title due out in 2009 for Xbox 360, PS3 and Games for Windows PC. To go along with this announcement, Codemasters has also revealed Overlord Dark Legend for Wii and Overlord Minions for DS. Overlord II, was said to “massively increases the scope of the original concept,” according to Lennart Sas, director and Overlord lead at Triumph Studios. The game introduces a new Overlord, hinted at in the final scene of Overlord: Raising Hell, for a clash between him and a Roman-inspired empire which has plans to root out all magic and take over the world. The game moves beyond the fantasy realm of the first to something closer to our own, allowing the game’s humor and satire to hit closer to home. Politics, environmental issues and more are up for parody in this game, though we wouldn’t be surprised if a fart joke or two slip in. The first Overlord game relied on a gameplay mechanic where you directly controlled the overlord who then orders around small legions of minions to solve puzzles and attack enemies. This style of game returns, but is expanded and improved for the sequel. Sas tells us that, “from the Netherworld you rise to gather an army of loyal Minions that are more destructive and much smarter than before — now they can do even more things for their master; such as riding mounts, using war machines and sailing warships in world-changing battles.” He also told us the team has “greatly improved” the controls and visuals to make the game even more attractive to a broad audience.” (IGN, 2009)
