I have a friend who really likes The Lord of the Rings, and for a long time I could never quite figure out why. He dislikes fantasy in general, and seeing how the works of J. R. R. Tolkien pretty much birthed modern fantasy literature, his affection for it has always seemed odd. A few years back the two of us went to the Museum of Science in Boston where they had a special exhibit displaying many of the props used in the three Lord of the Rings films. Close to the center of the room was a raised platform crafted to resemble a rocky edifice. In the middle of the platform was a towering model of the Eye of Sauron, and standing next to it was an even more towering replica of the man himself. "Remember when you asked me why I liked The Lord of the Rings?" my friend said. Motioning up at the grim, mace wielding monstrosity standing before us he stated, "That's why." Then he climbed up on the pedestal, grabbed the mace from Sauron's gauntleted hand, and bashed me over the head with it before being tasered into submission by security guards. At least that's what I'm told. My memory of that whole year is a little hazy.

   As much as all of us Tolkien fans claim to have been rooting for Frodo and his noble companions as they fought against impossible odds to save the world, I think if we were forced to become a Tolkien character, most of us would pass on becoming midgets with furry feet and instead choose the eight-foot-tall, evil, omniscient demi-god. There's something innately attractive about evil, no matter how much some of us might deny it. Sauron is big, he's strong, and he seems to hold all the cards. Developer Triumph Studios clearly recognized this and decided to make a game about it. Sure, Overlord doesn't have any actual connections to The Lord of the Rings, but just look at the cover. The character designers obviously took their inspiration for the Overlord from Peter Jackson's depiction of Sauron. And by, "took their inspiration," I mean, "outright stole the design."

What kind of wages do you think an evil minion earns?

   Overlord opens with the titular character being resurrected some time after he was slain by a group of heroic adventurers who also, as an added courtesy, looted and destroyed his tower. As he is an evil overlord, the first order of business is vengeance! Well, actually, the first order of business is restoring some degree of functionality to the tower. Just because he's evil doesn't mean he is not practical. Regardless, he can't go it alone, so he needs some minions. After all, without minions he wouldn't be so much an evil overlord, but more just a lone jerk. By standing near special magical holes (that some Sauron-like figure had undoubtedly crapped into in some dark, distant past), the Overlord is capable of drawing forth a number of small, gremlin-like minions that will do his bidding, and properly utilizing these little buggers is pretty much the crux of the entire game. While the player has direct control over the Overlord, he will use the minions to do most of his dirty work. This customarily boils down to having them slaughter his pathetic enemies and destroy their dwellings, but the minions will also be needed to recover treasure and solve various puzzles. Good thing they are stupid, violent, and selflessly loyal to their master. Sort of like Young Republicans. The player can control masses of the minions directly with the left thumbstick, or he can lock onto targets and send a specific number of minions towards them.

   For a while, controlling your tiny horde of minions is a pretty engaging gimmick. Expanding the developer's homage to copyright infringement of The Lord of the Rings, the game's first level is a pretty spot-on replica of the Shire, complete with fat little halflings scurrying about. And as the opening areas of the game are pretty slow-paced, they ease the player into the action, giving him plenty of visceral thrills as his squad of merciless hellions swarms over the nearly helpless halfling fighters, minces them into hobbit stew, burns their houses, and then comes dashing out the front door with all the valuables. However, as the game progresses further things fall apart faster than a high school romance where the lovers go off to separate colleges.

He's a hands-on kind of guy.

Harder to control than my own bowels.

   The game's other major failing is its control scheme. As is sometimes the case with Microsoft console games, Overlord really feels like it should have just been a PC title. It's easy enough to accomplish basic tasks with the minions, but as soon as enemies require more strategy than the old "wild-minion-head-on-charge", the frustration begins. Trying to select a handful of your minions, particularly when they're all of the same variety, simply isn't intuitive, and the few seconds the player will spend fumbling with buttons will usually cost a dozen minions their lives. Enemies in Overlord move very fast, and while the minions are capable fighters when they're organized, a surprise enemy assault always results in heavy casualties. Maybe that was intentional. Minions' lives are clearly cheap, as demonstrated by the fact that you can command minions to do suicide cannonballs into magic fountains to regain health, or into your forge to strengthen your equipment. But there usually will be very apparent ways to get through most sections with minimal casualties. The problems arise when the player attempts to execute any of these strategies and the controls simply aren't up to the task.

   For example, water is fatal to all but one type of minion. Whenever attempting to direct minions around bodies of water, a handful will always ignorantly toddle to their soggy deaths, and attempting to pull these few back from the brink of suicide always results in many more falling in. It was like lifeguarding at the summer camp all over again. This is really irritating, since in several areas the player must cross water repeatedly.

   If that example wasn't convincing enough, I shall graciously supply another. A few sections of the game require the player to position snipers to attack an airborne foe while simultaneously defending those same snipers with melee fighters. If the player sets the snipers up first they'll always get haplessly slaughtered by enemies while he fumbles with the controls in a vain effort to coordinate the melee guys. If he simply attacks with the melee fighters the enemies will respawn endlessly, never allowing him the chance to set up the snipers. The only way I ever discovered to get through sections like this was to simply grind enemies in other areas to accumulate the resources to spawn tons of minions, then simply swarm the area. It felt sloppier than a kiss from a sixty-seven-year-old maiden aunt, but trying to win strategically always found me on the ass end of an ass kicking.

Oh disappointment, why must your taste be ever on my tongue?

   The rest of the package does little to salvage the rather tedious gameplay. The graphics are decent but not spectacular. The character designs are pleasant, but they also pretty much adhere to fantasy stereotypes. Dwarves are short, armored, and bearded. Elves are tall, slender, and pale. Halflings look like tiny, fat, barefoot, 19th century English folk. The music is in pretty much the same boat, being made up of predominantly epic-sounding orchestral stuff that flares in intensity when you fight bosses, but does little to distinguish itself from similar music in any other fantasy title. And the voice acting is decent but not fantastic. Overall the game just felt disappointing. I mean, a video game that pokes fun at high fantasy cliches while letting you control a horde of rampaging goblin-things should have been awesome. As it is, it's playable, but it's certainly not one game to rule them all.

       ... Mike Zeller