Once again we enter the world of evil, this time to conquer Grenvale and the surrounding lands. Rhianna Pratchett was once again tapped to write the story and dialogue. While Overlord and Overlord 2 follow a direct descendant line and are a continuous story, here we follow a new Overlord, in a new time period.

The “Hero” of our story is Lord Gromgard third child of Duke Gromgard. A first name is never given to the overlord in game. Your older siblings simply refer to you as little brother. When the Story begins the duchy has fallen on hard times. Plot discussion, read at your own risk ▼

The previous ruler was the the DARK BARON. The Dark Baron also happened to be the previous Overlord. His downfall is a bit murky especially since the remaining family tried their best to remove all traces of the Baron from history. But in the quest to hide their shame they never learned how to run a kingdom. So the Duke leaves on a quest to find the riches he needs for his Duchy to survive. He returns in failure, so the Duchess leaves him for a neighbouring lord. The Duke sets out a second time on your 16th birthday. And here is where your adventure begins.

A mysterious package arrives, addressed to the Young Lord Gromgard. In it is a gauntlet. One that is easily recognizable by those who have played the series before. It gives him the power to open a secret throne room used by the Dark Baron. And in the throne room we meet our old friend Gnarl.

Gnarl: He was the First Minion, He Will be the Last Minion

So while you learn Overlording from Gnarl, your older twin siblings, have each left the castle. Your Brother goes to the Elven Kingdom and Your Sister to the Dwarven Kingdom. Each is raising an army to bring glory back to the family. Of course we can’t have competition. So as you quest around the Duchy you will eventually cause each sibling to think that the other has attacked them. Creating an unending blood feud between the Dwarves and Elves. After they get tired of the wars they return home to Castle Gromgard and are immediately enslaved by you. Who has already brought prosperity back to the Duchy ( Under the Heel of Your Boot, but Prosperous none the less.)

The story line and quests follow a fairy tale style and as you start the game at the age of 16, therefore making you a minor, there are no Mistresses to get in this version. Boooo!! And beng that all games are assumed to be for minors when they come out on the Wii, the game is much less evil than its Xbox and PS counterparts. You can’t randomly destroy house or villagers and there is no corruption/alignment bar.

You are the Diet Coke of Evil

But seriously just because its more kid friendly doesn’t mean it sucks. I quite enjoyed the game. The Wii controls were very intuitive. Point the Wii mote at what you want to die. Throttling a minion involves the lifting the remote quickly and shaking your hand as if you really had a minion by the throat.

Nothing like a little strangulation to get the eyes bulging.

The programers did a much better job in this version in some areas and a lot worse in others.
The Better:

1. Minions were smarter about automatically picking up weapons for themselves and loot for the overlord.
2. They made good use of the motion control and pointing ability of the Wiimote.
3. I can actually make out the minion armour much better on the Wii than on the XBOX 360.

The Worse:

1. This happened 3 times.  Game crashing.  Yes the game just stopped responding.  The Wii stopped responding.  I had to unplug the system to recover.  I have a feeling its a buffer overrun as it happened during some pretty intensive fighting.
2. The villagers all say their one line over and over just like every other game, but the loop time was 3 seconds.  Every 3 fucking seconds the villagers were repeating their line again.  This got annoying very quickly.

Despite that crash it was a very enjoyable game. I picked it up for $40 at Best Buy. And I would pay that price again despite the crahes. This is a definite keeper.

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Thanks to code masters for the Screenshot collection.

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