The Lesser Evil, Overlord the Second

In my ranting about all the technological and gameplay features of the Overlord games, I almost completely forgot to mention one of the most important pillars in gaming. The Overlord games have what one might call a story. And even Story Arc.

I gave a synopsis of these stories in my previous post. But I'll dig somewhat deeper into them here. Spoilers are ahead so go out and buy the game, finish it and get back to this post. Because you don't want to miss all that is about to be written down. You could also skip ahead to the last paragraph for a final thought. And just to make sure: BEWARE SPOILERS AHEAD.

Overlord the first has, in my opinion, the most interesting story.
However, initially there's hardly any story to speak of! You're thrown into the role of Overlord by Gnarl, the old and... gnarly spokesman of the minions. He's your advisor for the duration of the game. Teaching you how to act in your newfound role. Trying to rebuild the dark tower and reunite the brown, red, green and blue minions. You do this by raiding the surrounding villages, towns and castles. But the scavage hunt quickly becomes an unholy crusade against the "heroes" who inhabite the surrounding lands. Each of these heroes represent an earthly sin. Seven in total. Each is crushed beneath your Steel boots. Though the reasons beyond "because they are bad men" are somewhat unclear.
Melvin Underbelly is a bloated and obese halfling. Gluttony.
Oberon is an elven prince, asleep and on guard against a dwarven invasion. His nightmares become reality and haunt the Elven forests. Sloth.
Sir William the Black, a former paladin and presumable victim of abstenence, has an unhealthy craving for a mistriss succubus. Lust.
Goldo Golderson is a dwarven King, and as his name might suggest, concerned only by the amount of gold he possesses. Greed.
Jewel is a thief bent on stealing everything of value someone else might have. Envy.
Khan is a giant warrior and lover of Jewel, he's insanely protective and comes down with fiery anger to whomever threatens her. Unfortunatly, as the Overlord, you have. Wrath.
All these characters speak of a mysterious wizard. Delivering all they desired, and become corrupt in the procedings. The wizard is the main, if somewhat hidden mastermind behind the plot of the game. During your encounter with him he keeps mentioning his accomplishments and his genious. Possibly born a Leo, his sin is most definitly pride.
The wizard is introduced as he sits in your throne, your minions gasping in awe at the return of "the real overlord". As it turns out, this Wizard is possessed by a vanguished Evil. An evil slain by your hand, aided by the heroes you just ground into a fine paste.
The unawareness of the player is the memory loss of the Overlord. It becomes clear that the story from OVerlord is an aftermath of the typical "band of heroes" fantasy story you find in other fiction. One could say that Lord Of The Rings was an influence. In which case the question could have been who was Sauron before he became the evil Overlord he is today? Was he once a virtuous man? Is he only one in a long line of Overlords? What would Tolkien have written if there ever was to be a sequel to The Lord of the Rings? Overlord is the somewhat cheeky answer.
In the end, you're able to convince your minions to fight for you through means of bashing them over the head a few times. And use them to overcome the Wizard. Making you the rightfull Overlord.

Overlord II has a less interesting story, despite its potential. "Sociological commentary" almost came on the box as a feature. But this basically boils down to "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". The embodiment of this is the Emperor. Ruling an empire so successful and prosperous that the citizens have become fat, lazy and somewhat stupid.

To elaborate. There is scene where a group of fat, middle-aged women accuse Juno (the Aphrodite archetype) of witchcraft because her beauty has enthralled their men. For this she is democratically voted off to the arena. Quite a humorous scene, because it's kind of true, but never quite surpassed later in the game.
Even though the game is able to mislead the player from guessing the twist of the story. Unfortunatly, it is quite a let down and you get the feeling you'd be able to come up with something better. Here's why. At first I thought the overly speechy and brainy right hand man of the "evil Emperor" would be the real mastermind, the Emperor being the figurehead of the regime. Certain signs could have been telling. The Emperor never speaks, never shows his face from under his mask, never does anything apart from waving at crowds and is dependant on "consuming" magical beings to sustain him. Leading me to believe he might have been an animated character or a golem. Not so.
The real twist to the story is when you find out who's behind the mask. The transformation from one guise to the next is far more then just an unmasking, it's an almost hulkian transformation. Since the Emperor's physique is more impressive then that of his true identity.
The only real personal motivation for this character is "becoming a magical being", lust for power. And that's about it. He's not the only character to undergo a transformation, the seemingly intellectual henchman becomes a sniveling zealot in the end, able only to paise his master.
It seems this game that was inspired by the domination of the Roman Empire and Roman mythology, but in the end fails to do anything useful with it. Beyond the comparison that you are Hades claiming Artemis, Aphrodite and Persephone. And forgive me for using their Greek names. It seems that even here the age rating of the game is keeping the player from having some actual fun with your mistresses.

Evil in these games should be read as "mischievous", the minions are naughty. The Overlord is a big bully. When will we get an truly Evil version of an Overlord game?
In the first game there is an option to turn a spare room into a torture dungeon. I had a flashback to the old Dungeon Keeper games but unfortunately it's just there to look at. In the same game a village will offer you 10 "maidens". And again, these are just there to stand around your throne, spewing the same line of dialog over and over. Why weren't they put at random places in the tower to perform menial tasks. Like scrubbing the floor or something. I'd make the whole thing so much more believable.
The games offer an option to be "an unlikable person" or "a very bad person". The gradient goes from broken white to halfway grey. As a comparison we could say Fable goes from pure white to somewhat dark grey. But games have yet to go to pitchblack. You could say Manhunt or something is rather dark, but that's not the kind of Evil I'd like to see in the Overlord series. Manhunt is just plain violent. Brilliant Evil would be more of a thriller, working the imagination. Suggesting bad things instead of showing stuff intended for gore hounds.
Again I must plead for a dark and gritty Overlord PC game, intended for mature gamers instead of the giggling tomfoolery intended for the console tween audience. And perhaps go over a few ethical problems the human race has to deal with.

The Greater Evil, Overlord

In a long standing tradition of me playing Third Person Strategy Action RPGs, it's time to turn a very Evil Eye towards the Overlord Series. With the buzz the sequel was getting. I picked up the first game out of a "why the hell did I never get to play this?" reason. Afterwards, I bought Overlord 2 without thinking twice about it. Written by Rihanna Pratchett, the game has sterling pedigree at first glance. Even though she's obviously a different writer from her world famous father: Terry Pratchett and working in a different medium, my expectations were quite high.

The synopsis to Overlord 1 could be: the story about a young and ambitious Sauron in Albion, commanding an army of mischievous demonic imps. Fixing the world's chaotic evils with his own lawful evil. The game has a good and evil route. The former picturing you as an iron-fisted monarch, the latter portraying you as a ruthless tyrant with a appreciation for black lace and pale flesh. Overlord 2 casts the player as Hades, God of the Underworld. Here to exact revenge on "the Empire" which has usurped your father (Sauron) from his rightful dark throne. You set out to reunite the minion army and claim your rightful place in the evil hierarchy and while you're at it claim Artemis, Aphrodite and Persephone as your mistresses.

The Overlord games are structured a bit like a Zelda game. You explore maps and dungeons sprinkled with enemies and puzzles. In almost all cases your minions with their unique abilities are key in overcoming these obstacles. The level design is quite well done, especially in the first game, where every area literally comes full circle. Design reminiscent of games like Pikmin, Metroid and Zelda, but more directed and not at all dependant on backtracking. Overlord did come as somewhat of a surprise. Coming close to being quite like a Nintendo game, you'd half expect it to become an instant classic. But maybe, like many other games, only a classic in few minds.

There's one flaw that's not very hard to overcome, but it's still there. Harrowing to think what this game might have been, had it been made as a PC game first and foremost. Unfortunately that's not where the market is. Overlord is a console game and it shows. A blessing because it has filled the coffers of Triumph studios and codemasters, opening the door for more Overlord games. A curse because control becomes the game's biggest flaw. The standard PC control scheme in both Overlord 1 and 2 drove me to use my PC gamepad (a Saitek P880) in favor of the mouse and keyboard. Because it simply worked a whole lot better. In fact, the controls work fine. They're functional most of the time. However, it is still baffling to see the game twist and squirm to fit onto a console controller. Evidence of this is that there are functions in which you have to press and hold a button, and then press another button. And that's just to select one type of minion. Which generally leads to the "select all, attack all" reflex, abandoning all strategy. Mostly out of necessity because the chaotic nature of combat generally calls for quick action. In order to fit those controls onto a mouse and keyboard, the scheme twists and squirms some more. It is now twice removed from the ideal mouse and keyboard controls.

Allow me to elaborate even further. From a design standpoint. Overlord must have had the looks of a hardcore PC title reminiscent of Sacrifice. That is to say, if your reflex for troop management is "point the mouse and click". Which in short works like this: select your unit group, like your brown minions. Use a mouse pointer on a target, like an enemy. The mouse cursor changes to an attack pointer. Click the mouse to engage, or hold the mouse button to assign more minions to the target in Overlords case. Clicking the scenery would move the minions about. Instead the game controls a bit more like you would when playing a Necromancer Minion Master in Guild Wars, send direct orders to your minions to attack a specific target. Do note that the Wii title Overlord: Dark Legend, does exactly that. And is claimed to have the superior control scheme.

Quote from Scott Sharkey, 1UP:
"The Wii Remote is just plain perfect for directing your horde of minions around the screen. The mouse or analog stick did the job well enough in other versions, but after experiencing the ease of simply pointing where you want the evil little buggers to go break things, it's actually going to be hard to go back to less precise methods. Hell, my never-played-a-videogame-in-her-life girlfriend had no trouble picking the thing up and just going with it, which is something that just couldn't have happened with any other installment of the series. It really is remarkably intuitive, given how complicated keeping track of both your Overlord and a swarm of gremlins can become." We'll have to forgive Overlord 1 for being a pure console game. Because that's where it had to prove itself. Indeed the game is very easily forgiven since puzzles and pace of the general gameplay feels simpler and more manageable. I can't remember being frustrated with it.

But Overlord 2 was developed simultaneously with Overlord Dark Legend. So the point and click (P&C) controls were no secret. Yet, a similar control scheme was left out of the PC version of Overlord 2. The main reason P&C controls were a no-go, next to higher development costs, was that it would break the difficulty of a few control based puzzles. Puzzles that are so frustrating because of the controls that I outright quit the game a couple of times. Loudly cursing with incomprehension why Triumph would abandon the simple (consoles, remember?) elegance of the first game. I'm pretty sure the "green minion spider elevator maze" will go down in history as one of the biggest game design faux-pas. The concept of the puzzle is that the player must navigate a maze on the wall using the sweep command on the green minions. Controlling the group as one entity with the right analog stick. This whole time, the camera is behind the Overlord and pointing towards the group of minions. Within this field of view the group is controlled. If one minion, or several, is stuck behind an obstacle, it will stop moving. With it the camera, as it can't move ahead with the group. This would be alright if it weren't for the fact that this is a timed puzzle. Get stuck for a second and you loose a great portion of your experience rich green minions. They simply fall of the wall and die, or get squashed between the elevator and die. Start over. What makes the puzzle so unnerving is not the fact that it's pretty obnoxious to begin with, it's in the controls by which you have to solve it. The sweep command is pretty wooly as it is. In theory it's a "charge there" command. Like moving by suggestion, it's pretty imprecise. Now imagine just pointing and clicking your way through the maze. It'd be like setting way points in an RTS game: pixel perfect. It would have made this "after boss" mechanic-tutorial (the hard part was supposed to be done with!) a breeze in stead of a wrist cutting. Another dubious decision was the ship chase. Cool in concept, but rather poorly executed. Another still was a rather lengthy stealth level using possessed Green Minions. Some trail and error sections could have been a little less frustrating. This fallback to "twitch gameplay" in stead of sticking to "logic puzzles" may be a sign of Triumph running out of inspiration and then willingly overstepping the line between challenging and frustrating in these few instances. Overlord 2 is a more complex game than its predecessor, with more gameplay elements, a more "advanced" camera and more elaborate control over the Overlord. Unfortunately, and though slightly, to its detriment.

However, that's about all the bad there is to say about the Overlord games so far. So it's mostly all good. Managing your armour, weapons, spells, minions and dark tower are fun RPG additions I would like to see in a Zelda game someday. It's also great to hear all the different lines of banter and dialog in the game as well. Audio in Overlord is well done all-round. The score from the first game was quite good but becomes fantastic in the sequel. Paired with an improved game engine and more detailled art assets, the second game is an impressive showpiece. So far it one of the best games, or should i say franchise, the Netherlands has ever produced. Not that there's a lot of games coming from there anyway, but it's another glimmer of hope that these regions can produce games that actually matter. Now I'd love to see a hardcore Overlord PC game. Preferably with a strong multiplayer component, and an open endgame scenario. With P&C controls. It'd fill the void Sacrifice left behind and Brütal legend will probably fail to fill, currently not even coming to PC. But one may hope.

Mass Effect is brilliant.

 

 

Yes, it is. This is going to be one huge post so you might as well get yourself a drink. I did. I feel compelled to write about it because none of you blighters seem to have done. And that's something I don't quite understand. The critics have. The haters have (really, what kind of men complain about lesbian sex?). It's quite an accomplishment for the gaming medium. It's a game I will hand over to my kids when I teach them about right and wrong. If some of you didn't pick this game up it probably must have been because of the Box art, which made it look like something of a generic space opera. Mark Vanderloo looks generic, just another model in spacemarine armour. They should have put an icon on the box. Like one of the alien races.

It's been a long time since I dumped the multiplayer RPGs for what they were back when, and started playing single player RPGs. That's not because I don't have any time left to get lost in an MMO but because I am a huge selfish prick who only thinks about himself and the world relating to me, rather then myself relating to the world. By the way this isn't irony, it's a Vanilla flavored milkshake.

This is me thinking like a renegade. And you know when you've played to much ME when you start thinking about real life responses in terms of paragon and renegade. So, time for the ceremonial blogpost intervention to mark my third play-through. In all, I think this game has taken about 120 hours of my time already. Don't read this as something bitter, I just couldn't find a shorter Bioware RPG. And I needed a break away from anything Star Wars related. So why not find something better?

The more perceptive readers might be discerning something of a pattern here. Bioware has been the dealer to my addiction and what you are reading is a love letter. Or maybe it's like an open solicitation. But I doubt they have an opening. Or read blog posts. Or care. But rest assured, I carry a key-chain with Canadian Flag on it.

The big deal about ME is that it makes you choose not between Good or Evil, but between Polite (selfless, paragon) and Rude (selfish, renegade). Needless to say, 2 of my characters are rude space bastards and one is a big softy. The point is, that as far as moralistic games go this one is quite refreshing. I played an evil megalomaniac lunatic in Kotor2 and Fable and the deeds were cartoonishly villainous. Mass Effect doesn't go to such extremes and rightly so. It would be quite unbelievable for Shepard (the protagonist) to join up with the bad guys or aspire to some other cliche. The games where you can solve an argument with an uppercut are far and few between. I for one applaud the game for allowing me to develop an otherwise neglected character trait.

ME is a linear game, that's because it's story driven. However the tracks are relatively broad and your actions directly influence how certain elements of the story play out. So it's not as if your actions are ultimately reset and the only difference is the way you got there. Because of it's linearity you might think you'll be done with it after one play though. But that's not the case. The biggest reason for this is that after you finish the game, you can pick that same character and start another play-though with it. Not only will the game be upscaled to fit your level, the level cap will increase after you finish the game. It's also good to play the hardcore or insane difficulty level, since combat will become that much harder, interesting and rewarding. Part of ME is a tactical third person shooter. There's a cover mechanic that slows the pace of the combat down and gives it the breathing room for the actual tactics. In addition to this there's a pause function! Which allows you give orders to your team mates about. A game mechanic that goes way back when RPG's were at the isometric stage of their evolution, and has lost none of it's brilliance. The opposition is hard so don't expect to barge in, shoot every bad guy in the face and walk away unscathed. If you don't take cover you'll probably get one hit killed by an enemy sniper or rocket. Only as the game reaches the crescendo at the end will you feel like a right bad-ass about to lay down the law, stamping peons left and right.

The main quest is clearly outlined, and you can get on with things rather quickly, there's no real need to do any of the side-quests. So you could blast through the story as if it were a regular shooter. I'll admit that's not quite how it was intended to be played but the option's there. You're free to take your ship and zip around the galaxy as you see fit. Side-quests will show you the broader scoop of the universe, and tell stories that don't directly relate to the main storyline. There are quests about your companions, investigating companies, crimes, abductions, extortion, crime syndicates, you name it.
There's even the downloadable content "bring down the sky", which takes place on an asteroid on it's way to crash into a planet. It's a shame Bioware hasn't released more DLC for the game. Since this one was of premium quality if rather short. It has a lot of fun combat scenes. Some moral choices and in the end, there's even a special item loot reward.

"But what about the flaws of this masterpiece?" I can hear many of you ask. Well, there are a few, but none of these are game breakers, but some rather archaic ways of dealing with things. Like the inventory system. It's taken right out of KOTOR. That is to say, all your inventory items are shown in one, big, long list. If your list is crammed with items, you'll loose oversight. This is all rather mind boggling since KOTOR2 had fixed the Kotor inventory simply by adding tabbed sorting options. Like Weapons, armour, upgrades, miscellaneous, etc.
Anyway, a lot of your weapons and items will be replaced by newer, more powerful versions. So you'll want to sell all the old crap after every sortie anyway. A inventory purge might take some setting up every mission, but in the long run, you'll be glad you did. It won't only save you time and fill up your coffers but it'll also guarantee you've got all the latest equipment. Comparing items has been made easy since there is an on the fly statistics comparison. With colours. Red means bad, Yellow means good. This also goes for weapon and armour upgrades too. Of which every armourset and weapon has a few slots for.
But the most frustration I had was with the driving sections. Not that driving is bad in itself, but a few of the planets you're driving on are ridiculous. Apparently some planets in our galaxy have landscapes with mountains that look like they were drawn by a 5 year old. Imagine a military troop transport climbing a 75 degree mountainside. At times I would really hate mountaingoating with the thing. Of course, there were some designated areas where the designers clearly intended for you to ride. But in my logic the shortest route from point A to point B still is a straight line. Even if it means scaling mount Zork.

ME is an innovative game for a number of reasons. And while these are not the sole reasons for playing the game, it would be good if people took note. The production values are unlike any you'll see for some time. The game is polished, the story and universe work, there are no annoying inconsistencies. This makes the ME universe so believable. The animation is clearly motion captured, and to great effect. Characters tilt their head, blink when their eyes move, shift their stance, make gestures while talking. Sometimes they will almost move out of frame. All of this makes them look very much alive. There's next to no sign of the Uncanny Vally effect. Of course, having aliens talk further bypasses the effect. That's not to say that these characters are photo realistic, there's a subtle styling, like the shading in the GTA4 concept drawings. Which ensures the game will keep looking good.
The soundtrack is impressive too. Synthesizer sounds done in a good way. Winking to Vangelis and the blade runner soundtrack. Let's not mention the voice acting in this game, it's so good that it warrants it's own blog post. Suffice to say, there's some A-grade voice talent in ME. Jeniffer Hale, Seth Green, Lance Henriksen, Marina Sirtis, Raphael Sbarge are some of the better known names.
Bioware has made a good innovation with the dialog wheel. It gives oversight and quick selection, which keeps the dialogs at a steady pace. I hope this feature makes it into future RPG's. It's so much faster and dynamic then the usual "list of answers". It also adds to the cinematic feel of the dialogs, in which the camera cuts to different viewing angles. Keeping it interesting to look at. Options are there to drag conversations out, but these are hardly mandatory.

ME is a third person action RPG. So it ditches some pure RPG burdens. For instance. Every character in your team has 4 weapons at it's disposal. The Pistol, Assault Rifle, Shotgun and Sniper Rifle. These are, like in an FPS, freely selectable. So you won't be digging into your inventory and swapping weapons out on your paper doll. You'll be selecting weapons suited to the tactical situation. This might seem like a trivial thing, but some modern "shooter-RPGs" haven't leaned this. I'm looking at you Fallout 3. Even Kotor2 had two different weapons sets... The controls and combat system are fluent, and characters feel like as if they have some weight to them. Another example is the statistic screen. In ME you won't be adding points to strength, dexterity, intelligence etc. Every class has a distinct talent tree and you'll be adding points to those. Your ability to, for instance, hit an opponent will be determined to how good you can aim and shoot. However, your ability to aim and shoot is influenced to how steady you can hold your weapon. Thus, Adding points to your sniper rifle talent tree will lessen the sway with the rifle, increasing your accuracy. Of course it will also increase the damage. Weapon mods can further influence these statistics, or grant side effects like a poison or burn status.

I think it's safe to say that Mass Effect has become one of my favorite games ever. It's up there next to Sacrifice. It's become a comfort game and nostalgia will have me coming back in years to come. It's like a book you read once a year. It will make me play my characters through the insane difficulty. I only hope my skills will keep up when the time comes. I can't wait for more Mass Effect titles. Be it games, books or movies. I hope Bioware and it's writers continue to pursue and expand the Mass Effect universe. Because, frankly it stands above the likes of Star Wars and The Matrix.

Game of the year 2008. Surpassing among others: Bioshock, CoD4, Orange Box, Kotor2, Crysis Warhead, Company of Heroes. Now, on to another game where I can be a moral reject. Fallout 3, here I come.