Become the Overlord
Overlord, A new action adventure from Codemasters, lets you take the role of supreme villain. From the sounds of it this game will let you discover how just evil you really could get, if given a fantasy kingdom and thousands of hapless subject. The game even measures your relative level of corruption. I hope old Jack Thompson doesn't hear about this one...
Gamers will discover how corrupt they can be in Overlord, the forthcoming twisted fantasy action adventure where players can be evil (or really evil). Now in development at Triumph Studios, Codemasters will publish Overlord in summer 2007 for PC and the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft.
In the game’s seriously warped fantasy world, players will become the Overlord and get first-hand experience of how “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Players will have the option to be a regular run-of-the-mill Overlord, however, with incredible power at their disposal and a team of evil-minded impish critters called the Minions on hand to do everyone’s bidding, how will anyone resist the temptation to be wonderfully despotic?!
The Overlord has the power of concentrated badness right from the start and players will learn how much more of a total bad-ass they’re becoming by monitoring their ‘Level of Corruption,’ which is tracked throughout the game.
The Level of Corruption is based on how gamers handle any given situation, their actions and how their consequences impact the game world. For example, if players and their minion horde dispose of a bunch of particularly nasty, violent Halflings that have overrun a once-peaceful village, the village’s original peasant occupants will herald them as their liberator. Now, each time players pass through, the peasants will welcome them as their new lord and protector, cheering their arrival and bring offerings.
However, as an Overlord, it’s worth seeing what more can be obtained from the peasants’ gratitude. If players exert some proper feudal repression, peasants will tremble and fall to their knees when Overlords are in town. If players truly become mean Overlords, the poor peasants will resort to cowering in their presence, pray for their lives and even push their daughters towards them in order to appease them…
Then there are the Minions – the perfectly trained and loyal slaves. With bravery that borders on stupidity, they’ll do anything players command no matter how life threatening it is. Yes, they may moan, whine and grumble about it if being sent to a certain death but, hey, why should players care? They’re Overlords!
Need to clear a busy town square quickly? Simply send in a team of bomb-carrying minions and sit back out of harm’s way. As the explosives detonate, the blast sends everything in the square, minions included, to kingdom come. All players need to do now is grab the life force escaping from the casualties and – hey presto – invoke replacement minions!
On the flip side to all this nastiness, one of the achievements players can aim for in the game is finishing 100% Uncorrupted. To be an Overlord of purity requires not killing any peasants, not harvesting souls from living creatures, not betraying their mistress or not exterminating a fantasy race here and there. But where’s the fun in that, for Heaven’s sake?
“In Overlord you’ll be able to do some pretty wicked stuff -- everything is played out with this twisted fantasy humor, as the game’s visuals illustrate,” said Lennart Sas, director at Triumph Studios. “Our goal is not to shock with realistic blood and gore, but to create an entertaining world where people can explore what it’s like to have absolute power but in an amusingly gross way, not sick and grotesque.”
Players need to explore their more despotic side and perfect their evil laugh with Overlord, coming summer 2007 for PC and the Xbox 360. Interested in becoming a total bad ass? Register online now at www.codemasters.com/overlord for future exclusive updates.
