Overlord: Raising Hell
3:53pm Wednesday 9th July 2008
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Publisher: Codemasters |
ACCORDING to the noted psychologist Ervin Staub, people commit evil acts when their needs are not met. He says: "If they cannot be fulfilled by constructive means, people will attempt to fulfill them by destructive means." In other words, being the bad guy is all about wish fulfillment.
Maybe that's why Overlord: Raising Hell, which first appeared on the Xbox 360 last year and now returns on the PS3, is such fun to play.
Raising Hell positively encourages you to be the bad guy. The more evil you are, the more the game rewards your character with new powers and extra minions ready to do his sinister biding.
It's a sequel/add on, of sorts, to the original PC game in which you play a dark Overlord who must rebuild his evil empire. To do this you must use your monstrous minions, slavish little gremlins who follow your orders to the letter - even if it means certain death.
Minions come in four different flavours: red ones are born of fire, the blue type can heal fallen comrades during the heat of battle, green minions can sneak up on enemies and the brown ones are standard "cannon fodder" fighters.
There's a pleasing degree of artificial intelligence: if a minion encounters an enemy he will attack and if he recovers something worthwhile he will bring it back for your approval.
Minions can arm themselves with pitchforks, swords and helmets. But keep them away from beer - unless you find the sight of a drunken gremlin taking a pee to be the height of sophisticated humour.
This PS3 version includes everything that was enjoyable about the original and the Raising Hell expansion.
It adds a long overdue mini map feature, sensational 7.1 surround sound and enhanced visuals.
A few of the levels take a while to load but most of the irritating bugs which bedevilled the earlier PC/Xbox versions have been eradicated, so this has to be seen as the definitive version of a popular classic.
You'll never have felt so good about being so bad.
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