Overlord Review
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At the heart of the game is a system for controlling your army of minions, which grows ever larger as you progress through the game. There are four types of minions, which loosely correspond to classic MMO character classes. You begin with brown minions. (Your basic fighter class.) Later you will acquire red minions (ranged attackers) green minions (backstabbing damage-dealers) and blue minions (fragile healers) by performing certain quests. Your avatar can engage in direct combat with the use of his axe and a few magic spells. Early in the game you'll probably be on the front lines supporting your troops in combat, but as your army grows it makes less and less sense to place yourself in harm's way when you have so many obedient servants prepared to kill or die at your command. It's usually easier to replace them than to heal yourself. There is a cap on how many you can lead at once, but there are stone circles spread around the world where you can change the ratio if you find yourself needing more or less of a particular color, or if you need to replenish lost forces.
In other games, you must earn your living by trudging through the world, bashing up barrels and crates and scavenging your way up the equipment ladder. But a proper ruler doesn't waste his time on that sort of gross manual labor. In Overlord, you simply hold down a button to let your minions run wild, smashing and looting everything in their path. (The player base has charmingly dubbed this button (auto-rape).) Your minions bring the the spoils with an sadistic enthusiasm, and equip themselves with useful plunder. They're armorless and bare-handed when you first summon them, but they grow in power as they accumulate better and better items. (Which creates a small incentive to use them wisely instead of carelessly sending them to their deaths.) Seeing them caper and cheer as they trade up from one weapon to another is almost as rewarding as getting a new one yourself.
