Overlord: Dark Legend

Overlord was released last year on PC and other console formats and tasked you, as an evil commander, with causing chaos and destruction by taking control of a squad of mischievous minions.

Overlord 2 has just been released but rather than shoe-horning an inferior version onto the Wii the developers have gone ahead and made a special edition just for Nintendo’s console.

Overlord is a mix of third-person action adventuring and strategy. You control ‘Gnarl’, a young overlord who has a different types of minions under his control. Each minion has a different skill and it’s up to you to choose the right minion for the job and go into battle.

You maraud across the land of ‘Greenvale’ killing everything in the way and solving basic puzzles. Controlling the minions is very straightforward thanks to the excellent controls which make good use of the Wii’s motion sensing capabilities.

Although you play an evil character the game has an excellent sense of humour which makes the whole game very light-hearted, so it’s not just for older players.

There are only two major issues we have with Overlord on the Wii. The first is that it is far too easy. Perhaps built with a younger and/or more casual audience in mind the game doesn’t really offer much of a challenge, even to newcomers, and you can complete the main story in around 10 hours. It’s also lacking in the visual department, with the weak processing power of the Wii struggling to recreate the beautifully detailed land of the original Overlord and its sequel.

Verdict: 80%

Brilliant mix of strategy and action-adventure with a healthy dose of humour and excellent controls, this is great fun while it lasts but it’s quite short and a little too easy.