E3 09: Hands-on with Overlord Dark Legend

11:50 AM on 06.04.2009   |   Conrad Zimmerman

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While I was out at the Codemasters booth playing Overlord 2, I figured I had absolutely no good reason not to check out its cousin for Wii, Overlord Dark Legend. I'd had so much fun with the first one that I was in really good spirits about the series as I picked up the Wii remote and began to play. That changed somewhat, sadly.

Hit the jump and I'll explain why I'm so keen on one and a little concerned about the other.

Overlord: Dark Legend is a prequel of sorts for Overlord II. The Overlord, a dark child who never quite fit in with his family is taken by the minions to be trained in the dark art of being an evil despot. The game follows the adolescence of the Overlord as he receives his training and prepares for the times ahead.

It visually looks decent for a Wii title. Nothing spectacular but nothing I can complain about where the console is concerned. The story seems interesting -- it, too, is written by Rhianna Pratchett -- but I can't help but feel like they wrote a tale about a youthful Overlord simply because they were developing a game for the family-friendly Wii.

My real beef with it comes in the manner it controls. Specifically, the way you move the minions. Since there's no second analog to allow you to sweep minions around the landscape, the game uses a point-and-click interface. You click where you want minions to go and they go there, sort of. They seemed to get caught up on environmental objects and things that it seemed they should interact with they would have nothing to do with.

More than anything, it's a shame because a big part of the fun of playing Overlord is the ability to just move a horde of minions over the landscape in a wave of chaos and destruction. Having to give them more specific instructions is uncomfortable and there's no way to just get them to run around.

I was originally looking forward to bringing Destructoid the review of Overlord: Dark Legend, but this control scheme has me dreading the experience. I guess we'll find out when the game releases for Wii simultaneously with its PS3 and 360 brethren on June 23rd.