This is not a full review but merely my thoughts on the game from what I saw in the demo.

It was a slow morning and so I took the opportunity to play through the Overlord demo (about 20-30 minutes), which I downloaded last week (1.1GB). Right from the beginning I knew my gaming experience would be lacking when it told me that my computer did not meet the minimum requirements for the game. I have an AMD 64 3200, 1GB RAM and an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700, and the game was unplayable at medium graphics. But the intro films were nice and smooth at 1024x768 so I suggest everyone watch the intro in the highest resolution possible but play in whatever works best.

Fortunately, they give you an external configuration program and I was able to turn down the graphics so that the game was playable. Unfortunately, for me, it was not as pretty. But it was a lot of fun! Ordering your minions about to do menial tasks, slaughter animals and destroy crops is truly far more fun than I imagined it would be. Add in the fireball roasting of evil halflings and maybe an 'accidental' death for a villager and you are on the road to perdition. Or rather, you are on the road to wrecking havoc upon the idyllic countryside and regaining your rightful power as the ultimate evil in the land. However, the environment is not completely destructible and there are many barriers to movement which cannot be dealt with. That was one of the few drawbacks I saw overall. The game does remind me of the Dungeon Keeper series (1997 - Bullfrog Productions) in that you are evil and controlling a host of minions to do specific tasks and attain certain goals. So while some magazines and websites are calling it 'unique gameplay' I have to disagree. If I was reminded of Dungeon Keeper, why is it that others were not? Rarely do games take the point of view of the bad guy and run with it, but the gameplay is not unique, maybe rare would be better or uncommon. The control system is easy to use and took but a quick look at the key map to get going. I am still looking forward to the game which will be released at the end of the month (26th - US, 29th - Europe) but I do not think I will buy it solely because I cannot afford a new computer to play it on. But if your computer can handle it then I suggest you get it. After all, we all need an outlet for our violent, evil intentions and this game is by far the best outlet available.

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