The controls are split up rather nicely, with controls for the menacing Overlord on the Nunchuk and controls for his minions mapped to the Wii Remote. The Overlord is controlled with the analog stick, and swings his axe with a gesture of the Nunchuk or a press of the Z button. For the minions, left and right on the D-pad rotates through them while down on the D-pad selects all of them. The B button, or a flick of the Wii Remote, sends them off to do battle, collect items, or flip switches. The A button calls them back. Overall there are four different kinds of minions (red, brown, blue, and green), and they each have their own specialty ranging from the brown minions' melee ability to the red minions' ability to shoot fireballs. You can also cast spells, such as one that slows down the world around you, by pressing up on the D-pad.
The demo that I played wasnt that showy and was extremely linear. I basically just marched through an area using the Overlords axe and the minions fighting prowess to clear out all enemies. I didnt get to see any interesting puzzles outside of the realm of "use this minion to knock down that gate." My minions managed to collect some strange object and bring it back to their spawn point, immediately reminding me of the pellets and ship parts from Pikmin.
I didn't get too much time with the game, but it appears to be very early on. The controls work very well and the division of the Wii Remote (minions) and Nunchuk (Overlord) is brilliant. I just wish I could've used the nice control scheme more in the lackluster demo.
Overlord: Dark Legend is scheduled for a summer 2009 release.
Yeah, it sounds similar to the 360 demo of the first Overlord. More tutorial than representative gameplay.
Anyway, I'm reasonably excited for this thing. Seems like a good fit with Wii controls, and I'm impressed that they are making an original game that is still quite similar to the original, just with new content and potentially better controls. In other words, it doesn't seem to be dumbed down in any way.
What did the C button do?
How were the visuals?
Yeah, it sounds similar to the 360 demo of the first Overlord. More tutorial than representative gameplay.
Anyway, I'm reasonably excited for this thing. Seems like a good fit with Wii controls, and I'm impressed that they are making an original game that is still quite similar to the original, just with new content and potentially better controls. In other words, it doesn't seem to be dumbed down in any way.
Man, third parties really have to thread the needle to get approval from people around these parts. It can't be a port. But if it's new, it can't be too new. It has to be new, but the same, and not a port. *boggle*
That is in fact the problem -- the genre is old, stale, and completely overcrowded on Wii.
