Previews: Overlord

Taking a look at the demo and some developer’s thoughts.

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By Mike Hofler                        
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If you’ve ever seen the movie Gremlins, you’ll fall into one of two groups of people. Either you’re the type who wanted your own cute cuddly Mogwai, or you thought it would be awesome to have your very own pack of gremlins rampaging around at your command. If you fall into the latter group, this game is for you.

Overlord is an action adventure game coming out for the Xbox 360 and PC in which you control an evil overlord who commands a horde of minions, very gremlin-like in appearance and personality, which you use to establish your evil empire. Here is what developer Triumph Studios says about the different types of minions under your control:

Kevin Mullard: There are four types of minions that you’ll come across in Overlord. You start with a few Browns. These are your fighters. They attack, beat up, and knock over anything that you send them against – even if it means their certain death. Next come the reds. These are ranged attackers, who hurl fireballs at opponents. They’re also fire immune. Greens are your stealthy assassins. They’ll try and get behind enemies, leap onto their backs and stab away dealing massive damage. Blues are magic users, who deal magical damage against enemies, can enter water without drowning, but most importantly can resurrect any minions who die in battle.

(Excerpt from Chris Jensen’s interview at http://www.gamealmighty.com/)


The way your minions go about their tasks is what makes things interesting. When sent to attack a flock of sheep, your minions will jump on the backs of the sheep and ride them for a moment before clubbing them on the head. Send them to attack something in the kitchen, and a few will come back wearing pots on their heads and wielding rolling pins. It can be really amusing as you take a look at your minions to notice that one of them is wearing a jack-o-lantern on its head, very reminiscent of how gremlins would wreck everything and play with whatever objects were at hand. This sense of humor is found throughout the game, not only in the way your minions act, but also with interactions with NPC’s and in how the story unfolds.

The game starts off with the minions apparently raising you from the dead, and then suiting you up in appropriately evil-looking armor. You inherit a rather dilapidated tower, and are informed that heroes looted everything of value when they killed off the previous master, as heroes are like to do to evil overlords. Your main task in your rise to power will be to track down certain items that were stolen from your tower, as well as the heroes who made off with your epic loot.

Before setting out on your mission, there is a quick tutorial to teach you how to use your minions to destroy everything in sight. You use the left analog stick to move around and the A button to attack, which you practice by beating on the court jester repeatedly. Once he runs out of reach and continues to mock you, you send your minions after him to bludgeon on him for a while. Pressing the right trigger will send your minions straight ahead, destroying all manners of enemies and objects that may be in their path. Alternatively you can use the right analog stick to control a pack of minions, leading them down a winding path you may not be able to navigate yourself to get at items or enemies.

After the tutorial, you are sent out to retrieve an orb that will allow you to teleport from your tower throughout the fantasy world in which you now find yourself. The first thing you will come across once you step into the world outside of your tower, described by Gnarl, your minion master and advisor, as a “lush, verdant abomination”, is a flock of sheep grazing in a field. Your minions will make quick work of these, and then come running back with the sheeps’ life force, which you can use to summon more minions. Any time your servants find any type of treasure, they will hold it high up in the air and coming running towards you with large smiles on their leathery faces shouting “Treasure!” or “For the Master!”.

The demo ends with a short boss fight against a Halfling hero who has been eating so much that he has grown to the size of a wagon. Your minion limit is raised up to 20, so you won’t have much problem with this boss as your minions swarm over him, climbing all over his body to pummel him with their various weapons. After defeating the boss, several peasants that were being held captive are freed and cheer for you, which gives us the first glimpse of one of the more interesting game mechanics of Overlord.

Over the course of the game you will come across many peasants, and will have a difficult decision to make. Do you leave them alive so that they worship you and pay tribute to you, in the process gaining you gold much more rapidly? Or do you kill them, harvesting their life force to create more minions, and increasing your corruption level, which will give you access to higher level spells?

That’s the story mode, but what about other modes of play? Triumph’s director and lead designer Lennart Sas had this to say:

Lennart Sas: Overlord multiplayer has two competitive game modes, and one co-operative. Slaughter is a form of death match where the score is determined by the number of kills on the enemy Overlord, his Minions, and random bystanders. Plunder is all about looting more stuff than your opponent. Finally, in Survival, it’s about the perverse act of two Overlords working together in order to stay alive as long as possible against a never ending stream of enemies.
(Excerpt from an interview at http://www.firingsquad.com/)

It seems like there will be plenty of opportunity to use and abuse your minions against friend and foe alike. Come June 26th players will get the chance to lead their minions into battle, or at least point them in the direction of what they want destroyed while watching from a safe distance. Either way you will grow in power, and then be left with this decision: Do I become evil? Or really REALLY evil?

Aegis Wing Review

Rating: 7




When the aliens invade and it's left up to an elite fighter pilot force to save the planet, the North Americans will be the best suited for the job, thanks to Aegis Wing. Aegis Wing is a new Gradius style side-scrolling space shooter, available for free on XBox Live Arcade, but only to subscribers in North America.

The game doesn't take any bold new steps with the genre, but Aegis Wing is none the less a solid offering, especially considering it was created in roughly 3 months by a group of three summer interns at Microsoft.

Aegis Wing is the brain child of Scott Brodie, Danny Dyer and Matt Monson. The three interns did all the development work, while art and audio were taken care of for them. Developer Carbonated Games then finished it up and got it ready for Xbox Live Arcade. It is being offered on XBox Live as free download for a "limited time," though who knows what that means.

The game plays like your typical side scrolling space shooter. You control a ship flying through space, despite the vastness of space always going from left to right, blowing up enemy ships while dodging their return fire. Along the way you will pick up an assortment of power-ups; heat seeking missiles, a force field that bounces back enemy fire, an EMP burst that disables enemy ships and stops incoming fire, and an laser beam that destroys any targets in front of you.

The reason for all this fighting and blowing things up? They’re aliens, that’s what you do to aliens, duh. For those interested in the story, the year is 2015 and Humanity is fleeing a dying Earth. They flee to the world Europa, but are soon attacked by an alien race, the Araxians, who also want the planet. You are a pilot flying an experimental starfighter made from stolen Araxian technology, and you are humanity’s last hope. Pretty standard stuff, everyone has been humanity’s last hope at least a few times.

There are six missions in the game, taking roughly four or five minutes each to complete, except for the final mission which is about twice as long. Most of the missions end with a boss fight, which pits you against a large Araxian spaceship. The bosses are rather uninspired, looking pretty much identical except for the final boss who only looks slightly different. None of the bosses are especially challenging, once you discover their “boss pattern” it’s easy to avoid their fire and return it in kind.

Aegis Wing is for 1 to 4 players, either locally through a single 360 or over Xbox Live. One of the interesting features of the multiplayer is that players can link up, attaching their ships to one another. Regardless of how many ships are attached, one player flies the combined ship, while the other players act as a 360 degree turret. Forming together like this also makes any weapon power-ups you pick up much more powerful.

The game can easily be played through solo on the normal setting, but on Insane multiplayer is a necessity. Insane throws a ridiculous increase in enemy ships at you, which obviously leaves you with a lot more bullets to dodge. The extra firepower of other players is needed to clear enemies as quickly as possible before there are so many alien lasers flying through space that they become impossible to dodge, especially considering on the Insane difficulty you only get one life.

The background art in the game is stunning, and gives a really good impression of depth, with debris floating far off in the distance and up close. They do a bit too good of a job with the sense of depth, because the objects floating close to you seem like they should be something that needs to be steered around, when actually they are just in the background. This can get very disorienting as you’re trying to dodge hundreds of bullets, shooting back, and then suddenly “oh I have to dodge that giant rock, oh wait, its just background.” More than a few times this led me to dodge the background only to fly straight into a bullet, or one of the small red meteors that actually are something you have to dodge. The ship models on the other hand, aren’t quite as stunning. They are the typical polygonal spaceships that are common of the genre.

The orchestral score for the game is much more than you would expect from this kind of title. The light tones of the main menu and screens between missions versus the deep, heavy tones of the mission music is very reminiscent of the contrast between the Empire’s and Rebel Alliance’s themes of Star Wars.

Aegis Wing doesn’t do anything especially new, but it’s got decent visuals, great music, and gameplay that won’t disappoint if you’re a fan of this style of game. It may be a little short, but it's still a fun little game, and it’s really hard to go wrong with a free download that asks no more commitment from you than having 46mb free on your hard drive.

Mario Party 8 Review

Gameplay: 7

Graphics: 6

Sound: 6

Value: 5

Tilt: 5


The Good: Lots of fun mini-games that make good use of the Wiimote.

The Bad: Do we really need another mini-game collection on the Wii? Graphics could have been better even on the Gamecube. Chance factors in a little too much, even for Mario Party. No widescreen support.



Mario Party has made its debut on the Wii with Mario Pary 8. Developer Hudson has stuck to the Mario Party formula to bring another iteration of the game that will be very familiar to fans of the series.

At its core, Mario Party 8 is a collection of mini-games that are played out through a board game interface rather than by just selecting from a pile of mini-games and playing them one at a time. Granted you can still do that if you desire, but the main mode of play is the Party Tent, in which 1 – 4 players compete on a game board to see who can gather the most stars. As you travel through 1 of the 6 unique game boards, you will race to reach a star located on a random space. At the end of every round of turns, a mini-game is played between all 4 players, sometimes a 4 way battle sometimes 2 on 2, and other times 1 on 3. The winner/winners of the minigame will receive coins as a prize, which are used to buy stars, candies that do different things from the candy shops, and paying for services offered by characters on the game board; such as a dolphin that will take you ahead several spaces for a fee. The game plays out like this for a predetermined number of turns, then the game ends and the player with the most stars wins. There are also 3 bonus star awarded at the end of play for such things as who won the most mini-games or who moved the most spaces.

Mario Party 8 makes very good use of the Wiimote’s motion sensing capabilities in many of its games. There are games in which you shake a soda can as fast as you can to try to get it to spray the highest, balance on a tightrope, row a boat, hammer nails, and punch a statue, among other things, all doing the motion you would expect with the wiimote. Most of the motion sensing games are spot on, but then there are several games that have you holding the wiimote sideways and using the d-pad and the 1 and 2 buttons. A few of these games are fun, but several of them are obvious rehashes of older games, and several just aren’t all that fun.

Each of the boards is rather unique, and a few of them offer up some new elements to the game. DK’s Treetop Temple is your basic Mario Party game board, where there are several intersecting paths that eventually work around into a circle. Shy Guy’s Perplex Express is a large train where players work their way through the several compartments of the train to get to the star at the front, and then back over the roof in a big circle to do it again. Koopa’s Tycoon Town is one of the boards that offer a new element to the game. Rather than collecting stars, players circle the board investing in hotels. If you own a hotel, you get a star for owning it, but other players can come along and invest more than you to steal it from you. Once enough coins are invested into a hotel, it upgrades from a one star to a two star, and finally a 3 star hotel. Play gets hectic towards the end as players are trying to invest enough money to keep their properties safe from their greedy opponents. The other game board to offer up something interesting is King Boo’s Haunted Hideaway, in which players cannot see further ahead then the room they are in, and must explore the haunted house in order to find King Boo and the star. There are several dead ends that will send you back to the beginning, and once King Boo is found, all players are kicked out of the house and it is reset with rooms switched around.

The presentation of Mario Party really does nothing to set it above the many other collections of mini-games that are out for the Wii right now. This game could have easily been put out on the Gamecube, and could have looked better even there. The graphics have not been updated at all from previous iterations of the game. Another huge blow is the total lack of widescreen support. Instead, there are gaudy plaid borders on both sides of the screen to fill the extra space. There really isn’t any excuse for this and its total laziness on Hudson’s part.

Another big problem with the game is how ridiculously chance driven it is. Mario Party has always had a huge chance factor, which made it a lot of fun for even those in last place because things could turn around at any moment. But the levels of chance in this version are just too much. Throwing a dart at a quickly spinning wheel is used to decide most of the chance related elements, such as using a candy to move to another players spot and choosing which player, or picking a player to steal coins from. There is nothing more frustrating than playing a duel mini-game against the player in 1st place, and then throwing the dart and hitting the 1 coin mark.

Despite its flaws, Mario Party 8 is still a solid collection of mini-games, several of which make excellent use of the wiimote and are a blast to play with friends. If you don’t already have a few mini-game collections, this is certainly a good choice, as bringing all the mini-games together into the board game can make it more interesting than just picking a game to play out of a list. Problem being, there are already so many mini-game collections on the Wii, unless you are a fan of the series, or need another mini-game compilation, this isn’t necessarily worth the $49.99.

Dungeon Runners Review

Gameplay:7

Graphics: 8

Sound: 9

Value: 10

Tilt: 8

The Good: Free! Excellent voice acting though not used enough. Lighthearted attitude makes for some amusing moments.

The Bad: Seeing all the cool gear that you can't use if your not a member can be annoying. Very bland/repetitive quests. Only 3 classes to chose from. Not enough skills.



Dungeon runners is the latest game by NCsoft, the creators of Guild Wars. Setting up a PlayNC account, downloading the client, and then creating a username and password is all it takes to play Dungeon Runners. It is free to play. There is a catch, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Dungeon Runners is a fantasy based MMO, and it plays like a mix of Guild Wars and Diablo, which is by no means a bad mix, especially for a free game. There is a central town where you can buy gear and meet up with other players to go adventuring with. Then once you are ready, you jump through a portal to get to an instanced dungeon. All of the fighting areas are instanced where it will be just you and your party, much like in Guild Wars. Once in the dungeon, it is a hack and slash dungeon crawl very reminiscent of Diablo, with randomized dungeons and creatures dropping randomized loot everywhere. The lighthearted nature of the game is immediately evident once you get your first few drops with names like "Aggro'd Aluminum Scaled Headgear of the Stunning Penguin" or "Zapped Wooden Militia Crossbow of the Cozy Wasp".

After creating your character, of which you have the choice of Warrior, Ranger, or Mage, you will be dropped into the starter town where there will be a few quests to pick up to send you into the first dungeon right away. After making your way through the dungeon, and doing the quests if you so chose, eventually you will make it through to Townston, which is the main town where you will spend most of your time between dungeon crawls selling gear and training your skills.

As with most MMO’s, the gameplay starts off rather simplistic as you only have 1 or 2 skills to work with. As you level up though it gets a little deeper as you develop more skills, but not many compared to other games out there. You also must assign points to your stats, which you are able to respec at any point for a small fee, which is a nice touch for those that might not like how they set themselves up early on.

Players can go dungeon crawling just to look for loot, or they can take on quests to earn rewards in gold, as well as “King’s Coins” that can be traded to special npc’s for items. There are a large number of quests to endeavor upon, though they are almost all of the “Kill this many of these” or “Collect X of this” types.

The graphics are on the cartoony side and look to have drawn a lot of inspiration from WoW, though not as quite as clean as said role model. Overall the games visual presentation is strong, the environments are interesting and well laid out, and the spell effects are on par with most MMO's out there.

The music is great and does a lot to help submerge you in the atmosphere, whether it’s a slightly melodic forest song with birds and crickets chirping in the backround, or a deep ominous tune, just barely audible along with the echo of your steps and the torches burning along the wall of a dungeon. The voice acting is top notch, and oftentimes hilarious. There are definitely a few voices you will recognize (the voice of Krusty the Klown can be heard from a few NPC’s) and the random dialogue they spit out is rather funny more often than not. Unfortunately the quests and such are not voice acted and are just text, but the voiced greetings and partings are a nice touch and add to the lighthearted feel for the game.

As I said before, Dungeon Runners is free to play, but there is a catch. If you pay a $5 a month fee, you become a “member”, and get to enjoy a few privileges that the free players don’t get. For one you get use of a bank to store items that you don’t want to carry on you. Also you get the use of stackable potions, where as for everyone else, each potion they carry on them takes up 1 slot. The biggest difference between the two are gear. Gear is color coded by rarity, and the 3 highest tiers of gear are reserved exclusively for members. Non-members will be able to see the gear, and even pick it up and sell it to vendors, but it can only be equipped by a member. This can turn into a heartbreaking experience when you find an amazing piece of armor and then see the “Memebers Only” text just below the name.

Dungeon runners is a well presented game that will offer quite a bit of adventure for those who enjoy dungeon crawling and loot gathering. Where as it doesn’t offer much to set it apart from many other games of its type, its lighthearted attitude helps a bit. There’s nothing quite like running through a dungeon wielding your Cardboard Sword of the Monkey and wearing your Aluminum Foil Bracers. It does offer quite a bit considering that it is free to play, as there have been plenty of MMO’s released that offered less and looked worse that were pay. And if it is something that you can really get into, $5 a month isn’t much to ask to enjoy those extra benefits that will help you in your adventures.