Overlord

Minion, Minion, On the Wall

In fact, the single most relevant comparison to be made between Overlord and any other game on the market isn't with Dungeon Keeper at all - it's with Nintendo's Pikmin. As with that game, your minions follow you around the world as you move, and you can then direct them to a specific target (by locking on to the target with the L-trigger and then flinging minions at it with the R-trigger), or simply guide them around in a massive group by steering them with the right stick.

Like Pikmin, too, the game builds up its puzzles by introducing new types of minion, each of which has its own abilities. Brown minions are powerful fighters; red minions have a ranged attack, and can absorb fire, allowing you to pass through burning obstacles. Green minions are good stealth attackers, and can absorb poison clouds. Blue minions can pass over water, and although they can't fight very well, they can resurrect their kin. Each type can be selected and controlled independently, or as a single mixed-colour group.

A further comparison with Pikmin comes from your interactions with objects; to carry something back to base, you simply throw minions at it until there are enough of them there to pick it up. The same approach also works for destroying barriers and turning levers; you rarely interact with anything in the world yourself. The game is a simple joy to control; largely speaking, you move your character with one stick and your horde with the other, and that's about it.

If you're going to pick a game to imitate, something as finely implemented (and as infrequently copied) as Pikmin is a damn good choice - and by building the framework of that game onto a title with a radically different setting and visual style, Overlord avoids any allegations of being a straight copy. Rather than accusing the team of being light fingered with Nintendo's ideas, we're more tempted to conclude that this is the sincerest form of flattery.

Visually, the game couldn't be further from Pikmin - but Dungeon Keeper isn't an obvious influence here either. In fact, the game it's closest to is probably Fable, as it boasts a similar approach to the design of its various forests, villages and cities - but as you'd expect from an Xbox 360 title, the whole world is far more expansive and detailed than it was in Fable. It's still not up to the standards of some 360 titles we've seen, however, because the team has wisely chosen to throw graphics power at rendering dozens of minions and other characters, rather than going all-out on the environments.

Your minions, after all, are the stars of the show. They have tons of animation, plenty of amusing Gollum-esque speech, and best of all, they steal items from dead enemies and smashed scenery to use as weapons, shields and helmets. Leading a party of 20 minions away from an encounter with a graveyard full of zombies, all armed with skeletal zombie forearms and wearing a motley assortment of old helmets and the occasional skull as headgear is enough to raise a grin on the lips of even the most cynical old gamer.

The version of the game we have played is extremely polished already, as you'd expect with the release date only a few weeks off. Fantastic voice acting, good music, an extremely solid frame-rate and a "hub" throne-room which can be upgraded with your spoils of war as you progress top off a very slick package, and once the last few bugs are knocked out and the load delays fixed (at present loading is very slow, but we're assured that this will be different in the final version), the whole package looks set to be very appealing.

Besides which - it's always been more fun to be the bad guy. Those villagers won't be trying anything on with me again for a long, long time...