PETA will probably have something to say, but as usual, no one with a sense of humor will care.

I’ve often said that there’s no better way to wrap up my Sabbath day than with an expose into the evils of my own soul. After a day of humble piety, actually paying attention to my family, and reminding myself why I pray, few activities top things off like creating mayhem as the supremely dark anti-hero of the Overlord franchise.

Sure, a lot of games like Fable, Fallout, Mass Effect, and a whole slew of others have a general karma scale, a “good vs evil” aspect to add to the depth of the gameplay, as well as playability. It’s almost become the default way to get gamers to keep playing your game rather than turning it in at the used store. Overlord takes that idea, but tweaks it to “Kinda evil” and “Makes Dick Cheney’s stomach churn.”

Before I get too deep, for those of you who are a little slow, this is a first impression, my thoughts on the demo. Got it? Okay, proceed…

I’m a fan of the original Overlord title. I played through it on the 360 fairly soon after the release. In my opinion, it was one of the most overlooked games of 2007. Why did people not like? Brevity. The game was a tad short. For married gamers on the go such as myself, this isn’t a horrible thing. Being able to go through an entire storyline and have that sense of accomplishment that you’ve beaten another game is a good feeling, and the MS Points didn’t hurt either. Even so, once I had beaten it and turned it back into the store, I found myself wanting more.

Well, more has finally come along. Since this was the demo, I can’t comment on the overall length of the sequel, but if Triumph Studios learns from the last go-around, we can hope for more than 30 hours storyline. We’re promised that the environments will be more diverse from the English countryside-looking picturesque vistas that we saw in the first game.

The demo has the Overlord chasing a Yeti through icy terrain, trying to take the beast down with the help of brown minions. There really isn’t much to the demo—chase the Yeti, gather some life force so you can raise more minions, chase the Yeti some more—and yet it never ceased to get boring. The iced-out environment looked fantastic. I’m curious to see how the rest of the game looks, but the first game had great graphics as well (despite the similarities between areas).

Controls are very similar to the first game, which I found to be fairly intuitive. Not perfect, but once you’ve played with the game a little bit, it gets easier and you soon become very accustomed to the sweet, sweet chaos. I played through on the PS3, and it wasn’t much different than the 360 controls. One button calls your minions back to you, one casts spells, your R1/RB re-centers the camera—you get the picture.

The right stick controls your minions, so if you have a small handful at your command, you can stand back and guide them to their targets. Small numbers appear above an enemy’s head letting you know how many minions are currently attacking it, which allows you to push the minions towards a target, wait until you have several swarming it, and then push the rest on to other targets.

Where this game really shines is in the fun and humor. The introduction movie gets you laughing, and if you aren’t a complete mook, you’ll probably keep laughing all the way through the demo. The minions are a riot, and once they gain the ability to use rabid wolves as mounts, they become stronger and can leap small distances (such as from iceberg to iceberg, allowing you to take out enemies from a distance). Their cries of glee as they bring you back presents (“Treasure!”) will echo in your mind as you sleep. My wife and I still can’t drive past a small herd of sheep without making some sort of comment about “sheepies” in the voice of the head minion. You would think this would get tiring by now, since we live two blocks from a sheep farm, but curiously enough, its still funny.

Some of the enemies you’ll face in the frozen wasteland are traveling liberal wood elves who give a “stirring” speech about your nefarious activities of clubbing baby seals and chasing Yeti before attacking. Of course, three effeminate elves are no match for fifteen armed and crazy minions under your command, and that’s if you decide to take the relaxed road and not join in the fray. You don’t want your armor to get scratched up by some woodland pansy, do you?

Demo was awesome. What else can I say? It was a lot of fun. I had seen screenshots but didn’t realize this game was so close to coming out. The game hits shelves June 23rd in North America, June 26th in Europe, and July 9th in Australia. There will be separate versions for the Wii and DS as well that will be slightly different than the actual sequel, I’m guessing with toned-down gameplay for the family-friendly console and handheld.

For more Overlord-related humor, check out the official website.

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