After riding for an hour the press bus arrived in the middle of Delft. Since Codemasters and Triumph couldn't get rid of the Dutch gaming press (and a few of our Belgian colleagues were a bit late) the presentation got delayed a while. Once things got back up to schedule Lennart Sas, the big chief of Triumph, explained somewhat nervously what Overlord has to offer. He remained enthusiastic at all times and once he started to show real gameplay he couldn't stop himself telling all kinds of details about the game.

Overlord is an action adventure with some (very) mild roleplaying elements, taking place in a crazy fantasy setting where nothing is what it seems. There are enough twists to call it a promising game. This project succeeds in that by taking the right elements from previous top titles (like the minions which could have come from Pikmin, the general mood of Dungeon Keeper and some of the cheery visuals of Fable). There is more than "just" a mix of course, as the game has enough unique flair and style to it that you won't think about it as a cheap rip-off.

The story goes as follows: the main character is saved from beneath some rubble by the other protagonists: the minions, some kind of imp servants. They see in you their Overlord, the bad guy, who suffered a heavy defeat against seven heroes. It's now your intent to get some sweet revenge and to take over the world. There is an odd problem though: these valiant heroes have become corrupted and are pretty much becoming evil Overlords themselves by terrifying the population. That's why it sometimes looks like you're playing the big freedom fighter and in a limited way you can try not to kill too much innocent farmers and do a little bit "good" but let's make things clear here: Overlord works with gradations of "being evil".

Your dark crusade takes you and your helpful minions through several levels in which you need to solve quests/small puzzles, smash everything to pieces and take everything that can be lifted up back to your Dark Tower. That loot includes totem pieces to improve your (limited) health/mana/minion statistics, a tower heart, gold, virgins and other "useful" items. This tower of evil is your place of refuge and it is here that you can improve your equipment by sacrificing a certain combination of minions (they'll happily jump into an oven). This way you can for example attune your sword with a flame effect by sacrificing several red minions. The tower also features a dungeon in which you can fight earlier defeated foes. It's like a combat practice arena with several minions cheering and supporting for you in the stands. Decorate certain rooms and "install" a (female) lover to receive certain advantages. This all sounds fun but before the playtest began there was first a guided tour.

The Triumph Studios building is quite unique. From the outside you'd swear it is a hotel or a restaurant but once you've entered it the truth becomes clear; it is a (reorganized) cozy, old hospital. Perhaps a little bit out-of-place for a game developer but in reality it's quite handy with all these seperate rooms in which they can place specific teams (programmers, modellers and level designers).

The development stages of Overlord were all presented; from pure code to special effects and editor tools, from sketch to 3D models and animations. Triumph can do it all. A full 3D title as this one demands a lot more manpower than the classic, 2D Age or Wonders-series though. The number of employees has increased considerably till approximately 25 men (and some women :) ). As it is more and more the case in the industry some of the work was outsourced as well which means that over 50 people in total have worked on Overlord.

After the interesting office tour it was time to get playing! I was only able to try out the Xbox 360 version. Nowadays I detest gamepads but I didn't have many problems with adapting to the game's control scheme. It's very simple to order your minions around; with the right shoulder button, you can let them manipulate a particular object you're pointing at or you can move them across the playing field with the right analogue stick. Casting spells, hack 'n slashing, it all happens in an intuïtive way. The only action missing was jumping but the rather linear and tight setup of the levels makes you forget that omission. On PC, there will be mouse and keyboard support for all these commands but it's possible to plug in an Xbox 360 gamepad as well. While the controls feel pretty fluid there is a possible danger that you won't always see as much as you'd like. Overlord uses a third person cameraview (adjustable to a certain extent) and once your gang sets all hell loose (on some unsuspecting halfing troops) it isn't easy to distinguish a lot in such a large chaos.

To make situations like that easier, there is the option to divide your minions into seperate groups. There are also puzzles where you could use that feature (like for places only minions can reach) and the four variations of these little rascals with each their strengths and disadvantages can make this grouping option useful as well (only the blue minions can swim for example). These lads are without a doubt also the biggest source of hilarity in Overlord. They say funny things about everything that happens on screen and they'll sacrifice themselves without any hesitation. Minions nick everything in their sights and sow terror if it pleases you by jumping on and smashing opponents. They keep certain spoils of war like weapons, helmets and armor for themselves. Especially when a hero boss dies it's remarkable to see your minions using the specific boss weapons and attributes later on (like the fork and crown of the pompous halfling-king). These items will disappear forever though once your little monster slaves die. More minions (there is a maxium of 50 of these buggers in-game) can be summoned through spawning pits as long as you have enough lifeforce. Every living creatures you kill drops some lifeforce which minions in the vicinity automaticallt collect.

Triumph didn't take a license on an existing 3D engine since they didn't find any on the market that would be fit for the specific features of Overlord. And because they made the AoW-engine themselves they thought, why not program this on our own too? It doesn't look bad, far from it even. You might not see the very latest advanced effects and the levels feel very cropped but the graphics really work, especially with all your minions fighting on screen and that's not only the consequence of the sheer engine power but also of the cool design. Your minions are like Gremlins on speed and every part of the game is over-the-top or twisted. Like the first boss you'll encounter, the halfling-king. He is fat, greedy, saturated and that's why the designers made him into a festering, pumped up bowling ball which looks like he is going to explode every second.

Everything in the game world looks lighthearted but when compared to Fable everything feels a bit faster, more direct. The RPG-part has been kept extremely light for a reason: in Overlord the jokes and the funny situations are just so much clearer, less embarassing I'd say because, well, you are "evil" all the time. As said before, there is a possibility to try and play the good guy but from the parts I went through I couldn't see a lot of joy in that and generally speaking you can't really become the Pope in this game too. You also don't constantly hear an annoying British accent but just the right voice with the right character. Isn't there anything negative about this project then? Well, while Overlord did prove to be a nice experience during the playtest it concerned me a bit that some things were (deliberately?) kept simple. There are "only" four different minions, two lovers, three different kinds of weapons and three different armor pieces for your Overlord. You can upgrade and tweak them from time to time but I got the impression that the variety will have to come from the other elements of the game, like the five uniqe worlds, the seven heroes, the different NPC's, (sub-)quests and the more than 25 different enemies. If that wouldn't be the case then there is still multiplayer. No more than two players will be able to go through three game modes in levels specifically created for this purpose. You can fight against each other in true Deathmatch-style (Slaughter), or take on numerous monsters in the Survival mode or just plunder everything you see (Plunder).

If there is anything you can be sure of then it is that Overlord, in all its aspects, looks to be hilarious from start to finish. Age of Wonders was "serious" fantasy, Overlord is the opposite without feeling ridiculous or childish sometimes like it was the case in Fable. The game has a joyful atmosphere of its own and that's more than enough to look forward to the retailversion. While a level editor won't be included or released later on for the PC version, there is new content (multiplayer and singleplayer) in the works already which presumably will be distributed as an expansion.