Overlord: Raising Hell

Overlord: Raising Hell keeps the appeal of the original Overlord in one place: you command goblin-like minions, solve simple environmental problems, and let chaos do part of the work for you. By our assessment, the best part is the minion management, because sending little creatures ahead, losing a few, and feeding the rest into the next obstacle has a blunt, nasty charm. The downside is that it never hides its rough edges for long; the action can feel clumsy, and the joke wears thinner if you want something more precise. In practice it is a dark fantasy action game with strategy-light commands, more about directing trouble than mastering delicate systems. Compared with fuller action RPGs, it is smaller and sillier, and compared with straight strategy it is much more hands-on. The limit is simple: once the minion gimmick stops amusing you, there is not much else under it.