An evil force is growing to the east. Rumors are beginning to circulate of sheep horribly butchered, or entire villages of halflings roasted alive, their souls harvested by goblins to feed their malevolent master. You, brave adventurer, must– well, actually, you’re the guy doing all the killing. You’re not so much “brave adventurer” as you are “supremely villainous overlord”, and your job is to keep rebuilding, keep growing, and cover the land in darkness.

Overlord kicks off this premise with confidence. The developers use their obviously thorough knowledge of every fantasy RPG device and cliche to turn the whole lot on their head, and deliver an experience full of humor and personality. The first 30 minutes are executed with a higher degree of all-round polish than you see even in many of today’s most expensive titles.

I’ve just finished playing the demo, so I don’t know how things develop from there. Reviews for the XBox 360 version are averaging around 75%, which is probably based on 80% for the gameplay, plus 300% for being awesome, and then docked 305% for the camera.

As fantastic as it is, Overlord is not unique in playing off the tropes of the fantasy RPG. The genre is full of such examples, such as the Bard’s Tale remake, or the bizarre save-load parody in Baldur’s Gate II. Or check out the upcoming Dungeon Hero, in which the dungeon-dwelling goblins are likened to a noble underclass, eking out an existence in their squalid ghetto:

As far as I can tell, traditional fantasy is the most self-referential and genre-aware of any game setting. Some of this is certainly because of its overuse: every gamer is familiar with the setting, the characters, the archetypical stories. Developers pick the genre for this familiarity, but in order to interest the audience, need to progress beyond a simple retelling of old AD&D campaigns. While traditional fantasy certainly feels tired when done in some games, other developers manage to turn that overuse into a strength, playing off of our shared knowledge to build something new.

Postscript: I just stumbled across this interview with Rhianna Pratchett, “writer and co-story designer of Overlord”. She’s a freelance writer for games. I had forgotten about her involvement when I played the Overlord demo, but now of course it makes sense. I’d expect that selling writing services to game developers would be a difficult task. (”No, we’re cool– the hero, Axedong, must collect the four elemental crystals. My brother’s an aspiring Hollywood scriptwriter, so we’ll bring him in to write the dialog a month before ship.”) However, Overlord shows the difference a good writer can make. Judging from this article, Rhianna already had quite a few gigs lined up in late 2006, including Heavenly Sword. There’s hope!

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