Overlord II Hands On

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You can disguise them too. Whereas surviving minions would don the armour and wield the weapons of fallen foes in the original, it was a visual gag. This time, going into battle in disguise has strategic benefits, allowing you to sneak undetected past key points. When we play the game, we first herd minions into a tent to don their new garb before leading them over to a guarded bridge. With our new shiny uniforms on, the guards allow the bridge to lower before being mercilessly butchered for their incompetence.

Without giving too much away, Sas has revealed that bosses will not only be more "epic" than previously, but be "closer tied into story; so the player has a bit more of a grudge against them". Elsewhere, other boss creatures will be "closer designed around the minion gameplay and the minions' mounts". We don't get to see any specific examples, but do get to see certain enemies in a controlled demo, including a giant one-eyed Yeti who romps around the snowy environments of Nordberg. Billed as defender of the cute baby seals (which you can bludgeon remorselessly, obv), he boasts a rather effective snowball attack which, if on target, effectively bowls your minions off their feet and disrupts your formation.

In keeping with the game's humorous tone, we can also expect to encounter Florian, the 'emo' leader of the Elf Warriors who's an environmental activist annoyingly opposed to your destructive tendencies - but also rather irked by everyone else, it seems. But one group that fights firmly on the side of the Empire is the Eradicator agents, who basically suck the magic out of anything that strays into the path of their giant sucking machine. Gnomes, meanwhile, are fond of stealing and breaking things, and have no problem taking out their angst on the Overlord and his minions whenever they get the opportunity. Crush, kill, destroy, perish.

Destroy or enslave? I say DESTROY!

And all of this looks beautiful, thanks to an engine buff, and Triumph promises parity between Xbox 360 and PS3 versions thanks to performance analysers that help the tech team figure out choke points, with minor animation tweaks often the solution to frame-rate jitters. The PC version will of course scale up or down to fit your system. Also in amongst all the levers and pulleys behind the scenes is returning script-writer Rhianna Pratchett. "Rhianna was the only one that really 'got' what we wanted to do," Sas explains. "As a hardcore gamer and an ex-games journo, Rhianna is head and shoulders above some of the Hollywood writing talent that has been popping up in the games industry lately... Games writing works best when the writer works hand-in-hand with the game's designers; so the story is not written before or after the game is made, it's an integral part of the entire process."

We wish you an EVIL Christmas.

Pratchett acknowledges this, and talks about how well it worked on the first game. "The gameplay, environments, missions, minion antics, voice acting and script all worked well together. I don't think humour works as well against really straight gameplay or bland environments - it has to permeate through multiple areas. It always felt that right from the off, everyone on the Overlord team was pulling in the right direction." Certainly, the net result in the refined PS3 version (which fixed the 360's problem of incidental dialogue repeating) was charming. The smartest decision was, and is, to make the minions the stars of the show.

This time, however, by ramping up abilities without over-complicating them, polishing the game engine and bringing the boss battles and narrative into closer alignment, Overlord II looks to build on that without bringing the Dark Tower tumbling down completely in search of a new hook. Hopefully the result will be the game Overlord could have been, and came so close to being. Make daddy proud, Triumph.