It has been over a year now since the release of Overlord for the Xbox 360, a lot has happened in this time including a few Xbox 360 to PS3 ports failing miserably, thankfully the guys and gals at Codemasters have made all of the right moves and improved on one of the better and more original games for the Xbox 360. 

The story is as before, in a very dark time, a group of heroes banded together and saved the land from the evil Overlord. The dark power of the defeated Overlord has since spread to the heroes; causing them to become corrupt and making many of the local peasants wish for the return of the slain Overlord. In the ruins of the Dark Tower, minions of the previous Overlord find your shrivelled body and believe you to be the return of their evil master, thus pledging their loyalty to your very command. 

In the game you control an armoured being called the Overlord, who has god like powers and the ability to control a horde of multi-skilled minions on the battlefield. The minions will generally hang around you until you command them to either attack or ransack the local areas, they will do most of the fighting for you, but if they are having trouble with some of the larger enemies, you are able to charge in with your sword swinging, taking out these tougher bosses. Once enemies have been disposed of, your minions will gather the riches left over, from goodies such as money and energy to weaponry. The Overlords weaponry is taken back to the forge to be fashioned into better and more effective weaponry, the smaller weapons meanwhile are collected by the minions. As the Overlord you are also able to obtain magical power like fireballs and shields that knock back your enemies as well as being able to cast berserk spells on your minions.

The minions come in four varieties and are controlled using the right thumb stick for direction and to send them into battle. The Browns like nothing more than hand to hand fighting, jumping on the back of enemies trying to get as many hits before being thrown off, the Reds are like archers, preferring to attack from a distance with projectile fire balls, the Greens are master assassins and the Blues are able to swim and also resurrect fallen comrades. Most of the humour of the game come from these little critters, the way that they interact with the environment and characters is fun, harassing villagers, drinking booze, getting drunk and getting stabbed by a rampaging unicorn.

The main aim of the game is to regain control of your land that surrounds the Dark Tower; at each level hub there is the ability to summon whichever minion you require (as long as you have freed them). Each area boss is as disgusting as the last, the first being a gluttonous blob that used to be a halfling (think Frodo after way too many pies). Throughout the game are sub quests, like collecting parts for the Dark Tower or helping the local peasants with their troubles. Another cool addition to the game play is that you can either be plain evil and kill all of the heroes and their followers who have done wrong, or be really evil and kill all of the moaning villagers and steal their food and gold. Either way you go will offer different outcomes and achievements. 

Overlord will last a long time with its mix of action and puzzles and with different paths to take will allow a worthy reason to play the game again. Though the graphics are not amazing, the game play is, and there is no way an old generation console would have handled the amount of separate animations of each character and also have had the ability to control the Overlord and his minions separately.

The PS3 also has a few meaty extras over the Xbox version, first off is an inclusion of an on-screen mini map, this really helps as you are able to tell where you gave been and there are also a few icons which  give you reference points on where to go. You also have the extras that came along later in the Xbox version, including some great online co-op modes and some additional single player modes.

Though the price is a tad high for a year old game, the PS3 version is by far the stronger game and is well worth adding to your collection.