A while back (perhaps last September) I purchased Overlord. In the game the player controls the Overlord, who has been recently awakened to reclaim his territories and rebuild his castle. The player can choose to be Good or Evil, which affects the final outcome of the game. During most of the game you control one of four types of “Minions”, which you send forth to do your bidding (whether it’s attacking or simply finding items). Mastery of various types becomes important later in the game but initially you’ll only have Brown minions, which you’ll later use to acquire other minion hives and complete various activities.

If you’re going for Achievements on an XBox 360 make all Good or all Evil choices. Somewhere in between will not unlock either achievement tied to your level of “Corruption”.

Also, after I had acquired all three smelters and forged Archanium armor, weapon, and helmet I focused on increasing my imbued Minions and hording Minions for later use. I don’t know if it’s an effective strategy with lessor armor or earlier in the game but after I acquired Ultimate Archanium (and imbuing the items with almost only Brown Minions as recommended on other Web sites) I learned that the fastest way to build up Minion energy was to go into the Dungeon and fight the various types of Beetles. Each Beetle, when defeated, will drop three orbs. After each battle in the Dungeon I typically had acquired 75 orbs, which was much faster and easier than hunting in two areas of Mellow Hills over and over and over again. Also, I was able to take on several Beetles at once to quickly finish the round.

Earlier in the game you may still want to use the Dungeon but if your armor and weapons are not as strong I recommend approaching the creatures you’re fighting from the side of the arena to draw out only a few or even one creature at a time. Running straight into a horde of creatures, even with full armor and weapon is often not a great idea.

Typically, at my final level of power I was able to take on four or five Beetles at the same time without much difficulty. Larger numbers become a bit more troublesome and begin to cause more damage but may still be manageable.

In fact, by using the method mentioned above I was able to level up all of my armor, weapons, and helmets easily within one night and store up Minions for the last two battles in the game.

Despite spending many hours playing the game and enjoying it I don’t think I’ll go back to get the Good or Evil achievements. The game required too much time the first time around to convince me that it’s really worth trying to get every little Gamerscore Achievement point. It was fun, especially earlier in the game, but I have other interesting games to toy with.