Overlord

At first, I blamed most of my minion deaths on spotty micromanagement controls - but like Pikmin, as the game marched forward, it seemed dedicated to demonstrate my minions' frailty with monsters that could kill the entire squad at once. Dwarves and masked raiders with firebombs that mass-murder from afar. Flying eye demons that spawn enemies ad infinitum. The game sends mixed messages: minions can grab new armor and weapons to become stronger, but they can die at the drop of a hat. And I can sacrifice hundreds of them to power up my own equipment (the whole forge system seems poorly thought out).

I would still really like a map. And the camera controls are, well, awful.

So the gameplay needs some tweaking and rebalancing, leading to some incredibly frustrating moments of powerlessness and sudden death. Which is a shame - because the game world is really a joy to be in, and I love seeing these fantasy tropes turned on their head. Being an evil overlord is awesome.

I've finished the main game, but I'm not done yet - there's a downloadable expansion yet to conquer! Plus I'm already pretty much sold on the sequel, I already own the prequel, and the DS spinoff intrigues me as well.

Progress: Killed the wizard, 100% corruption!