Evil, fun, but somewhat lacking.
And they are, with their poor posture, simple-minded maliciousness and somewhat squeaky voices. They looks mostly the same as their original forms; the biggest visual change comes from the Reds, who now glow with lava and look suitably demonic. During any downtime you might have between quests, you can visit your minions in the spawning pit, and review your army of minions that you've summoned before. You can even resurrect favorite minions. I'm personally quite attached to my brown minion, Trug, because he looks like a mini centurion and also because he's my highest level minion. Which brings me to the levels. Each minion has a level, though its not clearly explained if this is as a result of combat experience, equipment or a combination of both.
Another difference between the original minions and these ones is that they're markedly tougher than the original. In the original, I often lost minions to halfling rocks and the like, but now I rarely lose many minions unless its a boss battle. They also seem to heal after combat, though I'm uncertain if the original minions did too.
Another new feature of the minions is, of course, the ability to mount rides. Browns mount wolves, reds and greens mount salamanders and spiders respectively. Blues don't have a mount, which seems a bit racist (colorist?) to me, but I digress. Mounting a minion makes them faster and tougher, and also adds new abilities. For example, wolf riders can charge right into formations and throw unlucky soldiers into the air, salamander riders can hit and run whilst spider riders can hide in ambush on walls and ceilings. Mounts aren't all that common, but when they do appear it makes a nice break from regular minion play; rather than flanking a formation with greens, you can simply charge your wolves in head-on.
A final minion feature is posession. Once again these possesion phases are few, but spread out well to break the admited monotony of Overlording. During these stages you take direct control of a minion, and lead a small team through various paths that are too small for your evil magnificence. These phases range from short to long, and can provide some of the best moments in Overlord 2. Infiltrating a Empire facility as a green leading greens is a major highlight of the possesion stages. One downside however; the minion you possess is limited in some ways, unable to upgrade itself, and unable to perform special attacks like leaping onto an enemy's back. Attacking is also somewhat clumsy.
On to the rest of gameplay. The Overlord is exactly like the old one (in more ways than one), and the only real new thing is that he slouches evilly in armor on his throne. Admittedly, he can perform a circle strike that damages every opponent around him, but judicious application of your minions generally means the only real use of this circle strike is to clear bamboo. Controls are more or less the same otherwise, making the transition from Overlord 1 to Overlord 2 seamless. Only difference is that spells are activated with the Alt key, combined with other key presses.
Which brings us to the spells. I, frankly, am rather disappointed with the new spells. You have only 3, 4 if you include the starting Lightning Whip, which is rather weak. They are the Target spell, the Minion spell and the Halo spell. You have no real damage dealer like the original Fireball or Flamethrower. The effects of your spells will change as you lean towards Domination or Destruction, but they are still not really useful as offensive spells, even less so if you lean towards Domination.
Domination and Destruction are like alignments; either you rule all or burn all. They'll affect your spell effects and your ending, I suppose. I'm not really sure if it affects your appearance; I haven't noticed any real changes in my Domination Overlord. Spells either have a Domination or Destruction effect, activating either effect progresses that spell along the appropriate path. Certain choices along the story will also swing you either way.
The story starts in the town of Nordberg with you as the Overlad. The kids are teasing you and calling you Witchboy, which no self-respecting future Overlord will put up with. You go along to exact revenge, and this doubles as a tutorial. Eventually a few spectating minions will take you as their master. After these events though, the Empire arrives and the Nordbergians sell you out. After a thrilling escape sequence involving wolves, minions and a yeti, you end up as a popsicle brought back by the brown minions as the new Overlord. Gnarl approves, defrosts you, and raises you. Fast forward 13 years, and you are now the Overlord ready to kick the Empire down and establish yourself as ... well ... Overlord ... of the world. The learning curve is smooth, having no major leaps in difficulty. The story isn't really interesting till it nears the end, and that's all I'm gonna say. Gameplay is markedly different, as you can now appropriate ballistas, catapults and even get in on a little ship boarding with the ever-present aid of your minions. Humor pervades everything, and it is satrical and somewhat perverse, infecting even the very races. Forging has been reworked; no longer do you search for forges, instead you look for forge stones, which are like STCs for the Overlord, containing blueprints for weapons and armor. Costs are preset. You also have two extra resources, Dark Crystals and a pink crystal for which I missed the name. Both are harder to find then regular gold, so choose your purchases wisely. You can also get all the available mistresses in the game, though you do have to pick a primary one.
Sound effects are solid, though swinging a sword does get irritating after a while. The voice acting is superb in all aspects, especially for the minions, since they're the ones you hear most often. It does however, sound like they reused some of the original lines.
All in all, Overlord 2 is a rather nice game. It does have the same shortcomings as its predecessor though. The minion AI is improved, but still rather lacking. I'm not expecting strategic brilliance, but I at least expect the minion who busted the chest open the grab the gold and bring it back to me. Or not to take the path of most resistance back to me.
In conclusion, don't expect a masterpiece. I cannot honestly ever expect a perfect game that has to deal with so much AI at one go. But it is fun to play, and bashing random things is rather therapeutic. If you have some cash to spare I reccomend getting Overlord 2, but if you're waiting on a piece of perfection, then give this a miss and come back for it when the price settles down.