Oh deary me. I find myself at a loss for words; this is one of the few times that I completely disagree with Mr. Croshaw.
When we purchase something, we purchase it because of our expectations. When you buy an apple, you expect it to taste like an apple. When you buy a bed, you expect to be able to sleep on it. So when someone buys Overlord 2, they should expect to play as an overlord. It's one thing when games try to sneak a character's personality past the player to compensate for the fact that they didn't give him any (ex: Dead Space), but in Overlord 2, it's not very subtle is it? It's in the bloody title.
Yahtzee's biggest mistake was assuming that the game is trying to make us care; it doesn't, and it shouldn't. What it does do is establish a role, a filled niche for us to tamper with. We're not called the players for nothing you know?
Gaming was established on the foundation that people wanted to be something/someone else; you know, escape? They didn't even need for us to care about the role we were playing, just as long as we got away. If every game tried to make us care about our role, it suddenly isn't a game anymore, it's a second life, and the game becomes one long tutorial level (ex: GTA IV.)
I guess that as games got more modern, so did our expectations. We started off filling in someone's shoes; now it seems they have to be our shoes in order for us to give a crap. People don't care about characters, stories, or concepts; they care about the game itself. Our obsession with video games may have created our so called culture, but it's also created far too much criticism. The result; more games with sullen protagonists, more games with havoc physics, and more games that are borderline reality.
Overlord 2 was, in my eyes, a terrible game (the controls are what got me mostly), but at least it had unique depth. We can't expect to care about every universe a game presents us; we can only expect a role, and to have fun playing it.
I'm sorry if this comes off as a bit of a rant. I'm going to walk my dog now.
PS- I like the idea of Yahtzee following up on his reviews, it gives a lot more room for discussion, which is what the internet is all about.
