Parents' Guide to Overloot

Some games are so simple that they end up being stupid -- a problem that plagues this arcade game. In Overloot, you have to fight monsters and bad people so that you can fix the village that the evil king trashed. To do this, your character runs until he finds an enemy, and then they start fighting -- but, and this is key, with little help from you. You don't tell him to swing or to block, you just tell him which weapon to use and what armor to wear. You also have to be mindful of your inventory. Not only do you have to hand your warrior new weapons and armor when he needs them, and hamburgers when he's low on health, but because he's constantly getting new weapons and armor from beating his enemies, you have to combine items of the same kind together both to make room in your inventory and to make better versions of these items.

Now, the "challenge" (and that word is used loosely) is that weapons and armor are badly made, and fall apart quickly, so you're constantly fiddling with the inventory. Also, because you don't control the warrior -- he just swings until his enemy has been vanquished (or until he has) -- winning a fight isn't about skill or strategy, but perseverance. Since you can always keep going by spending gems, and you can always buy gems in the in-game store with real money, you can basically pay your way to victory. Which is why Overloot isn't overly interesting.