Review
Played on: Xbox OneReleased: 2014
This year has seen the Xbox One really pushing out quality exclusive titles, and has such narrowed the gap to the PlayStation 4's hardware sales. Well deserved, as I review yet another one of these amazing Xbox one exclusives of the year; Sunset Overdrive.
Sure, yet again it's a post-apocalyptic title. However, Sunset Overdrive takes a less serious and humorous approach to the genre. The story premise is hilarious: there's a new energy drink launch, by a company called Fizzco, at a concert and you're the janitor at the venue. The energy drink, called Overcharge, ends up turning everybody to nasty, orange coloured, mutants and you need to help the survivors get hold of the world outside the city! Fizzco has, of course, shut the city down and lets no-one escape with the truth.
Let's take sip of energy drink and jump into this madness!
Sunset Overdrive introduces you quickly to the elements that make it stand out from the crowd. It's as much about platforming and grinding, to traverse the city, as it's about shooting down hundreds of mutants. The platforming and shooting combo is clearly a typical Insomniac trait, the guys behind the Ratchet & Clank series on PlayStation. Something further announced by the large amounts of weird, stupid and funny weapons at disposal!
Simply walking on ground level through the streets will kill you fast. This is all about shooting stuff in style while constantly moving about. If you're not grinding or bouncing away from rooftops, car hoods or fence railings, when then you're simply not playing it right. To begin with, this constant approach to momentum seems overwhelming while also pulling of the shooting, but it rewards itself immensely when you get the hang of it. Although it looks like a steep learning curve, I got into the gameplay fairly quick, but give it an hour before it sticks.
Your character, which you can design yourself with lots of wacky clothes, easily snaps on to railings and stuff to jump and bounce on. However, it's balanced out with a lot of required manual input and fast reflexes to keep moving between buildings and objects to grind on. In fact, the whole city is designed with this in mind, impressively enough both horizontally along streets but also vertically up buildings!
Simply walking on ground level through the streets will kill you fast. This is all about shooting stuff in style while constantly moving about. If you're not grinding or bouncing away from rooftops, car hoods or fence railings, when then you're simply not playing it right. To begin with, this constant approach to momentum seems overwhelming while also pulling of the shooting, but it rewards itself immensely when you get the hang of it. Although it looks like a steep learning curve, I got into the gameplay fairly quick, but give it an hour before it sticks.
Your character, which you can design yourself with lots of wacky clothes, easily snaps on to railings and stuff to jump and bounce on. However, it's balanced out with a lot of required manual input and fast reflexes to keep moving between buildings and objects to grind on. In fact, the whole city is designed with this in mind, impressively enough both horizontally along streets but also vertically up buildings!
The movement will become second nature, allowing you to concentrate on killing mutants with long combo streaks. After a while you'll look absolutely amazing as you're shooting and simultaneously pulling off amazing movement. People overlooking you playing will probably enjoy the madness as much as the player. Especially considering the amount of explosions and mutants filling the screen!
In many ways Sunset Overdrive is what Dead Rising should've been back in the day: freedom to approach enemies in any crazy way you want, without time limits and horrible escort missions. Just crazy weaponry and tons of kills! I love the crazy amount of enemies, the way they splat into orange goo, the ease of traversing around and over-the-top weaponry that causes incredible mayhem. All this with a cool punk rock soundtrack on top!
It's fun and although it tries hard to give the player this message, it doesn't really need to. The core gameplay is incredibly entertaining, even without the wacky cutscenes and funny dialogue. That's just the bonus on top.
It may not be a technically stunning title at first glance, it's 900p@30fps, but what it doesn't deliver in raw graphics output, it more than compensates with insane amounts of enemies, beautiful colours and stylish visuals that have this cartoon quality! Over time you really appreciate the size and clever design of the city too, there's a lot of detail on further inspection.
The game really pops on your screen pushing the colour scales of your TV set to it's limits, I've not seen such a colourful release for ages, and will probably turn more heads than a gritty, realistic looking shooter. The colour palette and character designs suit it's platforming well and give the sort of vibe older 3D platformers had. Think Ratchet & Clank's world, with human characters and a hi-tech city.
It's fun and although it tries hard to give the player this message, it doesn't really need to. The core gameplay is incredibly entertaining, even without the wacky cutscenes and funny dialogue. That's just the bonus on top.
It may not be a technically stunning title at first glance, it's 900p@30fps, but what it doesn't deliver in raw graphics output, it more than compensates with insane amounts of enemies, beautiful colours and stylish visuals that have this cartoon quality! Over time you really appreciate the size and clever design of the city too, there's a lot of detail on further inspection.
The game really pops on your screen pushing the colour scales of your TV set to it's limits, I've not seen such a colourful release for ages, and will probably turn more heads than a gritty, realistic looking shooter. The colour palette and character designs suit it's platforming well and give the sort of vibe older 3D platformers had. Think Ratchet & Clank's world, with human characters and a hi-tech city.
It took me about 30 hours to complete and collect everything, so there's plenty of value too! I really hope Insomniac makes this a franchise with more titles further along the line.
Actually, when thinking about it, this is my game of the year! It's so damn entertaining and colourful!
