Sunset Overdrive review by Tyson
Overall
Rent
I found Sunset Overdrive to be a very comical open world game but I also found some serious flaws within the game design. Beacuse of its flaws Sunset Overdirve is a game worth playing but once you have finished the main story missions it’s worth trading in for something else.
Gameplay
Sunset Overdrive is a game that is chuck full of comedy. The story is set around the new Fizzco energy drink that has turned most of the people of Sunset City into mutants. It is up to our nameless customizable player created character to save Sunset City. Unlike other open world games you aren’t helping out some crime syndicate or criminal orginization but rather helping out a scout group, a group of LARPers, or the sexy Latina cheerleader group. The games story and dialog just oozes with comedy and I loved it. It was this comedic style that helped me get through a lot of the subpar gameplay designs.
The gameplay of Sunset Overdrive seems like the developers took games like Tony Hawk, Crackdown, and Grand Theft Auto and mixed them into a blender. You get around the game environment by grinding across power lines or rails, or by swinging from poles , or by jumping on objects like cars or air conditioners. Sadly if you aren’t moving around the environment like a money then the game gets pretty boring fairly quick. Though if you can keep yourself moving around the environment like a monkey then you can build up this Style Meter that enables these equipable items called Amps. Amps will enchance your character in various ways such as shooting a fireball with every melee attack or causing fiery explosions when you bounce on objects. Along with Amps you have Overdrive abilities that you can equip that will also give your character other various enhancements.
Much like games like Grand Theft Auto and other open world games you will need to do missions to further the games story. Doing these missions really seemed to be a hit or miss for me. It seemed like for every fun mission like having to return this lost robot dog to its owner by using stuffed kittens there are tons of boring go here and collect x amount of items or kill x amount of enemies missions. Also I found the tower defense style missions to be very unenjoyable and having to do them several times throughout the game was just awful. I also found fighting the various bosses of the game to be very easy as well which was a bit of disappointment. Boss battles also reused the same gameplay elements which was a bit boring as well.
Probably the best aspect of the gameplay for me was the combat. You get a good arsenal of weapons and these are unlike weapons of other open world games. You get weapons like a stuffed teady bear grenade launcher, or this weapon that shoots out bowling balls, or how about a weapon that shoots out an acid sprinkling Fizzco mascot. Overall the weapons were fun to use and I liked how different weapons excelled at fighting different enemies types like the mutants, humans, or robots. One thing that did bother me with the combat was that I didn’t find fighting the robot enemies to be much fun. Robot enemies have ways to easily damage your character which wasn’t all that fun.
Control
I really didn’t have any issues with the control setup in the game. The control is setup like any other open world game and it was also very responsive. The only issue I might of had was that I didn’t really like how the weapon wheel was setup but other than that I didn’t have any other issues.
Graphics
Wow I really loved the looked of this game. The graphics are birght, colorful, and run at a smooth framerate. I liked how you can customize the look of your character as well but I did feel that the facial hair for your character looked awful. Outside of the facial hair the rest of the game really impressed me. I also really liked the various respawn animations that the game used after you died. I found them to be very funny.
Sound
I have to say that I loved the voice actress for the playable female character. Her dialog was well performed and the way she did a lot of her lines just made me laugh in the good way. Other characters voice work was also well done. The background music and various sound effects are also good.