Sunset Overdrive Review

Sunset Overdrive has just ruined my attention span , and honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. During my 40-hour of trip through designer Insomniac's crazy however charming portrayal of the end times, I strayed out of the way more than I have in some other open-world game in recent memory. In spite of the mini map encouraging me to head 400 meters east, I couldn't resist the opportunity to veer off the line at each open door.

This isn't because of an absence of interesting  to do , rather a demonstration of the abundance of them. As a result of Sunset's superb traversal, perfect comedic writing, and plenty of wealth of upgrade paths for my character and weapons, I was more than happy to take the street less traveled. Usually, it led me someplace that I'm thoroughly glad I visited.

Sunset Overdrive visually pops, in the same way as the Easter Bunny on a acid trip. Its bright colours, punk rock attitude, and nose turned up towards the power all meldtogether wonderfully.

Like the cult classic Jet Set Radio, Sunset ambushed my sense with a never ending shower of stimulus. Monsters explode into a sea of bright orange viscera, certain weapons allows you shoot off a torrent of blasting fireworks, and freezing enemies results in the word "BRRRR" showing up in the air everywhere above them. I truly admire that Insomniac has made a world that successfully sticks to a solid, exceptional, and artistic vision.

Like most any open-world game, the mission structure here has you talking with a character at point A, making your way across the to point B, and taking part in some action that generally brings about being sent to gather a prize at point C. While that structure may sound dreary, Sunset makes the very demonstration of traversal a consistent joy rather than an obligatory trudge. I rarely found my-self using the fast travel system, because this is a game that is about the journey as much as the destination.

The narrative conceit be damned, your hero or heroine can, using only their own two feet, jump on anything remotely light, dash through the air, and pound on all conduct of force lines, announcements, and anything that presents a right angle. Actually all of this is encouraged thanks to a punitively slow regular ground running speed, the reward of a brilliant combo system, and a an ridiculous plenty of monsters, soldiers, and robots. Truly, if you find yourself on the ground more than 10 seconds, denied of your godly mobility, chances are you are going to end up dead shortly after that. Anyhow Sunset cleverly avoid harsh punishments with quick respawns with amusing animations that affectionately pay homage - in smart ways - to dozens of classic works, from Portal to Terminator to the Night of the Living Dead.

As far as you keep moving and refrain from lingering on the ground, Sunset's combat proves to be deep, exciting, and rewarding. I loved battling battling enemies like the giant  Hurkers, as each one encounter felt like a mini boss fight in and of itself. There is a great sense of tension in trying to stay moving while maintaining the high ground. Thanks to Sunset’s deep and varied arsenal, I found my-self creating some really interesting combos: I'd start off by peppering the zone with stop bombs, which purchased me enough time to set out a field of Acid Sprinklers, and completion everything off with cascade of blasting teddy bears.

While all of that looks and feels great in motion, it definitely  isn't simple. The controls in Sunset aren't easy: when you pick up a full suite of weapons and traversal capacities, your hands will be getting a series workout attempting to manage all of them. But while it certainly sense cumbersome initially, prompting a stretch of hours where my fingers always felt like a fraction of a second behind where my mind was, I in the long run  acclimated to the complex system and even grew to admire it.

For sure, at the end of the campaign, despite everything I still found myself having to work to navigate this hand-eye-coordination noodles bowl when I had to pound on a wire, kill a horde of monsters below me, jump off, switch weapons and kill an airborne bat thingy, and air dash towards the closest bounding so I could wall ride around its outside. Yet while it may be a bit complicated, the result of mastering the system and being in the long run having the capacity to make it across the entirety of the city whithout ever setting foot on the asphalt is wildly satisfying.

It additionally felt customized by the way that weapons and abilities are upgraded focused on a how frequently you use them. The more I wandered  across the city, the more opportunities I needed to add a blast to my jumps. Everytime I killed a robot with an Acid Sprinkler, I inced closer to upgrade both my weapon and also my attributes  against robots. Not only it rewards your playstyle, but it also encouraged you to experiment with other weapons in order to see how they’d evolve over time.

Combat reaches new levels of insanity when you jump into Chaos Squad, Sunset Overdrive's eight-player co-op multiplayer missions. These spread as wave based siege defenses where you have given a brief amount of time to lay traps and coordinate with your friends before all hell breaks loose. The following exhibition of blood, guts, lightning, lasers,ice and giant fireworks is craziness of the highest caliber . Yet while Chaos Squad is a neat diversion, it didn't snatch me as tightly as the single-player campaign figured out how to.

THE VERDICT
Sunset is huge, gorgeous, and a hell of a lot of of fun. Never has getting from point A to point B in an open world game provided so much enjoyment and satisfaction. It gives probably the most fun, frantic, and awesome gaming I've had on the Xbox One. Now if you will excuse me, I have to once again adorn my wolf mask, jump off the highest ledge I can find, and fire an explosive stuffed animal animal at that group of robots.