Other than the nostalgic feelings that I anticipate from the upcoming Halo: Master Chief Collection, and some closeted excitement about Forza Horizon 2, I have not paid much attention to the Xbox One’s new releases throughout 2014. In fact, the only one that really caught my eye was Insomniac’s Sunset Overdrive.
From what I’ve seen, this game mixes some of the craziest mechanics from a strange variety of games – particularly inFamous, No More Heroes, and even Jet Set Radio Future.
Its art style and unrelenting campiness is reminiscent of No More Heroes and even Suda 51’s bizarre Shadows of the Damned and Lollipop Chainsaw. The fundamentals of the game design are based around third-person action and open-ended platforming, feeling quite a bit like the inFamous series.
Combined with the flashy and stylish rail-grinding acrobatics, which reminded me so much of JSRF and the original Dreamcast game (Jet Grind Radio), Sunset Overdrive seems to focus entirely on blasting baddies while looking like an absolute badass. And for the most part, that is totally fun.
There seems to be some extended depth via skill trees and weapon power-ups contained within this one, so it is promising that the blistering pace of the action wouldn’t become tiring and repetitive after unlocking new abilities.
It would be a disservice to the game not to mention the dialogue and sense of humor; this is definitely a funny one, which often reminded me of the crudeness of the sleeper FPS Bulletstorm, even Borderlands to a certain degree.
After just a short time playing, I wanted to keep going – I had a lot of fun. The game’s mission variety may be a bit lacking, but the sheer joy of blasting through hordes of bad guys and zipping around the environment is absolutely cathartic.
