Welcome back to the Should You Play series where we talk about games old and new. Today I will talk about Insomniac Games’ Sunset Overdrive, it’s pros and cons, and whether you should play it or not. Previously on Should you play? I talked about-
A Fizz-Co-Calypse
Sunset Overdrive is a third-person action-adventure game made by Insomniac Games. It takes place in a fictional post-apocalyptic Sunset City where the citizens have turned into zombie-like creatures(called OD) after drinking Fizzco’s Overcharge drink. As the titular “Player”, you must find a means to escape this city.
The Story
Sunset Overdrive is, well, pretty light on the story side of things. After Fizzco’s Overcharge drink turns the citizens of Sunset City into brainless creatures called OD, you must find your way out of this city.
Over the course of the game, you will come across many characters. These are mostly comic and mock modern pop-culture. You get to meet a group of nerdy students, a group of LARPers(Live-Action-Role-Players), and an assassin cheerleader gang among some others.
Sunset Overdrive is very strong about its tone and focuses on making you laugh and smile. There is very little in the name of character building and is replaced by a whole bunch of mostly well-written satirical jokes and fourth-wall breaks.
The Combat Loop Of Sunset Overdrive
The gameplay of Sunset Overdrive draws heavy influence from titles like Jet Set Radio, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, and Prototype. Most of the game entails grinding and jumping around Sunset City while trying to fend off OD and other foes’ attacks.
Sunset Overdrive places a lot of focus on its element of building style points. To build and maintain your style, you need to be constantly moving around the combat arena, grind on cables, run along walls, and jump on stuff. Your enemies occur in massive numbers and since there is no sprint button, your best bet is to keep grinding.
Insomniac Games’ doubles down on this style of play with the Amp system. Amps are upgrade modules that provide you abilities at different levels of style. And since you need to keep your momentum to maintain your style levels, you have to keep moving and keep shooting at all times.
Enemies are also in great numbers. ODs deal heavy damage, Scabs shoot you down and Fizzco bots throw projectiles at you. Minibosses have humungous health bars and heavy-hitting attacks, forcing you to keep some distance at all times.
Overall, the combat experience remains pretty engaging with you making hundreds of micro-decisions every second without even knowing about them. The game also has an expert sense of pacing, doling out new pieces of content at regular intervals. The game would often keep throwing new boss encounters and enemy types just when I started to get lazy with my tactics.
Sunset Overdrive also features a wide assortment of over-the-top ridiculous weapons. These range from a classic AK 47 to a rocket launcher that throws explosive teddy bears. There are several classes of weapons such as single-shot, deployable and automatic weapons. My favourite class is Deployables which feature Acid Sprinklers and Turret Copters.
The Progression
Sunset Overdrive has one of the best progression loops in games. Instead of settling for a stat-based upgrade system that lets you farm XP for incremental upgrades, upgrades are seamlessly woven into the game’s mechanics that change the ways you approach the combat. The different types of upgrades include Amps, Overdrive, Weapon Amps, and Weapon Upgrades.
The Amps as mentioned previously, are upgrade modules that act as buffs when you reach a certain style level. There are 4 Amps slots available that correspond to each style level. These give abilities such as you being able to damage enemies with your roll and getting a fire element buff on your melee weapon. Amps can be created at your base with materials scattered throughout the world.
The Overdrive badges also function like Amps but remain active at all times. They are a lot less interesting in the sense they are mostly traditional upgrades, such as Health upgrade or a damage boost to a certain type of enemy. They can be bought with badges, which are awarded for engaging in combat and doing parkour, which further gives an incentive to engage with the systems more.
The Weapon Amps are buffs to your weapons. These give your weapons superpowers such as a fire elemental buff, damage boost, and the like. Weapon Upgrades are the least interesting of the bunch, they give damage boost and increase clip size with each upgrade. You need to kill a certain amount of enemies with a weapon in order to get these upgrades, which make you experiment with different weapons types and level them up accordingly.
Sunset City
Sunset City is the sunny playground that acts as the backdrop to the game. Insomniac Games’ does quite a lot of things to make the open-world feel worthwhile.
First and foremost, the parkour system feels really good. The controls are tight and the platforming is forgiving to just the right degree. The addition of a blimp underneath the player that indicates where you are going to land alleviates most of the issues that plague platforming in a 3D space.
Even if you fall, there isn’t any damage, and the existence of multiple routes to the top makes getting back on track a lot easier. Collectables such as materials and stashes are also generously spread throughout the world. The only way to purchase Overdrives is to grind and bounce through the world, which makes the mere act of traversal a lot more engaging and rewarding while still remaining fun.
The side-content also remains engaging and fairly rewarding. I constantly found myself taking part in the traversal challenges, that allowed me to showcase my mastery of the traversal system.
Other challenges such as point collection challenges and weapon mastery provide similar avenues to prove one’s mastery of the other mechanics. Buck’s challenges turned out to be a disappointment for me. These feature mini-challenges on a timer such as getting x amount of kills while bouncing, y amount while grinding, etc. They felt a lot more restraining to such a dynamic combat system.
Quest Missions And Side Content
The mission structure of Sunset Overdrive is a little weak in my opinion. You start the game doing menial chores for some people that serve to make you comfortable with the games’ systems, but it never really escapes that feeling for quite a while. Throughout the campaign, you meet different groups of people, do chores for them to make them happy, and embark on a final quest which is usually epic and contains a boss encounter. This sense of boredom is somewhat alleviated by the witty and on-point humour and the adrenaline-pumping combat loop.
The side quests also fall into the same trap of repetitiveness. Most require doing a particular task multiple times which can become tedious after a while. But they reward you with enough money and overcharge to remain worth doing.
In terms of endgame content, there are 2 mini-expansion campaigns. These mini-campaigns are probably the most engaging as they manage to tell small vignettes in a charming and funny manner while introducing new enemy types and boss fights. One of the expansion’s finale features one of the best fourth wall breaks and is one of my favourite missions of the bunch.
The Visuals And Music
The visual style of Sunset Overdrive is a mix of realism and cartoonish look, a bit derivative of Borderlands. There isn’t much to say about it other than it’s really gorgeous. The lighting and effects are equal parts beautiful and stylish. The game runs smoothly even with hundreds of enemies swarming the screen. I played the PC port of the game which lacks a lot in terms of graphical options.
The music is, fittingly, punk rock. The high-pitched drums and electric guitars from the perfect backdrop to the equally fitting art style of the game, keeping the blood pumping at all times. The music would change sometimes to reflect what you are doing in a comical way. The music changes to a typical spy movie backing track while collecting evidence against Fizzco. Similarly, it would change to a triumphant battle theme when you embark on a quest to retrieve a friend’s crown from an enemy.
The Verdict
Sunset Overdrive is most importantly, fun to play. It features a rich and detailed open-world that is as rewarding as it is worthwhile. The game’s quest structures can feel repetitive at times but the fun combat and traversal majestically carry you throughout the experience. This is hands down one of the best games I played this year and I would recommend everyone to give this game a shot.
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