Gadgetory

do you like shooting the zombies and buchen some teddy bears straps CNT how about using a firework launcher while grinding on a rollercoaster have you ever wanted to fight an energy drink spewing mutant dragon by chasing it through city streets grind on its spine and jab a crowbar into its head okay maybe that last one was just a little too specific but that's the kind of stuff that the Xbox one exclusive sunset overdrive sets out to do combining fast travel grind mechanics with hordes of mutant creatures ridiculous weapons over-the-top aesthetics and a lot of intentional forth while breaking and referential humor kind of a finely tuned fusion of Dead Rising in Saints Row with just a pinch of Jet Set Radio and punk music flavoring the basic idea is that a major super-powerful corporation accidentally made an energy drink that turns people into horrid monsters basically think that monster took things a little too literally so of course the logical approach to protect their profits is to quarantine your city seal everyone and blow it up and cover the whole thing up you take control of your own customized hero choosing between a couple different body types and a great array of faces hairstyles and clothing options and basically take it upon yourself to band other survivors together to find a way to survive and escape the city now honestly the story isn't the reason you want to play this game it's very 2-dimensional nothing too original but you will get a good chuckle every now and then thanks to referential humour or if you just enjoy a lot of cursing now the reason you do want to play this game though is this core gameplay and its art style which is phenomenal far from being a realistic looking world everything is vibrant colorful and at times absolutely gorgeous more importantly though it's amazing how smooth the gameplay looks despite how absolutely insane it can get visually with not just how many monsters right but also with things like shooting waves of roman candles or sound effects getting spelled out like every time a popper explodes as for the gameplay takes a lot of simple core building blocks of a couple different genres and smashes them together for a pretty damn fun experience grinding while running and bouncing provides the game's sole form of faster travel forgoing even a simple sprint button and players combine these various forms of travel with ridiculous weapons to stay away from enemies and bring a lot of pain it's not just as simple though as grind on stuff and shoot things the game also includes these equippable little things called amps and what they do is unlock powerful upgrades mid combat as a reward for fighting with style sure you could just do the same thing over and over again and be fairly efficient but if you actually push your character style you'll find yourself doing way better things like shooting fireballs from your melee weapon causing your guns to create a Chain Lightning effect or send out shockwaves from ground Slams basically the cooler you fight more badass you become which is a great idea because it rewards stylish gameplay with something a lot more physical than just a numerical point value for saying good job now there is a problem with this gameplay though under the hood and that's the fact that a lot of the customization options are a little more daunting than they really feel like they need to be the game rushes you at the start with a lot of information at first it's just really simple stuff like yeah here's how you equip the weapon but then you get into amps which are equipped to multiple different slots as well as having slots dedicated to every individual weapon you have equipped and to top that off there's also OverDrive's which are on an entirely different set of slots dedicated to equipping constant passive bonuses you unlock for favoring certain play styles like grinding often or using automatic guns alot it's not so much that it's completely overwhelming but just feels on necessary the gameplay itself is so intuitive and free-flowing but the customization is just slots galore that need updating every time you get a new overdrive or amp now I'm not saying that customization is a bad thing that's an argument that I'd almost never really make but there is such a thing as having more streamlined customization that's friendly and having something that's needlessly complex that just bogs down the otherwise really fast-paced gameplay now one thing I will praise about this though is the fact that every single area you can upgrade has its own unique resource and they can all be gained by just simply playing the game requiring very little forced grinding making quests and monsters will give you money and overcharge used for buying clothing and guns respectively while amps are earned for collectables you find pretty often by just using the free running mechanics smartly and OverDrive's are literally just from playing the game grind long enough and you'll earn badges that can go towards buying one so while there is a ton of stuff to equip unlocking it in the first place really isn't that big of a chore so the core mechanics in this game other than being a little bit much at times are pretty solid overall but how does the game make you use them well as is common amongst most free roam games the game is mostly divided between main story missions and side missions its core missions are for the most part really good there's a decent variety in objectives and special rules and while the story isn't that great enough silly crap happens to make the whole thing entertaining with its only downfall really being that I wish it were longer side quests are on the other hand way more tedious 90% of them boiled down to just scouring the city for items to collect or certain creatures can weigh them out which is a shame smooth these missions really are how you get a lot of the game's more ridiculous clothing options on various items now once you're bored with the single-player the game does also offer one multiplayer mode called chaos squad which is basically just eight players competing to complete a couple different objectives better than the others then working together hold off waves of mutants in a horde mode using traps guns and rails galore the basic idea here is cool and this fund dabble in on occasion but there's a couple of problems with it most notably the fact that the mode can only ever be played at a difficulty setting appropriate for it which made players if you just have three friends and Xbox ones and you want to play something exclusively with them too bad go online and play with randoms as well chaos war on its own is still fun to play with but I just really wish the game offered some alternative multiplayer modes for smaller skills even though it's just something as simple as having poor players do a longer version of the Horde mode or even just having two players work cooperatively in the game's main missions overall sunset overdrive is a great game whose biggest flaw is just how fast it can burn you out the gameplay is fantastic but can only sustain itself so long considering the length of the main campaign and while chaos squad can be a fun diversion without a more personal friends focused option it's going to lose some of you from being able to play it long-term that being said it's still definitely one of the strongest titles and if not the strongest Xbox one exclusive currently out it just could have been that much more perfect had there been a little more tweaking to what options were available well that was my review of sunset overdrive if you guys want to grab the game I do have a link posted down below as a way to help you out and yours also a way to follow me on Twitter now if you guys enjoyed this video please make sure to hit that thumbs up button to let me know as well as subscribe so you don't miss any more future content I'll see you guys soon with more stuff but until then I'm Kevin Kenson and I'll see you later