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Sunset Overdrive (Video Game Review)

Sunset Overdrive is the newest release from Insomniac Games and Microsoft Studios available exclusively on the Xbox One console. The game takes place in the year 2027 in the fictional city of Sunset City giving players an entire world to explore at their own pace. The third-person shooter takes an entirely new approach to over-the-top fun with a fully customizable character who enters the dystopian world full of overcharged monsters to defeat. Sunset Overdrive is a Dead Rising meets Tony Hawk mashup that manages to offer up an hilariously entertaining adventure like never before! Read on to learn more.

In Sunset Overdrive, the FizzCo corporation has managed to take control of Sunset City by introducing its residents to their new energy drink. Every individual who has consumed Overcharge Delirium XT has OD'd on the energy drink and mutated into grisly deformed shadows of their former selves. It is now up to an ex-FizzCo employee, known for cleaning up other people's messes, to do it once again on a much larger scale while escaping the city in one piece. Sunset Overdrive will challenge players to take on powerful corporate conglomerate on top of mutated humans and pesky looters called Scabs for an unforgettable journey across the insane environment of Sunset City!

The player has entered a city that has utterly collapsed before their very eyes and now must wreak a little chaos themselves since they are longer tied down to their shitty job and apartment. Your character in Sunset Overdrive is fully customizable with the ability to change your appearance, gender, skin tone, body type, clothing and much more. Fans of the Dead Rising series will fall head-over-heels in love with Sunset Overdrive due to its insane weapons and humor alongside the additional features of actually being able to play and customize a female character on top of the many advancements in gameplay such as agile combat and traversal movement!

The best part of Sunset Overdrive is the many ways you can move during combat and exploration such as grinding rails and zip-lines while pulling off unique moves to fill up their Style Meter like something straight out of a Tony Hawk game! As you progress through the game, you will unlock additional items and weapons (up to eight at a time) to add to your arsenal with weapons like the Flaming Compensator, TNTeddy, and the Freeze Bomb. Each weapon can be leveled up through usage which increases its effectiveness, rate of power and ammunition level. Amps can be added to your weapons to make them more powerful such as the Burn, Baby Amp that can be added to the Dirty Harry hand cannon-style weapon that allows kills with the weapon to have more of a chance of creating an area of effect blast that will set enemies on fire. The game has some entertaining demonstration videos that will show players how to effectively use their equipped weapons, amps, combo moves, traps and so forth. Players can also apply passive upgrades to their character with overdrives to make gameplay even more exciting.



Navigating Sunset City can be a little overwhelming at first, but thanks to your Saints Row like-map, you will find your way around the city in no time. Traveling in Sunset Overdrive is a blast especially when you unlock new areas for fast travel through completing mission objectives that will allow you to return to the area by using a porta potty which has the lingering effects of a drunken hangover. There is a ton of things to do in Sunset Overdrive such as fun collectibles, intriguing quests and fun challenges. As you travel across the city, you will find several smartphones that you can collect, to find invaluable text messages to read.

Gamers can fully customize the fun in Sunset Overdrive with ridiculously cool weapons, outlandish hair-dos and even whacky clothing allowing each character to have its own quirky personality. Sunset Overdrive is an open world that literally has no rules as players jump off walls and buildings in an ever-changing environment that somehow maintains its elegant charm even with ruthless mutants and scabs always on your heels. Sunset Overdrive's beautifully vibrant graphics and rockin' soundtrack will keep players glued to the screen as they explore and take on a wide variety of mutants like the Herker. Combat in Sunset Overdrive is hideously fun alongside tight and responsive controls that will prevent you from rage quitting before the battle even ends. While the main campaign is a blast, players can also have even more by playing with a few friends in the co-op mode entitled Chaos Squad, on top of special modes like Night Defense to keep gameplay entertaining and fresh.

In the end, Sunset Overdrive is a beautifully chaotic masterpiece that combines great visuals and soundtrack with uniquely entertaining characters in one of the best storylines to ever appear in a video game. The game's nonstop humor manages to keep even the dullest moments in Sunset Overdrive exciting and players will find that gameplay is insanely addictive with the possibility of becoming one of the OD'd!

Sunset Overdrive will be available from all major retailers on October 28th and can be purchased for the MSRP of $59.99 on Xbox One. Sunset Overdrive is rated M for Mature by the ESRB. For more information on the game, check out the official Sunset Overdrive website.

Game Features:
  • Single Player
  • 2-8 Multiplayer with Chaos Squad
  • Weekly Updates with Sunset TV
  • Fast and Explosive Gameplay
  • Immersive Open World
  • Leaderboards/Achievement Support

Game Information:
Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Platforms: Xbox One (reviewed)
Release Date: October 28, 2014


Score: 9.7 out of 10


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