Sunset Overdrive is a lot of fun. It is quite possibly one of my favourite superhero open world games, because in spite of being a game about shooting people, that's still what it is. It is basically the best Infamous game, in terms of gameplay at least.
So when it fails in other departments, repeatedly and regularly, it is very disappointing.
The writing is... Borderlands-ey, with a pinch of Saints Row 3. Very self-aware and fourth-wall-hating, full of anti-capitalist satire and 80s movie references, and trying to be funny and only sometimes having the spaghetti stick to the wall. The game will not shut up, and usually that's fine as the game doesn't expect you to take it seriously either. This is mostly becuase of the main character, who is referred to only as "player" in the subtitles, or "asshole" by some enemies. This character feels like they were supposed to be an actual character, probably that guy on the front cover. The character customisation is pretty good, the four "body types" in character creation aren't directly gendered and can use all beards and cosmetics (even if the game assigns you a voice actor automatically), and except in one instance of dialogue using "he" for my female character, the game is usually gender neutral as is standard. However, the way the character acts leads to them either reading as a straight man or an openly flirty lesbian, the later of which probably wasn't intended. The character has opinions, an attitude which is called out by the game world's comic straight men, and although I feel like a stronger narrative could have been created using an actual set character, the game was also better for being about a Lesbian Fuckboy disaster (for me at least). The story rarely takes itself seriously in the slightest, and doesn't expect the player to either. It's an excuse to keep missions going and little else. The side characters are generally fun and a bit wacky, though I struggle to ignore the treatment of a disabled character where... I'm not sure what the joke is. He lost all his limbs and characters visibly react as he hobbles around, but never bring it up directly so it just becomes an awkward elephant in the room. The story of the second DLC is also painful to me, substituting the usual "scab" enemies who are basically generic raider enemies for ... Oil Rig Workers who think you're trying to take their jobs. Because you're aiding their boss (who, spoiler alert, is trying to do that and the game condemns her for? But you still... kill random innocents). This especially hurts as the other enemies in the DLC have cool designs. There is also the DLC2 Side Quest which is an extended Psycho reference, which honestly just... really hurt my experience right as it was about to end, especially considering the character creation treated this rather well.
In addition, the Windows port is buggy as hell. I have fallen through objects on a few occasions, the game came fresh with a corrupted save file that cannot be interacted with without crashing the game (which I was fortunately able to just work around by saving in other slots, even if I never fixed the issue), and the game crashed out of nowhere on a few occasions, fortunately without losing any progress that I noticed. The dialogue also sometimes doesn't seem to have realised that my PC isn't an Xbox, though this is relatively minor as issues go.
And yet, despite all this, the gameplay is some of the most fun I've had in years. Traversing this open world is a joy, the guns are interesting and fun and have enough auto-aim to compensate for the way the game encourages you to bounce and grind around everywhere while fighting, and the abilities your character are overpowered in an incredibly fun way. This game fills me with a lot of joy, in spite of the numerous issues, and I will probably bother to collect all the items in the game just because the actual game part of this video game is so incredibly strong. I also thought DLC1 was a real highlight, with cool new weapons and the meta-joke boss at the end being a really fun idea, and a sign that the developers were taking criticism on the nose. I cannot fully forgive this game's flaws, but the gameplay is just that solid. It is a real shame that there is unlikely to be a sequel that can fully realise the potential this game shows. But as it is... My heart wants to give it five stars, but my brain wants to give it three and a half. Four stars is the closest I can get to representing that.
So when it fails in other departments, repeatedly and regularly, it is very disappointing.
The writing is... Borderlands-ey, with a pinch of Saints Row 3. Very self-aware and fourth-wall-hating, full of anti-capitalist satire and 80s movie references, and trying to be funny and only sometimes having the spaghetti stick to the wall. The game will not shut up, and usually that's fine as the game doesn't expect you to take it seriously either. This is mostly becuase of the main character, who is referred to only as "player" in the subtitles, or "asshole" by some enemies. This character feels like they were supposed to be an actual character, probably that guy on the front cover. The character customisation is pretty good, the four "body types" in character creation aren't directly gendered and can use all beards and cosmetics (even if the game assigns you a voice actor automatically), and except in one instance of dialogue using "he" for my female character, the game is usually gender neutral as is standard. However, the way the character acts leads to them either reading as a straight man or an openly flirty lesbian, the later of which probably wasn't intended. The character has opinions, an attitude which is called out by the game world's comic straight men, and although I feel like a stronger narrative could have been created using an actual set character, the game was also better for being about a Lesbian Fuckboy disaster (for me at least). The story rarely takes itself seriously in the slightest, and doesn't expect the player to either. It's an excuse to keep missions going and little else. The side characters are generally fun and a bit wacky, though I struggle to ignore the treatment of a disabled character where... I'm not sure what the joke is. He lost all his limbs and characters visibly react as he hobbles around, but never bring it up directly so it just becomes an awkward elephant in the room. The story of the second DLC is also painful to me, substituting the usual "scab" enemies who are basically generic raider enemies for ... Oil Rig Workers who think you're trying to take their jobs. Because you're aiding their boss (who, spoiler alert, is trying to do that and the game condemns her for? But you still... kill random innocents). This especially hurts as the other enemies in the DLC have cool designs. There is also the DLC2 Side Quest which is an extended Psycho reference, which honestly just... really hurt my experience right as it was about to end, especially considering the character creation treated this rather well.
In addition, the Windows port is buggy as hell. I have fallen through objects on a few occasions, the game came fresh with a corrupted save file that cannot be interacted with without crashing the game (which I was fortunately able to just work around by saving in other slots, even if I never fixed the issue), and the game crashed out of nowhere on a few occasions, fortunately without losing any progress that I noticed. The dialogue also sometimes doesn't seem to have realised that my PC isn't an Xbox, though this is relatively minor as issues go.
And yet, despite all this, the gameplay is some of the most fun I've had in years. Traversing this open world is a joy, the guns are interesting and fun and have enough auto-aim to compensate for the way the game encourages you to bounce and grind around everywhere while fighting, and the abilities your character are overpowered in an incredibly fun way. This game fills me with a lot of joy, in spite of the numerous issues, and I will probably bother to collect all the items in the game just because the actual game part of this video game is so incredibly strong. I also thought DLC1 was a real highlight, with cool new weapons and the meta-joke boss at the end being a really fun idea, and a sign that the developers were taking criticism on the nose. I cannot fully forgive this game's flaws, but the gameplay is just that solid. It is a real shame that there is unlikely to be a sequel that can fully realise the potential this game shows. But as it is... My heart wants to give it five stars, but my brain wants to give it three and a half. Four stars is the closest I can get to representing that.