During a period in game development when most developers are using “next-gen” technology to come up with the biggest, baddest, most realistic way to tell a story, Insomniac Games is focused on one thing, and one thing only: polished gameplay that results in some damn good fun.
Sunset Overdrive’s most attractive quality is its fast, chaotic gameplay which emphasizes traversal. The mechanics are designed in a way that encourages constant movement, and Sunset City is constructed to allow total freedom. The city is built as if it were a playground, logical in design, but not in physics. Cars and trees can be bounced on, building walls can be run on, and rails can be grinded on.
There’s definitely a learning curve, but once you master the mechanics you can chain together some pretty sweet traversal moves. And with realistic physics thrown out the window, the game’s movement is pretty forgivable. As long as you’re near a rail or car, you’ll almost always start grinding or bounce on it. The ease of which you can travel the city is imperative because not only does it allow you to actually enjoy movement — which is important in an open world game — but it also works in tandem with the shooting portion of Sunset Overdrive.
As fun as simply traversing the city can be, Sunset Overdrive’s gunplay relies heavily on movement. Enemies in Sunset City hit hard; you’re only defense is to make them miss by constantly being on the move. Grinding rails and bouncing on cars are a great for dodging enemy attacks. Although it can take a bit of getting used to, shooting while on the move will save your life. To help with accuracy, Sunset Overdrive does have an automatic enemy lock-on system. You can also slow down your grinding speed by pressing LT so that you can focus on shooting the OD.
Sunset Overdrive rewards stylish play. Chaining together traversal moves while getting kills will help fill your Style Meter which, in turn, activates your Amps, special abilities that you can apply to your character and weapons (more on that in the next paragraph). To fill the Style Meter quicker, you’ll want to rack up your Combo score, which basically takes into account chained traversal moves (a bounce, onto a grind rail, then wall running, etc.) and getting kills. Amps are automatically activated at certain Style Meter levels.
Amps offer you another way to customize your character — in a way that actually impacts your gameplay. Sure, Sunset Overdrive offers a wide variety of aesthetic options, but the Amps you have equipped are what will truly make your character stand out. There are six Amps you can equip on your character at once: Hero Amps, which usually alter traversal; Hero Extra Amps, which is just another slot for Hero Amps; melee Swing Amps, which alter your melee attack; Dive Bomb Amps, which alter your ground pound; and Epic Amps, which produce provide insanely powerful elements that help you fight against the OD. The last type are Weapon Amps, which are equippable to each of your individual weapons, giving them a special effect (a chance to electrocute your target, set off a mini nuclear explosion, or freeze the enemy in its place).
Amps can be obtained as rewards for completing quests and missions, or purchased from a character, Floyd, by gathering collectibles (Fizzie balloons, toilet paper rolls, shoes, security cameras, and Overcharge Hologram signs) scattered around the world. Although these collectibles are pretty easy to spot on foot, they can be pretty easy to miss when grinding at fast speeds. To help you locate them, you can purchase maps with in-game cash that reveal their location.
In addition to Amps, you can also apply Overdrives to your character. These powerful passive upgrades really allow you to fine tune your character to play how you want to play by providing things like increased damage to a certain enemy type or decreasing the damage you take from a certain enemy type. Overdrives can be unlocked with Badges that you earn for simply doing things in the game like bouncing, grinding, melee killing things, etc. Once you get enough of a certain type of Badge, you can purchase an Overdrive. Though there are tons of Overdrives to choose from, only six can be equipped at a time.
Sunset Overdrive also offers a wide assortment of strange, badass weaponry. Whether its the TNTeddy, a grenade launcher that fires Teddy bears with TNT strapped to them, or the Roman Candle, an automatic weapon that launches roman candle fireworks at enemies, the weapons in Sunset Overdrive are wacky and effective. It’s important to note, however, that the effectiveness of each weapon changes depending on the type of enemy you’re facing, which adds a subtle layer of strategy to the combat. Enemy resistances encourage you to constantly switch weapons in combat, which is nice in the sense that you can experience all of the wacky creations Insomniac Games has created. Adding to the depth of the weapon system is the fact that each individual weapon can be leveled-up, increasing the damage it can deal. The only downside to the weapon system is actually how you switch weapons; although there’s a button that automatically switches to the next weapon in your rotator, picking a specific weapon requires you hold the Left Bumper and pull up the radial menu. The good news is that this pauses time so you don’t screw up your combo, but it also takes away from the fast-paced feel of the game.
Between the constant moving, weapon swapping, combo and style meters, Amp and Overcharge assigning, there’s definitely a lot to manage when it comes to Sunset Overdrives gameplay; but, Insomniac Games has designed this surprisingly complex system in a way that it’s not too overwhelming. Sunset Overdrive is very approachable, doing a great job of introducing you to new mechanics, while also being very forgivable. More than anything, the system is designed to be fun and to allow you to play how you want to play. It all smoothly blends together for a nice, seamless action experience. Perhaps the biggest reason it all works, however, is because of how polished the mechanics actually are. With a game that emphasizes movement as much as Sunset Overdrive does, you’d expect some hiccups along the way; I was surprised by how few glitches I actually encountered.
If you’re playing Sunset Overdrive, it’s probably for the gameplay. There is a story here — one that revolves around the release of an energy drink (Overcharge Delerium XT) that turns the population of Sunset City into hideous mutants — but don’t take it too seriously; Insomniac Games certainly doesn’t, and it totally works.
Insomniac Games knows what Sunset Overdrive is — a fun, over-the-top, game with kickass mechanics — and it doesn’t try to take away from that with an overly complex plot. In fact, the game is very self aware of itself, often breaking the fourth wall and poking fun at the most ridiculous aspects of our culture.
The main campaign story is split into missions, which take you to new parts of Sunset City and introduce new characters. Most of the missions in Sunset Overdrive are fairly straight-forward, requiring you to go to certain location, defeating the horde of enemies there, and then returning to the character who assigned it. There’s nothing really ground-breaking or new in design here. Aside from progressing the story, there’s nothing too special about the missions as they mostly serve as a way to introduce you to new mechanics that you’ll later recognize in side-quests and challenges scattered throughout Sunset City. To break up the repetitiveness in mission structure, Insomniac Games attempts to throw in some variance in design with a few vehicle-centric missions and Night Defense, a wave-based mode in which you must defend vats of Overcharge from swarming OD. Vehicle missions, in particular, felt much slower, taking away from the fast-paced chaos normally emphasized through grinding on rails and bouncing on bushes.
Night Defense is another special mode, which also serves as the foundation of Sunset Overdrive’s co-op experience, Chaos Squad. The goal is to protect vats of Overcharge from swarms of OD. In the campaign, the purpose of Night Defense is to reward you with Amps, but, again, I found that it detracted from the overall premise of Sunset Overdrive’s gameplay — freedom. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to play Chaos Squad with others due to the servers not finding any players.
Although Sunset Overdrive’s campaign is short — clocking in at around seven hours — there’s plenty to do around Sunset City that’ll keep you occupied long after. There are side-quests that’ll flesh out character backstory; replayable challenge activities that focus on traversal, delivery, and destruction; and, of course, tons of collectibles to find. Leaderboards for most activities in Sunset Overdrive encourage replayability as you’ll likely want to be top-dog among your friends. Sunset Overdrive does a very good job of sharing both you and your friends’ progress, encouraging you to replay missions and challenges. Again though, unless you are super competitive with your friends, challenges and missions can get quite repetitive.
If there’s one thing I feel Sunset Overdrive lacks, it’s true open-world multiplayer. In most games, multiplayer feels tacked on, but this is one of those rare occurrences that I feel a game actually suffers by not allowing you to play with friends freely. Sunset City is built like a playground, but who wants to play on a playground by themselves? I can’t help but imagine how much more fun and chaotic it’d be grinding the rail and bashing the skulls of OD with my buddies.
Instead, Insomniac Games’ answer to multiplayer is Chaos Squad, a 2-8 person mode that sort of lets you craft your own experience by voting on which missions to take on in the open-world. Though I wasn’t able to play this prior to release (perhaps because of the servers?), Insomniac Games has had this mode playable in preview events. You enter Chaos Squad via photo booths scattered throughout the single-player portion of the game. Once you are matched with a team of players, you vote on which mission to take-on. One mission will boost the level of Chaos in the city, which means a more difficult Night Defense, but better rewards. The other option gives your team a boost at the end Night Defense and not as great of a reward. Although Chaos mode is a solution to multiplayer, I can’t help but be disappointed that there’s no open-world option to play with friends. With the “next-gen,” there’s an increasing emphasis on social play and connecting with friends. By limiting Sunset Overdrive’s multiplayer to Chaos squad, I feel like Insomniac Games is missing out on all sorts of potential in regards to emergent gameplay.
In the end though, Sunset Overdrive is still a kickass time — even when played alone. The current “next-gen” approach to game design is one that I feel developers are taking way too seriously, and Sunset Overdrive is a breath of fresh air that reminds us that games can still be over-the-top, silly, and fun.
