An introduction then; it's the apocalypse in Sunset City and the new energy drink, Overcharge XD (not sure why the drink is called Overcharge but the game Overdrive) has some problems where it turns all of its drinkers in to mutants known as the OD (overdosed I assume). Your job is to get out of the city and warn the rest of the world what happened before it's too late, but of course it's not that easy as the evil Fizco (makers of Overcharge) need to keep it a secret.
The game is essentially a third person shooter but with an interesting movement mechanic where you need to bounce, wall run and glide on edges to get around. If you run on the floor it will be slow and you will die (there's enemies everywhere at all times). This would be a good point to mention that it's a free roam game so you can just travel around, picking up collectibles and doing challenges and so on if you desire and the movement is by far the best part of the game.
Another great part is the character customisation. There's plenty of options of what you want to look like (man or woman) and clothing options and loads more items of attire to unlock throughout the story and side missions. This is probably the best create a character model I've ever seen outside of a WWE game and it makes it feel like you have more control over the game as the hero of the hour looks how you want them to.
There are problems though and unfortunately the shooting is one of them, I'll put it simply, it's repetitive. There are 3 enemy classes (OD, scabs (humans taking advantage of the situation) and Fizco bots, and there's loads of weapons, but it's just a case of figuring out which weapon suits which enemy best, then just shooting them. That's pretty much it for every mission in the game, travel to an area and kill some bad guys. The weapons aren't as exciting as they were promised either (the nuclear sword is frustratingly taken away from you nearly as soon as you get it), even though they have fun names and sparkly colours they're nothing new. Towards the end of the game I found myself using my jumping melee attack to kill everything as it was my powerful, and fun attack (as if I timed it right I could leap back high in the air after (but annoyingly couldn't do another melee attack from the resulting drop (to be fair though, this would've made the game really easy))).
Speaking of such things, the upgrades system. Now, there's loads to upgrade, stat boosts, weapon add ons and etc. but they don't really seem to make a difference. Granted, occasionally some of my enemies would turn to ice due to one of my weapon 'amps' but not enough that I couldn't have done without it (BTW, the way they go on at you about 'amps' at the start of the game, it's like they're trying to hook you on drugs) and the grim reaper assistant seems to do all his assisting in the form of standing cutting in to empty space while all the enemies run straight past him (the king of darkness indeed...)!
Lets talk the comedy now, which was made a big deal of in the build up to the game. The problem is, it's very hit and miss, it can be genuinely funny at times, but more of the time it's bad, using tired cliches and bad puns. There is some reference comedy in there (which I normally love) but they only take it as far as shoving famous lines in to the script without it sounding natural at all (maybe someone at Insomniac should watch Spaced). To be fair though, the re spawn animations are fun (I like the Portal and Dr. Who ones especially).
Credit to how the game looks though, which is great, the city is bright and colourful and designed really well with all the movement options so you never really have to touch the floor (except for getting mission and etc.). There's also plenty of fast travel points around so you're never spending 5 minutes getting to the start of a mission.
As far as the start of a game series goes, it's worrying. It's got some great ideas and everything around it is great, but unfortunately the key element of the game, the thing you do in every mission again and again is dull. They have got to work on this for next time because I won't be able to go mindlessly through another one of these, getting more excited about what clothes I've unlocked than actually playing the game. Also, they should hire a comedy writer.
6/10
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