Sunset Overdrive is a third-person shooter at its core, but it's much more than that. Sunset City's varied environment was created by Insomniac to facilitate navigation that is equal parts Tony Hawk and Ratchet and Clank. As if the city were one gigantic playround, players will grind, slide, bounce, and air dash their way through it. The traverse gives movement a sense of freedom, making zipping between goals a unique adventure. Insomniac has wisely structured the grinding and bouncing mechanics to be as forgiving as possible, allowing players to seamlessly transition from one aspect to the next.
The setup for each mission, which has the player running errands for various post-apocalyptic factions surrounding Sunset City, is consistent with the writing, but the tasks themselves are ordinary stuff. Some of them, particularly the boss bouts, have glimpses of brilliance, but the others are as mundane as they come. The game's parody of its derivative mission structure is amusing at first, but it soon becomes apparent that disguising it under the pretext of parody isn't enough to disguise the lack of variation in moment-to-moment action. For example, the game mocks the rule of three before employing it without reservation.
Sunset Overdrive is best described as a film with a lot of personality. The game firmly announces itself as a bold open world shooter that seeks to engage and entertain, from the script to the action to the appearance of Sunset City. A game is already on the right road if it can make gamers laugh on a regular basis, but that's virtually a given with Insomniac at this point. They play to their strengths here, and despite the fact that they've picked a well-worn genre, they strive to make it their own."
No comments:
Post a Comment