H5WBC's Monthly Reviews #1

[HIWBC]

H5WBC's Monthly Reviews:

So to start this off I'd just like to say thank you for all of your support of this thing that I've been wanting to do for a while , without all of your guy's support on my returning post I wouldn't be doing this, you guys are the only reason that I'm doing this, you people made this a reality . I'd also like to thank a particular Community Moderator known as Drizzy_Dan for all of his support on this idea (thanks pal ). I'd also like to apologise about the slight delay as this was actually meant to start last month but I decided against it . Anyway, as this is my first review, I've kind of been thinking to myself "Hmm, this kinda has to be good otherwise people won't come back to bother reading my future editions of this montly feature." So to solve this I'm going to have to enter this review with a bang and what better a game to review to enter this review with a bang with than Sunset Overdrive?!

 

 
So I'm just going to start this by saying, when this game first started it's lifespan as an obscure, stylised zombie/mutant 'shoot 'em up' game back at E3 2013, the trailer didn't exactly get me at all very hyped or tremendously excited for the games release in-fact when I did see the trailer I just thought to myself "Oh great, just what Xbox needs as an exclusive; another excessively over-rated game of the 'zombie' genre, with free-running mechanics." So its safe to say my expectations of this game weren't really set very high. But don't fret, there is still hope to come. As it came to my attention, about two days after the trailer was released that the game wasn't actually to be made by a big name developer/publisher such as Ubisoft or Activision. It was actually going to be made by a developer known as Insomniac Studios, a developer which in the past has proven itself time and time again to not be afraid of making quirky, fun and hilarious games (spoilers they definitely delivered with this one) I mean I actually felt a sigh of relief to my chest when I saw that Insomniac were making this game as they're the geniuses behind such masterpiece franchises, such as: 'Ratchet and Clank', 'Spyro' and 'Resistance'. After this came to my attention I knew then that there was more to this game than that of what meets the eye. From then on I was an avid follower of this game. Another great thing about this stylised, remarkably Crackdownesque, amazing zombie basher is that its actually on the Xbox platform, as you may not have noticed but all of the other incredible pieces of work created by Insomniac have been PlayStation exclusives, so that's another great thing that I saw in this game and that's that this incredibly talented and under-rated developer studio were expanding their amazing works of art to the Xbox platform. Anywho, with my first impressions out of the way I'm going to start the actual review now .
 
So what's a review without being split up into multiple segments? You may ask. The simple answer to that is that, I don't know, so that's what I'm going to do .
 
So without further a do I'm going to start with the most important part of any game, and that's...

 

Gameplay and Mechanics

     

 
Now I'm just going to start start this by saying this game delivers on so many levels with it's gameplay and mechanics, it has an absolutely tremendous feeling about it, for a bouncy, stylised, energetic, open-world shooter it flows so, so well and this is due to the 'traversal' game mechanic as referred to as normal people not of the gaming world as 'freerunning' or 'parkour'. This mechanic allows you to get around the map it style and much, much quicker than the average open world game does, whether you be grinding 25th century, Cyber-punk mono-rails (as depicted above) or bouncing across roof mounted ventilation fans, you'll be getting everywhere quickly regardless. The game has amazing aspects of fun to it particularly as it never fails to deliver awesome in-game moments that will either want to make you laugh your *** off at the hilarity of the moment or gasp in awe at how cool what you just pulled off was. There are also these amazing things that I love in the game called 'Amps' this is basically just SO's version of freaking super ultra mega triple times bonus powerups (if you've played the game you'll get that reference). These can allow you to do all sorts of things, from being able to pull off some badass ground pound to being able to cause a nuclear explosion with the press of one button. The combat, for the most part (if you know how to play well) is very, very solid. With your character being able to kill/damage hordes and hordes of enemies at the same time whether they be human bandits (Scabs), OD (Overcharge Drinkers or mutants, for short) or Fizzco 'Quarantine Bots'. Now, while for the most part the standard gameplay and mechanics are extremely, exquisitely well done there are a few crooks and crannies that I feel need to be gone over such as ground gameplay, yes they made it very fun to move around with traversal and they made it much quicker but being on the ground is a complete and utter nightmare for both you and your character as you will be swarmed and you can't get away from swarming enemies. You physically can get stuck in between the hordes of enemies, the game not allowing you to jump or anything, this is quite clearly a result of not enough development being focused in that area. However, while some people may say it's to prompt the player to play the game how it's meant to be played, I'd thoroughly disagree with this statement as Insomniac Games themselves even like to emphasise the player freedom element of the game, so yeah. Also the accuracy of certain weapons isn't that great, surprisingly for a game that tries to focus on shooter elements. However, for the most part however the gameplay is great and flowing and I'd rate it a 9.5 out of 10.
 
So next up we have:
 

Storyline

 

 
So the game takes place in post apocalyptic 2025 'Sunset City' where a big new energy drink called 'Overcharge Delirium XT' (or something along those lines xD) Made by a big corrupt corporation, known as Fizzco, is turning everyone into mutants, you follow the role of your own character who started their life with a deadbeat job, cleaning up the aftermath of the rich peoples parties, who's life takes a turn for the better when the apocalypse takes place. Even going as far to dub it the 'Awesomepocalypse' with his newly found friend and co-survivor of the apocalypse Floyd. The story involves as you can imagine finding as many groups of survivors as you can, such as the Fargarths (a group of hardcore LARPers) or Troop Bushido (a group of ex-scouts with ancient Samurai morals and beliefs) and gaining their later aid in the fight against Fizzco to stop the apocalypse and find out what went wrong. As this is a stylised and hilarious game, made in collaboration with Microsoft it will obviously have some hilarious references towards the Xbox One and Windows phones here and there along with some other hilarious references to things such as the 'Doge meme' and other things. The story, while being short never fails to deliver an action packed and funny scene, the only bit of criticism I would even have is the abundance of fetch and return quests (they annoy me so much). One of the unique things that I thought particularly stood out about the storyline would be the hilarious relativity to the character you play, it's very cleverly done almost as if the developer knew exactly what you would be thinking at that point in time and then makes the character crack a hilarious, sarcastic comment about what he's being asked to do and the other thing I love about the games story is the ' it it's a video game attitude' that it has which is just what most other game franchises need to remember as a good quality to have for the player as it just makes the game a bit of light-hearted fun. Which, at the end of the day is what games were meant for . Overall I'd have to give it a 10 out of 10 for the storyline literally just due to the sheer creativity and sheer amount of banter packed into the campaign.
 
So the next thing I'm going to touch on is a very important part:
 

Enemies

 

 
So the character design on this game is absolutely amazing, there are such a diverse amount of different enemies, there are many, many different sub-classes of enemies for a class of enemy such as the OD have Common OD, Poppers, Horkers, Spawners, Gunkers, Muggers and many others, each with their own strategies, strengths and weaknesses, it is like this also for both the Scabs and the Fizzco Qurantine Bots. There are massively vast quantities of them on the map as well, although luckily not too many and not too little. Sometimes the OD can get a little bit overwhelming in downtown Sunset City, but, for the most part it's okay. The stylised art style works great with both the theme and the enemies, their A.I. also aren't to shabby although here's where the let down the game quite badly, as I mentioned before, they're way to OP (overpowered) when you're on the ground . And for this I'm going to have to rate the enemies an 8 out of 10.
 
Next up:
 

Boss Fights

 

 
Now this, in my opinion is where SO absolutely exceeds anything you could ever ask for. The boss fights are absolutely insane with amazing terrific and unique layouts and formats that no game has ever tried before (to a certain extent). The boss fights take full advantage of the 'traversal' mechanic allowing you to jump, grind and bounce around your opponent eventually allowing you to properly overpower your enemy and crush them in a stupendous amount of self glory xD. It takes unique bosses to a whole new level: balloon that can shoots lasers from it's eyes check, a robotic skyscraper  check. I mean it's got the lot. This is why I would rate the boss fights a 10 out of 10 for sheer creativity yet again .
 
This ones also important if you take into account the player freedom Insomniac boast about:

Character Customisation:
 

 
The character customisation will not disappoint you either, you have many many default styles to choose from with many different colours and patterns on those and that's not even taking into account the bits of clothing and different melee weapons you get later on in the game. You also get many different weapon upgrades and amps so that none of your massive armoury of wacky weapons are ever the same. The only downside to the whole things is that you have to pick out of preset faces and that's where it lets down the side really badly and just for that I have to give a a 7 out of 10 for the sheer lack of creativity input that the player can put in . This unfortunately does mean that you can't make a completely ridiculous looking character, however for the most part it is a great character designing thingee that most games can't really top and above all that it even has some real brands of stuff such as VANS skate shoes, nuffsed .
 
Now for the less important stuff although honourable mentions:

 

Soundtrack

 
The soundtrack is actually really well done with sort of oldschool punk rock for fighting mutants, to some sick trap and dubstep when fighting armies and armies of Fizzco bots, it really does set the scene for adrenaline pumping and intense, action packed fights .
 

Artstyle

 

Now, I think it's clear how much I love the artstyle of this game, but I just think it's so good at working with the theme. And I think it does a good job at depicting what all of our viewpoints on what a perfect, futuristic utopian society would look like because admit it; we've all thought about it before. Although not in quite as much of an apocalyptic and destroyed/scary form .
 

Final Verdict

 
Overall, I'd still recommend this game to anyone despite it's initial release date being over 5 months ago, if you want a stylised fun and light-hearted game to play when you're bored and a hilarious game to play when you're down to cheer you up this is the game for you . However being less specific if you want an open world 'zombie basher' where you just feel completely overpowering and like a superhero over your scary, hoarding foe then this is the best game on Xbox that money can but, even better than Dead Rising 3, I would say. I'd say this will probably remain your best option if that's what you're looking for until we learn more about Crackdown 3.
 
Overall I'd give this game an 8.5/10 overall this is because it is very good and a creative idea overall, and I'd love to see a sequel! However the very few minor quirks that the game does have are very annoying and hard to ignore. Overall very good game however, I would very much recommend to anybody just looking for a short and fun game to play.
 
Anyway that pretty much concludes this months review, however I'm not done yet as I need your input for the next thing I should review and how I should improve for my next review, I will completely take any constructive criticism into account and will not be offended if anybody does give me any .
 
Thank you, Drizzy for your recommendation for what I should review this month .
 
What should I review next?! You decide!

,By Halo5willbecool

 

[MCPO Mayh3m]

Nice Review! I have to agree with your points above. Great stuff. 

 

I think you should review Mortal Kombat X when it releases next month.

Edited March 29, 2015 by Total Mayh3m

[HIWBC]

I was definitely thinking about getting that game, so that could definitely be a possibility . And thank you very much, it means a lot that a previous moderator and legend of the forums thinks of done a great job !

[lilsilmarillion]

Super good! Love the effort/detail put into this! Great work, keep it up

[Melody]

Review Mirror's Edge 2 when it is released!

[HIWBC]

Super good! Love the effort/detail put into this! Great work, keep it up

Thank you ! It's this kind of support that makes me want to carry this thing on and make it become an actual serious event like a weekly news wrap-up .

Review Mirror's Edge 2 when it is released!

That also sounds like a plan . I'm also thinking for myself of doing Star Wars: Battlefront 3 a few days after launch as I can't resist pre-ordering that .

[Akali]

Nice review Halo! For a first time effort it was really good, I really did enjoy the game and it is most certainly a good game to play when you're bored.
 
I'd say to make this an even better review would be to add paragraphs. I can't tell you how many times I lost where I was at because I lost track of where I was reading and I couldn't find it in the giant chunks of text... I'm stupid like that anyway but I would say for your second review would be to add paragraphs.
 
Now then... The game I want you to review next iiiiiiiiiiiis...

 

Destiny

 

I rate your review a 9/10!