Not so much loving its ‘in your face’ lead
As much as I like Sunset Overdrive‘s mix of Jet Set and Ratchet and Clank, I’m less in love with the insufferable punk aesthetic its sleeveless jean jacket wearing lead puts forth. Just because you pin cloth to your jean jacket doesn’t make you punk, punk.
Thankfully Sunset Overdrive has eight player co-op and character customization so you can play as a beefy middle eastern man with bunny ears or something. I tried out its Night Defense mode, which is a horde/tower defense sort of deal with you and your friends protecting vats of goop.
In my first go at Sunset Overdrive, I’ve yet to get full hang of bouncing and grinding around, so I focused a bit more on eviscerating incoming monsters. Maybe everyone else playing was trying to board slide because I carried our team to victory despite a last minute scare that saw our vats under attack from all sides.
The Insomniac style is alive in Sunset Overdrive‘s weaponry. The gun that shoots vinyls, which can ricochet, was great for dicing up crowds of incoming enemies. It’s Ratchet and Clank‘s Buzz Blades, but with more character.
That’s all the weapons, really. Familiar. Things that act as shotguns, things that act as grenade launchers. But with an interesting character and a lot more color. My favorite exploded into plumes of green dragon fireworks. There’s also a melee, which feels pretty killer. A freeze bomb with a decent area of effect was also good at nullifying incoming hordes and leaving your team to smash up the frozen bodies.
You can also set traps that look like spinning propellers at strategic spots, like the wooden barricades the monsters try to wreck to get further into the level, though I’m actually hoping that aspect is a little more involved, or evolves. Having the one trap per match left me missing Gears‘ setting up between waves. But these waves were only coming from two sides and it didn’t seem like the most challenging difficulty the mode will offer.
Co-op will always give a game legs because even a junk game can be fun with friends. There wasn’t anything too new on display, but with the emphasis on movement and grinding on wires stretched across stages, this could provide a freer feeling alternative to all those “hunker down” sort of horde and tower defense modes.
