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Platform: PS2,
XB, PC
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Total
Overdose
Movies
and TV shows of the mid to late 1980s seemed to be all about sending
cops, DEA agents, and various other U.S. law enforcement personnel to
the teaming jungles of South America, hot on the heels of the latest
drug cartel kingpin in an attempt to bring his operation down, and the
mastermind to justice (though the bad guy in question often became quite
dead at the hands of the show’s hero before the long arm of the law
could have its way with him). Total
Overdose seems to be embracing this general theme, slapping it into a
third person action / adventure for the PS2, Xbox, and PC.
Players
take on the role of Ramiro Cruz, a DEA operative sent to Mexico in the
late 1980s in order
to shut down some serious drug activity in the region. Only two weeks earlier, he was rotting in an American jail
when the DEA sprung him. It
would seem that Ramiro’s brother, Ernesto, worked for the agency, but
unfortunately had a run in with a malicious grenade.
Now, with Ernesto out of the picture, the DEA wants Ramiro to
pick up where his brother left off, disrupting the drug trade coming out
of Mexico.
Taking
a highly stylized approach to an action game, the gameplay in Total
Overdose will bring a lot of flashbacks to films like El Mariachi. The way in which Ramiro bounces, and flips about the screen,
one would think that he was a former U.S. Olympic Gymnast.
This combined with the strong emphasis on gunplay in the game
goes to show that the developers of this title are looking for a highly
frenetic play experience.
They also seem to be going out of their way to provide some interesting gameplay features that could go a long way towards fine-tuning the genre. Seeing as how there are a wide variety of weapons in Ramiro’s arsenal over the course of the game, using standard methods of choosing which gun to use could take a long time if players were forced to use conventional methods of weapon selection. For the PC game, it’s fairly simple, as all one |
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has to
do is hit a number key corresponding to a weapon in order to equip it,
but for console gamers this has never been the case.
For console players on Total Overdose, they’ll be able to
instantly select a weapon by hitting a combination of two buttons at a
time on their gamepad.
Another new feature being added to the game is Loco Moves, where players will be able to unload high-powered special attacks from time to time. This will play out similar to the “bullet time” effects that have become so popular in the industry over the last few years. When |
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performing
a loco move, enemies’ movement will go into slow motion, and Ramiro
will start to pummel them mercilessly.
There will be over 70 of these moves for players to use in the
completed game.
There
will even be a number of missions that require driving in the game,
soaring around the streets of Mexico, bringing vehicular carnage to the
landscape. However, with
all of these options available for how to go around shooting things up,
players are bound to make a few mistakes along the way.
To help with that, the game will have a rewind option that allows
players to rewind their screwed up combo to a point where things were
going good, and give it another try.
With
the sheer amount of violence in the game, Total Overdose is going for a
very over-the-top approach to the action genre to the point of been
tongue-in-cheek. The
developers are actively trying to get a chuckle out of gamers while all
of the destruction is going on in the game.
With the game coming out toward the end of September this year,
fans of action games could have interesting treat on their hands when
this title hits stores.
(August 26, 2005) |
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