Platform: Playstation 2

Genre: Action

Publisher: Mastiff

Developer: Red Entertainment

ESRB: M (Mature)

Released: September 2004

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Gungrave Overdose

Score: 8.0 / 10

Pros: 

- Addictively fun game, even better than the original

- Great pick up and play game at $15US

- Camera much improved

- Much more difficult this time around

Cons:

- Graphics aren’t quite there

- Took away the Japanese dialogue… DAMMIT!

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"...Gungrave Overdose is one hell of a fun game to play, especially for only $15US."

Step into a high-octane action/shooter where everything in sight is yours for the taking. Choose between the wrathful swordsman Juji Kabane, the relentless rock star Rocketbilly Redcadillac or the undead hero Beyond the Grave.

Gungrave was one of my favorite games of 2002 and it remains a game to play whenever I get home after work. A quick dose of destruction and devastation goes a long way to calming me down. Gungrave Overdose couldn’t be more poorly named, I can’t get enough of this game and I want more. The original game was pretty simplistic in that you didn’t really have to do much more than hammer on the fire button to make sure you didn’t get over-run, but Overdose does a much more admirable job of keeping you moving around and adapting to new fighting situations.

Most will ask what is different about this release: difficulty and the camera. Over the original, the camera work is improved a thousand fold – it still does crap out once in a while, but with nowhere near the frequency that it did before. The difficulty? Much harder game, even on the easiest setting. Some portions of the game will need to be replayed a few times until you can

find an approach that works best, especially with some of the boss battles that will drive you slowly insane.

The game takes place a few years after the first game, the young ward Mika is now in her late teens and is still fighting against the proliferation of the new designer drug Seed, which is turning users into a dangerous army. Needing help in the war, Mika once again calls on Grave to enter the fray with guns blazing. Apparently his time asleep taught him a few new tricks, as now Grave can use his coffin as a bludgeon and as a shield if the need arises (and it will, believe 

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me). The coffin is still the stockpile of cool attacks; it still unloads missiles for gratuitous area leveling and can also slow down time for a moment so Grave can mete out some serious punishment.

Over the original, enemies will attack you with balanced waves: some will attack with small to medium arm weapons, some will move in close with swords (which can deflect bullets), and others will fire rockets at you from behind shields (usually at the worst possible moments). Against these different foes, you are going to have to decide which foe to attack first and which objects to dive behind to give yourself a quick respite.

Grave may be a one-man army, but this time, he doesn’t have to fight alone. The team of Billy and Juji (full names too ridiculous to reproduce) decide to join up to smash the mafia’s control of the drug Seed. Each character brings different handling characteristics and (unfortunately) dialogue. With a much more rounded cast of talking characters, the cutscenes now have more drive to them than the original and are pretty darn cool to watch. My major sound beef is with the English dialogue; I loved the original’s use of Japanese dialogue with subtitles and I hate these voices.

Gungrave Overdose does look better than its’ predecessor, but not by a whole lot. Added are a few plumes of blood and new environments to shoot up. Other than that, graphically, the game doesn’t do much more than add new missions (graphically dammit, I said graphically!). The sound is still excellent, the soundtrack is nice and driving when it needs to be and the sound effects are just cool enough to annoy the hell out of your neighbors.

All in all, Gungrave Overdose is one hell of a fun game to play, especially for only $15US.

- Tazman

“Have you seen the lips on that woman? It looks like she has a babboon's ass on her face.”

    - Lois (The Family Guy)

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