Turbo Overkill – Spotlight
What your parents were afraid you were playing as a kid is what Turbo Overkill is all about. An overtly violent, dark vision of the future of cyberpunk is presented in this film. Despite feeling like the type of thing parents might want banned in the early ’90s, it’s an Early Access shooter full of potential that grabbed me from the beginning.
When it comes to Turbo Overkill, Trigger Happy Interactive appears to have taken inspiration from a variety of modern arcade shooters, including Doom: Eternal. From Hotline Miami to Left 4 Dead to the original BioShock, Turbo Overkill is a Frankenstein’s monster of a game. When it comes to its mechanics and systems, it does a good job overall.
It’s not for everyone, but if you’ve been a fan of modern arcade shooters for the past ten years, this is a fantastic way to spend your time. Turbo Overkill has a lot to offer already, even in Early Access, and Trigger Happy Interactive promises that it will only get better from here on out.
At first glance, Turbo Overkill appears to be a straightforward run-and-gun shooter with a cyberpunk theme. There is more to this game than first thought after completing the tutorial.
It’s possible to be an unstoppable freight train of bullets and chainsaws (don’t worry, we’ll get back to chainsaws in a bit) or a methodical detective investigating every nook and cranny available to them hidden just off the main path in the vast and sprawling levels.
In a genre that tends to be linear, it’s refreshing to see a game that has so many truly optional areas worth exploring. Well-designed environments that pique your interest without hammering home the point that you may be missing out on something if you skip a few steps.
The rewards for exploration range from finding collectibles (which don’t add up to much) to getting early access to new weapons. That was the real reason I went exploring in the first place: the wide range of weapons and the variety of things you can do with them.
There are a lot of weapons in Turbo Overkill. Shotguns, rifles, and pistols abound, but it’s their secondary fire modes that really set these weapons apart. It is possible to save and stack shotgun blasts, pistols can turn into instant-kill, motion-tracking death machines, and rifles can be used one at a time for greater accuracy. Every weapon on the list has a place in combat, and the list keeps growing.
There are waves upon waves of terrifying cyberpunk monsters that have taken over large swaths of the city. There’s a lot to like about this game’s movement speed and weapons, but the player character’s chainsaw leg is the real star.
In order to get a burst of speed while cutting down everything in your path, the chainsaw leg is used whenever you slide. Upgrades to your body are available as you progress through the game, but the best ones allow you to use your chainsaw leg to deplete the health and armour of enemies. Most of the upgrades are designed to encourage you to use the chainsaw in a more aggressive manner.
Turbo Overkill stands out from other well-known arcade shooters thanks to the way it infuses the combat with a sense of urgency and brutality. A few times a week, I’d find myself in a room full of enemies that required multiple attempts to get through before realising that since I’m essentially a cyberpunk Chainsaw Man, I could simply run away.
One of Turbo Overkill’s best qualities is that it feels crammed full of new concepts and ideas. Every aspect of this game, from the chainsaw leg to the creative level design to its intriguing alternate weapon modes, manages to keep you guessing and impress you. The game’s difficulty and poor checkpointing prevent it from being one of the best in its genre.
On the’recommended’ difficulty, I had a lot of deaths. As a first impression, Turbo Overkill appears to be a Hotline Miami-style game where death is common, but if you have a strategy, you can overcome any obstacle. When you realise how infrequently the game gives out checkpoints, that feeling fades away.
Prior to encountering a dangerous area, I had to fight my way through several rooms filled with easy-to-defeat foes. One of Turbo Overkill’s most formidable adversaries is frustration.
The checkpoints, which are hampered by some awkward, insta-death platforming sections, are an eyesore in what would otherwise be a fine game. Since you’re back in the fight just a few seconds after being knocked out, the difficulty may be more manageable if the checkpoints were better. In terms of the latter stages, there is a fair amount of frustration.
There is a story in the game, but it is overshadowed by the gameplay. My best guess is that you’ve been summoned to the city by a malicious A.I. to stop it from spreading a virus of the mind throughout it. Turbo Overkill, on the other hand, doesn’t have much to offer anyone looking for a great cyberpunk story full of lore and meaning because it is so inconsequential.
