Early Access Review: I was skeptical of the hype around a game where you’re given a chainsaw and told to take on hordes of enemies with flying saw blades, but Turbo Overkill is surprisingly good. It’s fast-paced, fun for all ages, easy to pick up from other shooters like Counter Strike or Call Of Duty. The only downside? A lack of content in my opinion.
Turbo Overkill is the kind of game that your parents feared you were playing as a youngster. It’s a dark, noisy, and gratuitously violent peek into a possible cyberpunk future. It’s an Early Access shooter full of promise that captivated me from the start, despite seeming like the kind of stuff parents may want outlawed in the early 1990s.
While Turbo Overkill borrows heavily from recent arcade shooters, particularly Doom: Eternal, it doesn’t seem like Trigger Happy Interactive’s inspirations are limited to that. Turbo Overkill draws inspiration from a variety of games, including Hotline Miami, Left 4 Dead, and the original BioShock, which manages to be a Frankenstein’s monster. It juggles its mechanics and systems successfully for the most part.
Its fast-paced, violent action isn’t for everyone, but if you’re a fan of current arcade shooters from the last ten years, it’s a terrific way to pass the time. Turbo Overkill has a lot to offer even in Early Access, and it will only grow better as Trigger Happy Interactive continues to build on it.
Early Access Review: Cyberpunk Chainsaw Man by Turbo Overkill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht0fbsgtw 4
Turbo Overkill seems to be a conventional cyberpunk-themed run-and-gun shooter on the surface. However, after passing the instructional level, the complexity of the game becomes apparent.
The levels are large and sprawling, with hidden secrets and paths strewn about, giving you the choice of being an unstoppable freight train of bullets and chainsaws (don’t worry, we’ll get to the chainsaws later) or a methodical detective investigating every nook and cranny available just off the main path.
It’s a breath of fresh air to see a game in this generally linear genre with really hidden extra places worth exploring. The surroundings are well-designed and capture your curiosity without hammering home the concept that you could be missing out on anything if you leave a few stones unturned.
Exploration incentives vary from collecting trinkets (which don’t amount up to much) to getting early access to new weapons before they’re offered via the main route. That was the main purpose of my exploration for me: the diversity of weaponry is fantastic, and their powers are, for the most part, enjoyable.
There are a number of firearms in Turbo Overkill. They’re standard FPS fare, from shotguns to rifles and pistols, but it’s their different firing modes that really shine. Shotgun blasts may be stored and piled, pistols can be turned into insta-kill, motion-tracking death machines, and rifles can be dual-wielded for double damage or picked up one at a time for greater accuracy. The list goes on and on, and there isn’t a single weapon on the battlefield that doesn’t have a role to play.
As you fire your way through waves of terrible cyberpunk monstrosities that have taken over areas of the city, combat is fast-paced. The player character’s chainsaw leg is the genuine cherry on top. Movement speed is great, and each gun packs a solid punch, but the true cherry on top is the player character’s chainsaw leg.
When you slide, you employ the chainsaw leg, which provides you a burst of speed while cutting down anything in your way. You may acquire body augment improvements as you explore the environment, but the finest ones boost the strength of your chainsaw leg and enable you to drain opponent health and armor for yourself. The majority of the enhancements are designed to urge you to use the chainsaw aggressively.
It provides fighting a feeling of urgency and violence that distinguishes Turbo Overkill from other famous arcade shooters. I’d sometimes come into a difficult chamber of adversaries that would take a several attempts to go through, all before discovering that I couldn’t shoot my way out since I’m basically a cyberpunk Chainsaw Man.
The nicest thing I can say about Turbo Overkill is that it seems jam-packed with concepts. The game keeps you guessing and continues to wow, from the chainsaw leg to the innovative level design to the unique other weapon settings. The difficulty and inadequate checkpointing are the only things that keep it from being one of the greatest in the genre.
Playing on the suggested difficulty, I died a lot. At first glance, Turbo Overkill seems to be aiming for a Hotline Miami-style system in which death is common, but with a strategy in place, you can overcome any barrier. That swiftly goes away as you discover how seldom checkpoints appear throughout the game.
I spent a lot of time going through a few rooms with manageable adversaries before encountering a difficult chamber and dying within seconds of entering it. After a few repetitions, frustration becomes one of Turbo Overkill’s most formidable adversaries.
The checkpoints, which are paired with some clumsy insta-death platforming parts, still require refinement and stand out from an otherwise well-polished game. Because you’re back in the battle a few seconds after falling down, the difficulty may be more acceptable if the checkpoints were better. However, as things are, there’s enough of irritation in the later stages as a result of that.
There is a plot in the game, but it takes a back seat to the gameplay. According to what I’ve seen, a rogue A.I. is spreading a mental infection throughout the city, and you’ve arrived to stop it. It’s such a small point, however, that it’s scarcely worth addressing other than to remark that Turbo Overkill isn’t a fantastic cyberpunk narrative with a lot of backstory and purpose.
Early Access Review of Turbo Overkill – The Bottom Line
Pros
- Combat venues that are fast-paced and entertaining.
- A wide range of weapons and opponents to use them against.
- Visuals in a cyberpunk style.
- Legs of a chainsaw
Cons
- There is no practical remedy to the steep difficulty curve other than to lower the difficulty.
- The checkpoint system is ineffective.
Everything about Turbo Overkill signals that it’s a game worth keeping an eye on. Trigger Happy Interactive should be able to address the issues I experienced with it before it’s finished cooking, but if they’re ignored, they might be huge barriers in the way of a genuinely amazing shooter.
The cyberpunk style is little more than window decoration for a vicious run-and-gun shooter, and I believe that more than makes up for the story’s lack of depth. Even before the formal debut, a suggestion is simple if you can get over the concerns outlined above. If you believe it’s something you’d like, check out the demo.
[Note: The copy of Turbo Overkill utilized for this Early Access review was given by Trigger Happy Interactive.]
