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Games : Highly Recommended
Ranking:
Sale Price: $35.98 Last Price: $ Buy now! 3rd Party 3.88 In Stock
Release Date: October 28th, 2014 Movie Release Year: 2014

Sunset Overdrive

Overview -

Insomniac Games is perhaps best known for 'Ratchet & Clank', a platforming series. The 'Resistance' series in contrast was a lot more grittier. Until last year’s coldly received 'Fuse', they hadn’t produced a console game for anything other than a PlayStation for the better part of 15 years. Between the frivolity of 'Ratchet & Clank' and the mire of 'Resistance,' comes the highly anticipated and juiced up 'Sunset Overdrive,' which is an Xbox One exclusive title (at least for now). Unusual for the industry, Insomniac retains the intellectual property and not the publisher.

OVERALL:
Highly Recommended
Rating Breakdown
VIDEO
AUDIO
Tech Specs & Release Details
Video Resolution/Codec:
900p
Audio Formats:
7.1 LPCM
Release Date:
October 28th, 2014

Video Review

Ranking:

Sunset City is a vibrant, colorful open world. It looks like a huge crayon box exploded over the landscape, covering everything in bright orange, pink, and purple. The architecture itself is perfectly conducive to platforming, and the whole city is like one big pastel playground. Despite its cartoonish appearance, the visuals are excellent, with faces and textures that hold up even at close range. The mutant enemies look terrific in all of their gruesome, gelatinous glory. The draw distance is long, allowing the player to see great distances and plan out extended bouts of grinding and bouncing. Details on distant buildings tend to fuzz out a bit more than expected, however. There is also the occasional random pop-in during cutscenes.

Audio Review

Ranking:

The soundtrack is a long setlist of punk and garage rock. The Bronx, The Melvins, Cheap Time, and similar acts can be heard throughout the game. This particular genre of music is not for everyone, but it fits in neatly with the game’s high-energy, faux rebellious style. It plays most prominently during cutscenes and other dramatic moments, and pops up sometimes at a lower volume during open world gameplay. Note that it can be completely muted at any time.

The voice acting is playful and mischievous. One of the better performances can be heard from the female Player, who is cheerfully sassy without being hammy. While many characters are presented as a caricature (deliberately so, it would seem), their voices are at the very least not a phone-in.

Final Thoughts

This is the best Xbox One exclusive to date, although competition is a bit slim in that category ('Dead Rising 3' made the jump to PC this year). It reminds me a lot of 'Saint’s Row IV', 'Borderlands', 'Jet Set Radio', and even 'Crackdown', and the combination of a self-effacing world and move-or-die gameplay makes it the rare open world treat. While the crowded release schedule this fall may divert attention from it, it is absolutely worthwhile.