Sunset Overdrive - Dawn of the Rise of the Fallen Machines

Editor's Notes

Digital version reviewed for Xbox One. Being DLC, 'Dawn of the Rise of the Fallen Machines' requires the base game, 'Sunset Overdrive,' to play.

Introduction

The first of the season pass DLC for 'Sunset Overdrive' was the short and bittersweet 'Mooil Rig' in December. Now we have the last of the season pass stuff, the succinctly titled 'Dawn of the Rise of the Fallen Machines'.

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

Insomniac stumbled a bit with their first DLC for 'Sunset Overdrive'. It was small, but more importantly it didn’t really exhibit the game’s core values - the platforming and the wacky, constant combat, to be specific. The map in particular was mystifying. In 'Dawn of the Rise of the Fallen Machines' we have a larger map built into the main world, and it is much more accessible.

This DLC is all about robots, as you might have guessed. FizzCo, the company responsible for igniting the "awesomepocalypse" with its mutative energy drink, has a factory churning out hundreds of murderbots to the north of Sunset City. The player character learns that a couple of scientists have been taken prisoner by the bots, and sets out to free them and put an end to FizzCo’s shenanigans. The story is actually pretty straightforward and much easier to follow than the hyperactive narrative from the base game, probably because there’s not much of it. After freeing the scientists, I was tasked with fetching a bunch of things, fighting robots, and not much else.

I don’t want to sound negative, because 'Sunset Overdrive' is first and foremost about addictive, manic gameplay. That the story rides shotgun isn’t a big deal - at least we get some great one-liners, pop culture references, and other jokes. Despite the lack of variety in 'Fallen Machine’s' mission collection, the game plays as sweetly as ever. The level design in the new map is superb, with lots of structures, rails, jumps, and ledges to play on.

Playing 'Fallen Machines' is like going to the playground, except with ridiculous weapons and a superhuman ability to skate. Two missions in particular stand out. One is a level where the player character turns into a giant sphere of energy and basically plays pinball with the robot enemies. The platforming in this segment isn’t as strong, but it’s still pretty fun to bounce around and roll over everything. The other mission is the return of Boo-Boo the robotic dog. Boo-boo isn’t challenging to control - all I had to do was fire kitten projectiles at enemies to lure him over and destroy everything - but the sheer mayhem of it, and the infantile way that the character talks to him, makes him a welcome return from the base campaign. Outside of Boo-boo’s mission, the difficulty level in this DLC is somewhat higher than what I’ve grown accustomed to in 'Sunset Overdrive.' Some of the defense missions involve huge masses of robots, including some new models with cheap abilities. For the first time since starting the game I had to plan my attacks, and even so, I died more than usual.

There are only a few new characters in 'Fallen Machines' and, except for a deliciously awkward subplot regarding the intimate relationship between the two scientists, they are easily forgettable. The jokes in general this time around are solid but weakening (many of them spoofing 'The Terminator' and 'The Matrix'), and I still haven’t seen much of the memes and other topical internet culture that Insomniac promised through the use of cloud computing.