Sunset Overdrive definitely stands out from the usual games that have been hitting the AAA shelves as of late. That said, standing out isn’t really a bad thing, as Sunset Overdrive manages to have a very refreshing feel to it while being just about good clean killing. (Disclaimer: The “killing” is actually rather messy.)

Sunset Overdrive is a rather simple game, and doesn’t really do anything groundbreaking, but that’s where a lot of the fun can come out of it. The movement is very fast paced and entertaining, and it’s easy to find yourself trying to skate around and look cool, forgetting all about the hordes of mutants around you. Most of the guns are pretty wacky and creative, and there’s a certain satisfaction you can get from shooting a mutant made of energy drink, with a teddy bear strapped to a bomb.

Hope you like explosions, cause you’re gonna see a lot of them.

The visuals really stand out in particular, as everything is bursting with color, but remains smooth and easy on the eyes. Insomniac did a great job of capturing aesthetics here and it really shows with how well everything blends together. The town itself doesn’t have many landmarks standing out, and doesn’t have anything overly memorable going on. However, you’ll spend so much of your time focusing on your movement and where to jump next that you probably won’t be focusing much on the background anyways.

The world looks colorful and smooth, and is very pleasing on the eyes.

The combat flows really well and combines together with the movement seamlessly. When in combat, it’s essential to keep moving as you take a lot of damage, and your enemy’s accuracy drops to just about 0% when you’re in motion. Shooting has a little bit of auto-assist to it, which really helps out with your ability to actually land a shot. Otherwise, hitting targets would be rather difficult, as you’re constantly on the move. While the initial appeal will run out for shooting vinyl records at mutants, it’s a refreshing change to have a game that focuses more on fun and humor than realism.

The story is pretty loosely tied together and not very compelling, and is really just there to keep things moving along. The other characters are also just there to be a part of the background. They all have a few funny lines, but no big personality differences to make them very striking, or to even really differentiate them from each other. The main character is a pretty average protagonist, spouting out one-liners and sarcastic remarks, but that sort of behavior fits the game very well and makes them a good fit for the game.

While the style of Sunset Overdrive really shines, the missions can begin to feel a bit repetitive after a while, as they all are pretty similar. Missions consist of killing stuff and collecting things, however the collect-a-thon missions aren’t very fun and if you’re a completionist then most of the side quests are collecting missions. The main missions vary a little bit more than the side quests, but aside from a certain few there are not many memorable missions that stand out against the others.

Overall, Sunset Overdrive is breaking any new ground, but it has a whole lot of fun to be found. The humor isn’t the best but supplies the occasional laughs. Sunset Overdrive is a game full of bright pretty colors and explosions to satisfy the child inside of you.