I thought I might have gotten wanton mayhem out of my system for a little while by playing Dead Rising 3 last month, but apparently not. I installed Sunset Overdrive from XBox Game Pass for PC on a whim. It was nothing that had been on my radar at all, but it looked bright and violent and weirdly fun, so why not? Even if I didn’t make it through the intro level, I had nothing to lose.
Welp.
I’m a good chunk of the way through the story content, and I’ve wandered off a few times to do side quests. What I haven’t done much of are the challenges – there’s one that’s required to progress the main stories, and I’ve steadfastly ignored all the others so far because if we’re being completely honest – I feel like I’m playing the game very badly.
While I’m sure the game would still be a lot of fun if you had, y’know, actually skills, it’s also really enjoyable to just flail around and hope for the best. Sure, I die a lot, but death doesn’t feel overly punishing. In fact, when I was stuck on a particular parkour sequence three-quarters of the way up a tall tower, I kept dying repeatedly. The respawn point was very close to the spot I was having trouble with, and the character even says something to the effect of “Thanks for not making me start at the bottom!”
I love it.
Sure, the self-aware meta-humor might not be for everyone, but I think it’s fantastic.
If I rush to the end, I could probably wrap the game up in another 3-4 hours. However, if I decided to go for all the challenges, collectibles, and side quests, I probably could play for another 10-20 without running out of things to do.
What I will likely do is something in the middle. I have quite a few things I would like to poke at this month, and since I can see myself replaying this one in the future, I’ve added it to my Steam wishlist and plan to pick it up next time it goes on sale (or maybe before, if I don’t find a discount before the end of the year).
Nerd Girl Thoughts 