Title: Overdriven // Format: XBLIG // Release Date: 06-21-12 // Publisher & Developer: ChucuGames // Price: 240 MS points // Violence: 1/3 // Sex: 1/3 // Mature Content: 1/3
The first thing you'll notice when entering the main menu for the 'bullet hell' shooter Overdriven is the captivating music, and this is a positive throughout the entirety of the game. After all, you need appropriately motivational music to listen to when dodging missiles that cover the majority of the screen.
If that isn't the first thing to grab your attention then the colourful and attractive artwork defiantly will be. The smoothness to which the screen glides from one area to the next can help the player become integrated into the game itself, which is probably a good reason why it's so addictive.
With the ability for 1-4 players to get involved, you can share this habit with your friends, which contributes to some frantic moments during the levels when you forget which starship belongs to you.
The variety of the enemies punishes the player if you use the same tactic over and over- some can be fought head on while others require a hit and run approach. This is important in keeping the player on edge and avoiding complacency. The generous amounts of upgrades that are dropped keep the game on the right side of challenging instead of infuriating.
While defiantly fun, Overdriven does have its negatives. There are several alien artefacts in all of the seven levels, and you need to pick up so many to progress to the next mission. This means that if you miss a few, (and they are easy to miss when you can hardly spot your own ship in the anarchy) you need to replay the level again. Not such a bad thing by itself, but the game resets your points and accumulated lives back to when you started. Very annoying.
This is not the only criticism though, as the bosses at the end of each level tend to be quite easy. Getting to the end is a challenge but once you're there you can breathe a sigh of relief and simply whittle away at the bosses' health bar. Even the final boss was dispatched with limited difficulty.
However, with 3 difficulties,7 challenges, 20 awards, 35 alien artefacts and a leaderboard to compare your score against others, there is plenty of replay value to be had in this fun shooter.
It's said you get what you pay for, and at 240 MS points this is probably a fair price, as the game is fast, enjoyable and thoroughly worth purchasing.
8/10