Turbo Overkill
EARLY ACCESS PREVIEW
Turbo Overkill’s devs have seen Blade
Runner. Possibly more than once. They’ve
also played Bayonetta, MadWorld,
Syndicate (the good one), System Shock,
Apex Legends, and Doom. The game
mashes these all together with absolute
glee, the grin on the faces of the devs
evident with every corner you turn.
The setting is Paradise City,
where the grass is anything but
green and the girls are quite likely to
shoot you. The ‘you’ in question is
Johnny Turbo, a cross between
Cyberpunk’s V and a Syndicate agent,
with a chainsaw for a leg. Despite this
apparent disability he’s able to move as if
speed skating in any direction, making the
edges of platforms as dangerous as the
fireball-shooting bad guys.
In addition to his pair of pistols, Turbo
is armed with his lumberjack leg, which he
can use to slide at groups of enemies, and
a dash that can cross gaps and dodge
incoming fire. Naturally, you pick up
shotguns and grenade launchers and
dual-wielded machine-guns as the game
progresses, each with alternate fire
modes and the ability to be upgraded at
cabinets. There’s also a minigun thatdoubles as a flamethrower, just in case
you find that sort of thing interesting.
Ammo lays around the place, as do
health potions and entire suits of armour.
Red barrels explode, you shouldn’t walk in
the green gunk, and every enemy has
been thinking about shooting you from
the moment of its birth. We’ve all played
games like this before, and Turbo Overkill
cements its retro credentials with a
pixelated, gritty aesthetic that actually
works well when applied to the neon
cyberpunk city, with post-processing
effects bringing in plenty of rain and
bloom lighting. It also means framerates
and resolutions can be high – the flat level
geometry behind the low-res textures is
the price we have to pay.
Of course, your city doesn’t end up
looking like Paradise does without a dark
secret that needs to be rooted out, and
Turbo Overkill leans back on the old ‘rogue
AI’ routine. The entire population appears
to have developed a bad attitude,
alongside a rash of cybernetic implants,
since Syn took over, its giant purple eye
being possibly our favourite evil computer
look since Potato GLaDOS.THAT OLD SAW
There’s also a wicked sense of
humour at play. It starts when you’re
asked to choose a difficulty level,
which are named in true id style, and it’s
worth screenshotting the blue screen of
death you see when you die – there’s far
too much there to take in with a single
glance. The absurdity of the game itself,
how overpowered you are right from the
beginning, carries through to the No
Chainsaws Club and the birds Turbo flips
when his missiles detonate.
The other thing about Turbo Overkill is
that, even as it enters Early Access, it feels
remarkably complete. The dev could add
ray tracing, maybe, add some weight to
the gun feedback, add a bit of variety to
the music, and improve the checkpoint
system so you’re not forced to repeat
encounters. Today, you get one of a
planned three episodes, and responding
to audience feedback to improve a game
as you add new content is precisely what
Early Access is for. Turbo Overkill is
polished and making sure the quality level
stays where it is should be the target.
Ian EvendenT
o kill things, shoot them until they die.
How strange that something so brutal
should appear so utterly banal. It’s an
excellent tip, however, for navigating
Turbo Overkill’s dark, cyberpunk world, and
we’re glad the game chose to give it to us as
almost our first interaction.A chainsaw for a leg, you say?
Okay, I’m in.TURBO OVERKILL
CEMENTS ITS RETRO
CREDENTIALS WITH A
PIXELATED, GRITTY AESTHETICEXPET TO PAY
£15.50DEVELOPER
Trigger Happy InteractivePUBLISHER
Apogee EntertainmentLINK
bit.ly/3rNePcXNEED TO KNOWPLAYED
ITWe tried that tip, the one
about shooting things?
And it worked!