Total Overdose is not the most ideal nostalgic action movie?

In the 2000s, after the triumph Grand Theft Auto III – far from the most interesting and exciting, but extremely innovative game in their genre, many companies began to bet on “action in the style of gta“. It is easy to guess why many of them eventually failed in sales and turned out for developers with serious financial and reputation losses. Although, it cannot be ruled out that someone is lucky much more.

But today it will be about the game that suddenly appeared, and then just as suddenly disappeared into history, but has become an example of that detachment and dynamic action, which was not enough for the GTA series. Meet – Total overdose. The studio game developed Deadline Games, but published Eidos Entertainment (now – Square Enix Europe) in September 2005. Many gaming publications confidently called this project “Mexican analogue GTA“And the like. Perhaps they were right. The purpose of this article is to figure out how the game is perceived almost fifteen years after the release and that it was good and bad at that time.

I’ll start, perhaps, with pluses. From one fundamental and several from the category “Well, according to trifles”.

Action. Moreover, not just action, but Ekhonische. Well, what, and the battles in Total Overdose are extremely dynamic, spectacular, even tense. And the further we follow the plot rails, the more adrenaline becomes the gameplay. And what kind of protagonist the pirouettes performs, and even in the slush, I want to applaud standing standing. To bring such a well -filed and thought out machine for shootings, you just need to press the gap on the keyboard. The main character knows how to jump like Max Payne, rewind time and shoot, run on the wall and shoot, fly away from the wall and FIRE, even fly away from the wall And shoot. You can describe the whole of the suit of local shootings indefinitely, but the essence is one – the GTA series is definitely not enough. At least there was not enough in those years.

Setting. It would seem that an open sandbox in a typical American city no longer surprise anyone-Liberty City, Wais City and San Andreas, but Deadline Games studio (by the way, Danish studio, was surprisingly great!) I went to the risk and unfolded the action in the neighboring Mexico. The location there, of course, is not huge by common standards, but made very well, in some places picturesque. A small town Los Toros On the border with the United States will become a central scene, although during missions we can visit not only on its streets. Fate will bring us into the ruins of the Mayan era, to the territory of the United States and even to the canyon behind the city.

However, there are many ways to explining in Los-Domos. You can fulfill side missions, including the local analogue of the “thirst for death” – the day of the dead (or his alternative, a frantic fighter), collect bonus glasses that will ultimately help seriously pump the characteristics of the character: health and adrenaline scale, as well as the skills of using weapons. Well, or just give special techniques that will come in handy in battles – from Pignata and pitching in a mask (he Mysteriozo) to a gold pistol shooting only in the head, and a hurricane of bullets from Micro-Uzi. The treasured icons throughout the city are scattered, so you can search every nook and something there to find. And you can just wanders around the city, on foot or rolling on transport, which is represented in the game of several types of cars, as well as motorcycles, trucks and loaders (and they are included in the game for a reason). There will be no boats, like sea battles in general, which even the game itself openly says – if the protagonist falls into the water, he is returned back to land with the words that the game Not about swimming.

In general, it is noticeable how meticulously PlayHub Casino the Danes approached the implementation of the Mexican setting – here are the guys in Sombrero, the stadium with Corrida, and all sorts of guys in ridiculous costumes, and the general stylistic of architecture, testifying to the poverty of this town. Even the Spanish dialect is heard everywhere, despite the fact that the characters who speak English are periodically found (in localization from Nival – in Russian), and not only among the plot. In general, the game has no problem with the atmosphere. At least the first few hours.

Weapon. There is full of it. From the cold (rod, bit, machete) and pistols to missile and throwing (grenades, dynamite and Molotov cocktails). Arsenal is rich and his player can be worn entirely, and not on one barrel of each type, as in GTA. They apply damage decently, the scatter of bullets is quite adequate, the auto contraction in shooting also helps well. The only minus is perhaps – ammunition is spent too fast. The problem is solved, of course, pumping characteristics up to endless cartridges, as well as the selection of cartridges from corpses, but this is a very long time and dreary.

Soundtrack. To begin with, Deadline Games used a dynamic music model in Total Overdose to which Rockstar Games documented only to release GTA in. Slaughter compositions, both instrumental and with words, are very successfully wedged in moments with tense contractions, growing with the number of killed corpses or the hardcore of the episode, as well as if the chain of corpses was interrupted, they are also impressively calmed down. It stands apart “Molotov – Karmara“Perhaps the most roofing track in this game, which sounds almost every mission.

Plot. Here I have not yet decided, plus it or minus, because the story in Total Overdose is represented extremely superficially and corny. Nevertheless, briefly outline it. Once upon a time, the feds killed an agent Ernesto Cruise, And his sons, learning about his death, decided to arrange blood feud. Senior, Tommy, Having become an agent of the CIA under the cover, during one of the special operations he is wounded by the leg. Younger, Ramiro(Frames), not the most socially diligent type, at the personal request of his brother, he prematurely leaves prison and is justified in the town of Los-Domos, where he is introduced into the circles of a local drug lord Caesar Morales. First, he fulfills a couple of his instructions – like the salvation of a local informant Marco or theft of the leader of the leader of the enemy gang Virgillos – And then kills. Through the partner of Morales, the owner of the car dealership Elvets, Ram enters the military who had close ties with a certain Pope Muerte, And at the very end he learns that the agent Johnson Poisoned Tommy and Colonel CIA Trusta, stole an agent of the Mexican police Angel And now he is preparing to blow up by sabotage office of American special services. And, perhaps, all the stinginess, shortness and roughness of the plot stretches on itself ..

Protagonist. Ramiro Cruise is a collective image of a typical protagonist from the action of the beginning of zero. Self -confident, indifferent, ruthless and charming, plus a stunt and that shooter. In high skill can even in Macedonian. Almost every sneeze of its frames comment on the ironic phrases that discharge the situation, and sometimes just amusing. Especially when the guy tries to reason at the very end of the game to flee the CIA office until the bomb exploded – so think, he said this seriously, or he just decided to mate? Although it cannot be said that regarding other heroes he is straight good and cool. Within the framework of the plot of Total Overdose, it exists extremely organically, but crumbles when compared with some Tommy Versetti or Max Payne. He cannot be empathized, the script does not cause the degree of emotional stress, so that in fact the game becomes an ordinary meat action movie, which is kept on all this meat. Well, a little – on the image of Ramiro.

Now let’s move on to The cons Total overdose. Although there are fewer than pluses, their weight in this analysis is much higher, which I myself am very sorry. Or maybe not.

Graphics. For 2019, it is not taken seriously, although even in 2005 it was considered extremely outdated. Blurry textures, uneven animation, no special effects and not the most beautiful characters’ models. Nevertheless, some kind of game very distant resembles the early three-dimensional parts of GTA, since it was created on the engine Renderware, which at one time seems to be. managed to put almost all the top games of the time of the second PlayStation. By the way, the poverty of graphics was not in the best way affected the elaboration of locations – for example, the level with jungle looks like a narrow corridor with trees stretched on the sides, occasionally turning into more extensive areas, where this Shakality You can’t attach any importance – shootings do not care what terrain to occur.

Gameplay. Despite the fact that the Total Overdose involves an enthusiastic study of locations and active participation in various missions, both the main plot and the secondary (34 of them, by the way), after passing them all in the game, there is nothing to do in the game, evenly. She is incredibly boring. Take Ramirez and the System of shootings from the game – and it will lose all of its charm. Play the role of GTA from the project from the Danes does not go out in any way. Their sandbox is not like the one in which entertainment would really have.

Opponents. Dumb. Like pedestrians. Often they always go ahead, do not use shelters, not counting, except for stationary turrets. They are killed by a pair of exact shots, damage is inflicted little, if if they are a little within the limits of visibility, which is why the shootings proceed too quickly, although the epic on their own.

Missions. Banal, often without some kind of highlight. Although at times the abundance of locations into which Ramirez throws, brings a certain charm to the reprisal against enemies. In other words, the side effects are tedious – at least those in which there is no action.

Transport. Rather, his physics. She is just terrible. It seems that the entire budget of the game has gone in the wrong direction. Cars are brought in turns, they turn into a mess and light up either from the slightest collision with the objects of the environment, or from a pair of shots from any weapon. It is impossible to manage them at all, in a word. Even the diversity of the fleet does not compensate for the suffering that I experienced while passing racing tasks. And how good it is that there are only eight.

Total Overdose was not a failure, but the “game of the year” did not make any complaints about. She, of course, began to clone GTA, but her only in separate aspects came out to surpass the cult series. In general, the game can cause only light nostalgia for childhood or the games of those years – light, arcade, naive, naive, but extremely bewitching, with the soul. I passed Total Overdose for the first time in 2009, and now, ten years later, it seems to me that it is still able to lure with its amazing action genre. That’s just, I’m afraid that the rest she can’t please anyone ..

And yes, if anyone is interested in the fate of Deadline Games after the release of Total overdose. Before the game, they did not do anything worthwhile, and then – tried to make her remake for PSP (called Chili Con Carnage). In 2009, they developed by order Warner Bros. Two episodes of the game “Guardians»In support the film of the same name on the comic book of the same name (May forgive me Rorshah For tautology!), and six months later … closed due to bankruptcy. It almost immediately turned out that in the development of them, in addition to the cooperative shooter Faith and a .45 was the sequel Total overdose. Such things.