Turbo Overkill: Chainsaw Slide into Paradise
Reflecting on PAX East, my mind cannot help but drift back to the fluid, brutal, fast paced action of Trigger Happy Interactive’s Turbo Overkill. Published by Apogee Entertainment, Turbo Overkill takes the fast paced FPS action of doom, dresses it in neon sci-fi, and injects it with a subtle yet potent dose of comedy.
Set on the city planet of Paradise, you play as hired gun Johnny Turbo whose job is to delve into the city's high rises and underbelly to purge a deadly virus known as Syn. Syn Virus has taken over the cyborg citizens of Paradise thanks to an artificial intelligence that has overtaken the orbital space station that is somehow directly linked to the planet and its citizens. Armed with a notably varied arsenal of weapons and abilities like double jumps, dashes, and even a chainsaw slide, Johnny Turbo takes life and limb to restore Paradise to what it once was.
With a glance, it’s apparent that Turbo Overkill is deeply influenced by DOOM. It maintains the locomotion and combat forward gameplay of its inspiration, while also throwing some unique mechanics into the mix such as wall running and a chainsaw slide; a combat slide that incorporates the chainsaw that’s been augmented into Johnny’s leg. When you’re not sliding through enemy hoards and dashing past their gunfire, you’ll be utilizing a pleasantly surprising range of weapons as well. I was told that every weapon in the game has a secondary fire mode, though I was only able to utilize the secondary mode of the dual pistols in my demo. This ability allowed me to lock onto multiple targets at once and distribute instant death to anyone who had the misfortune of finding themselves up against me.
Along with the neon-soaked brutality of Turbo Overkill’s gameplay comes a nice comedic tone to the game as well. There are vending machines similar to that of titles like Borderlands where you can purchase items like health, ammo, augmentations, and even modify and upgrade the augmentations you apply to Johnny. The comedic kicker here is that I found these vending machines almost directly after combat. Meaning that I would go from high octane, blood soaked combat directly to listening to a cartoonish brand mascot pitch augmentations to me in a very Mickey Mouse-esque voice over elevator music. The juxtaposition of tone was enough to make me audibly laugh in the booth I played my demo in.
Turbo Overkill is available now on Steam Early Access, with a console release hitting later in 2022.
Written by Justin Hyde