Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico Preview

Those who saw the movie Desperado may recall Antonio Banderas, as the former musician turned gunslinger, taking on a Mexican drug lord.

The idea was certain action-packed and the movie was full of explosive violence and a steady barrage of bullets.

Eidos Interactive and developer Deadline Games apparently thought the core idea had enough merit to borrow some elements for Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico. There are marked difference between the movie and the game, be sure of that. In the movie, the crime boss put a bullet in Banderas’ girlfriend and through his fretting hand. In the game, Ramiro Cruz is searching for his father’s killer. Now, end the comparison between the two and let’s settle into Total Overdose.

The game has some arcade third-person shooter features, like weapon drops (weapons hover above the ground and you run over them to collect them), a scoring system that tallies combo moves and gives extra credit for head shots (even a voice-over in the game that will compliment you on a solid headshot), and a finite amount of lives before you must restart. Oh, and there are health packs around, as well as an in-mission narrative to give you hints what you should be doing. 

The game features 18 open-ended environments, and players can pull off a variety of moves as well as take over any vehicle. The very first mission introduces gamers to come of the possibilities. You are standing on a road in a desert-like environment and the voice-over tells you it is a long walk and you should commandeer a vehicle. On cue, a pick-up truck comes around the bend in the road and heads for you. Ok, so you don’t know these guys, but apparently the sight of Ram standing in the middle of the road, toting two shotguns is enough to make them less than friendly. Shoot the windshield, the truck rolls to a stop and the passengers hop out. Blow them away, and jump in the truck. Well, your destination really was within walking distance, because as you turn the corner, in the direction from which the truck came, there is the compound. The entry is blocked by two vehicles, and therein lies the next lesson.  

You gun the accelerator and head for the barrier, open the driver’s door and bail out. That’s just one of the 60-plus moves Eidos claim are available for Ram to pull off. And yes, bailing out of a moving vehicle is very cool and plays out very well.

If your attempt to kill everything goes awry, and you end up dying in the attempt, if you have lives left, you can rewind back a few seconds and try it again. 

The control schemes follow, essentially, those of every third-person shooter around, so the learning curve is not huge.

The game’s audio sparkles with Mexican music and the voice work is decent. The comedy is a little forced though. Early on a crime boss, who is giving you some work, is butchering meat as he talks to you. He says he would shake your hand but he has blood all over his (likely some subtle metaphor for the nefarious deeds he has committed), to which Ram remarks that it’s Ok that they don’t shake hands as Ram is a vegetarian. Err, Ok? 

Graphically Total Overdose does a very good job of supporting the action and the environments are well done. Some of the environment is destructible, and you can nail opponents (an AI mixture here, some take cover when you are blowing away their compatriots, some run right at you, providing easy head shots) who pop their heads out from behind cover.

Total Overdose is fast paced and has some very cool moves you can pull off with Ram. Graphically it pulls off that hybrid between action-adventure and arcade very well, and the music is terrific for the style of game.  

This game releases on the PC, PlayStation 2 and Xbox platforms at the end of September.