This game is like one of those "gaming addiction" t-shirts. You know the one. You wore it growing up because you thought it was cool, then you grew out of it mentally and physically, but several years down the line, you kinda miss when you liked stuff like that. This is precisely how I feel about Sunset Overdrive.

Everything about this game feels like the last hurrah of the raunchy, edgy side of Insomniac, the one that internally named "A Crack in Time" as "Clockblocked". A game from an interim after the PS3 caused R&C to lose its edge, and before they were doomed to work on Marvel slop with safe writing for the rest of their days. The writing in this game is not going to appeal to everyone; Hell, if I played this a few years back, I'd probably blow it off. The reason it broke through to me is because it never backs down, and it knows to never take itself seriously.

The actual plot is completely aimless though. As it turns out, you gotta do more than make a varied series of missions with really funny scenarios to actually make a memorable story. At its core, Sunset Overdrive just wants you to have fun. In a unique subversion, the orange-flavored Fanta zombie apocalypse isn't portrayed as the endtimes; It's a chance to start your life for real, no one around to tell you what to do, be your own boss. You're trapped in a surveillance state controlled by a soda brand, but you're not gonna let them stop you from enjoying yourself.

Everyone puts on an excellent performance, but Yuri Lowenthal definitely steals the show as the voice of the male protagonist, an everyman who's taking all this chaos in whatever stride he can. There's basically no fourth wall as far as the writing is concerned, so if you're still sick of those writing trends, a decent chunk of the dialogue will probably make you wince. I thought it was done pretty tastefully though. It's mostly just unafraid to remember it's a videogame, if it thinks it can make you laugh.

This game's soundtrack is like your high school band festival. One guy going ham on his electric guitar, another going apeshit on the drums, and a vocalist shouting lyrics so loudly that even the people in the very back of the venue can hear them. I don't think I'd personally listen to any of this music outside the game, but it works phenomenally for this game's tone. While a lot of the songs sound similar by nature, their individuality always keeps me guessing when a new one kicks in. I'm more likely to remember certain events from the game if you play the songs associated with them, music's kinda nuts like that.

I see a lot of reviews saying "ohhhhh, this is where Spiderman PS4 got its movement mechanics!", and I subsequently have no idea what these people are on about. The movement mechanics in Sunset Overdrive aren't heavily automated and cinematic. Instead, you control the buttons you push, bouncing, grinding, swinging, and wall-running across a veritable playground for these moves. You can grind on pretty much anything that looks like a straight edge, and there's a healthy amount of objects to jump off in order to keep your momentum going. There's a lot of random junk sprinkled around the map to collect, and I always go for it because the movement makes it so seamless. Fast travel is a nice gesture, but it feels wholly unnecessary when shmoovin' and groovin' is this engaging. Jogging around on foot will see you quickly swarmed by enemies, so grinding and bounding around them while firing away is the ideal way to play, made more enjoyable by a fairly generous auto-aim. Chaining different moves together raises your style meter, and at certain thresholds, equippable buffs known as "amps" activate, incentivizing you to keep moving. It ALL feeds back into the movement mechanics, and it never gets old.

So yeah, Spiderman PS4's origins? Get outta here, this is more like a long-lost Ratchet & Clank title, if anything. R&C1 weapons always felt homemade, like they were sloppily welded together in your garage or something. All the weapons you get in Sunset Overdrive feel like they're made of random junk that you'd find in the aftermath of a fraternity party. Shit like hair spray, stuffed animals, fireworks, vinyl records, and we can't forget the liquid nitrogen, a staple of college life. Weapons gain experience, level up, and can be equipped with amps to give them extra effects. Sounds like the Omega Mod system in Ratchet: Deadlocked to me. Hell, your crowbar is basically Ratchet's wrench, straight down to the aerial slam and using it to bust crates for money/ammo.

Imagine an alternate universe where this game released on PS4 instead. I bet it would've been considered a cult classic in some circles. No shade towards the talented people working at Insomniac, but I would've gladly taken a sequel to Sunset Overdrive instead of more capeshit. Fate dealt them a cruel hand, and now they're stuck working in the Marvel Mines forever, probably. Ah well, I'm just happy this game exists at all. Feels like an anomaly when you put it between R&C: Into the Nexus and R&C (2016).

It's bright, it's colorful, it's loud, but most of all, it's a blast. It's Sunset Overdrive, baby.

Much of Sunset Overdrive's humor didn't land for me, but what Sunset Overdrive does well is showcase how excellent Insomniac is at making fun action titles. Perhaps the most underrated game from Insomniac's catalog, Sunset Overdrive's colorful and enjoyable design makes it a fun romp that many should take the plunge into at some point or another. Not many games have personality like this one does, and sometimes you really need a palette cleanser in the midst of many other grounded, more serious experiences. If the humor landed, I think I'd enjoy it much more, but it's attempts only come across as cheesy or just straight-up cringy (hate using that word, but it's apt) at times. It also doesn't do anything remarkable either, and it really only succeeds at being a fun video game to play, which I can appreciate.

Score: 84