a megaconglomerate having their product rushed through regulative testing only for it to have horrific effects on its subjects is ridiculous and conspiratorial, and the decision to make the hero a whistleblower trying to stop quarantine is equally silly. nonsensical premises aside, sunset overdrive is the precursor to all these bubblegum colored, pop culture-obsessed, capeshit quip-a-minute, faux hip and plainly refuses to be subversive enough to be actually hip, safe and committee-approved "Loud" & "Fun" punk appropriative heaps that continue to dominate the industry enough to where they're willing to eat any and all losses on the new saint's row game just to keep pushing this blueprint nobody wants. on the other hand, it's set profoundly apart as a relic of the bygone in allowing you to play a ~sm3xy~ skinny emo princess (what i proudly am in real-life). mechanically there is something truly mundane about grinding and dashing around sunset overdrive. is it the dead, empty playground masquerading as open world and all the rote missions (which are sub-True Crime: Streets of LA (2003) in quality, quantity, and variety) within it? is it that demoralizing blueprint? is it the camera that feels like it's a generation behind and doesn't trust you with anything past 40 fov? i don't know. get me out of here.

contrary to the selling point of this death knell for medal of honor, "parachuting onto an open map" is largely an illusion. your potential range of movement from the game's in-air spawn point limits your choices, there is no true starting wherever you want. further, there is clearly an intended order of operations for each level and you're dissuaded from straying from it. if you think you're cheeky parachuting onto a roof to get a noscope montage, think again. enemies have impossible precision no matter their distance from you, they are doom hitscanners on steroids and strict enforcers of no fun allowed. player aiming (and overall accuracy of the weapons) is so profoundly unreliable you are constantly fighting against it and left unsure why your shots aren't hitting. it's generally better to spray and pray than attempt to line up shots. i would feel relatively confident declaring airborne's gunplay as the worst in history. the ironsights/stance switching system is a kool implementation. the campaign's only a few levels long and they cheap out on the big set pieces because they're too concerned with giving you a false sense of freedom. there are invisible zones in the game where as soon as you pass them your squad actually begins doing things, encouraging you to just speedrun the whole thing. visual fidelity holds up but it is hard to believe this is unreal engine 3 with its ugly flat lighting that causes entire levels to bleed together into a canvas of haphazard strokes of grey and brown

i was 19 when this came out and at a period of my life where my parents thought they should deny me allowance. i was a billiards head obsessed with the famous sharks. girls at school called me the hustler, the baltimore bullet, mr color of money. i carried a cue bag around. i got my first job 8 years later and after cashing paycheck #1 the gamestop guy told me pool shark 2 was outdated, tried to upsell me on some 360 game with willie mosconi? i respect the greats, i love the grfaphix, but shark 2's got the "angles"like i got the angles when i'm chalking up. don't believe me? https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/screen/full/5/6/3/304563.jpg

i am a long time advocate of bumfights. all torrents lead back to my seeding them, all youtube and dailymotion et al reuploads are sourced from my rips. on many now dead forums i was called "The Badshah of Bumfights". i am responsible for keeping it alive in 2021. but i can't recommend this game if you are a fan of the great aforementioned video series. hobo has you eating garbage to balance prefab unity survival game meters in a world as vacant and unnatural as a thespecialists rp server. you scurry around making out of breath sounds for daring to search for the keybinding combination to unlock bum fights. there are none, not really. the holds are barred. skip