OVERRIDE: MECH CITY BRAWL
Videogames have turned many a childhood interest into a serious affair. Space is cold and filled with fiends, no-one in the recent cowboys and robbers sim says ‘boom’ or ‘pow’, and you spend as much time solving Spider-Man’s relationship problems as you do swinging around New York. By contrast, Override, with its toy box full of mechs, evokes a sense of fun, even when mankind’s future is on the line. Like most fighting games, Override comes with a local versus mode, online matches, and an arcade campaign. In the latter, you select one of 12 mechs and set off to, er, research the alien threat by giving it a good stomping. Every mission takes place in another famous city around the world, which then gets utterly pulverised in the ensuing battles. In most cases all you need to do is defeat all enemies within a certain time limit.
While repetitive, Arcade mode bursts with different customisation options and weapons to earn. With bare-bones world building and cringey dialogue, the solo campaign stays true to most other arcade modes, but it comes with a considerable amount of content and is the best option for seeing the full variety of monsters and ways to beat them seven ways to Sunday.
Unfortunately, it’s the very act of punching and kicking that could have done with more refinement. You perform attacks using the shoulder buttons, which nicely conveys the heft of each strike. The controls take a while to get used to, but no-one said piloting mechs would be easy.
However, many attack animations are overly slow and imprecise, which turns standard combos into a tedious affair. There is also hardly any impact to your actions. Buildings crumple like cardboard and sometimes it’s hard to tell if and how a punch connects at all. If you don’t lock onto your enemies at all times you also have to contend with the unruly camera while trying to attack, dodge, or just find your opponent.
MECH NEW FRIENDS
You have plenty of special attacks and weapons, but there is absolutely no need to get creative in the overly easy arcade mode. That’s why Override is best appreciated against other players. The option to have multiple friends steer one robot, in particular, can either lead to a show of flawless co-ordination or result in enjoyable chaos.
There are some great aspects to Override, like the distinct differences between mechs that gives each one a completely unique visual style and feel, right down to their movement and special attacks, but a hunk of metal that actually controls like a hunk of metal leaches most of the fun right out of a brawler. Still, fighting games are all about learning curves. If you can get to grips with the clunky controls, this has a lovingly crafted assortment of mechs to master.