Recent reviews by ChrispyUnicorn

Very enjoyable battle system. Large skill tree possibilities as you are never locked out of progression on a tree. Ability to play with anywhere from 1 to 6 characters, either alone or with others, is really great! Progression is well paced. Developers are very active on Discord channel, and respond to suggestions and feedback daily.

[h] Overload - Not Just a Modernized Descent Game [\h]

Overload brings back the six degrees of movement tunnel games like Descent 1/2/3 and Forsaken. However, the development team went far beyond just the nostalgia of the past, they created a game that represents a near perfect 6DOF game. Through out the development, the dev team listened closely to the community and kickstarter donaters to create a game that shows how much passion the dev team has for this game. I believe you will be hard pressed to find another title that has this much direct support and community. While many dev teams disappear after release, you can still find the dev team actively interacting with the community through their discord channel, forums and weekly streams on twitch. The devs also run weekly challenges that will keep you engaged well beyond the standard play through.

The gameplay in Overload is amazing and whether you play on a gamepad, joystick or mouse you will find highly customizable settings that will allow you to find your perfect playstyle. This is especially true for mouse players, something D1/D2 did very poorly. So if you were a previous Descent player that used a Joystick, you might find you can easily play with a mouse and keyboard combo.

In the previous 6DOF freedom games you only had the ability to play either the single player mode of multiplayer modes, Overload introduces a new mode called Challenge Mode. In Challenge Mode you will be put against an ever increasingly difficult set of bots. The more bots you kill, the number of bots increase and the harder they get. During the run, every so often super bots will spawn as your number of kills increases. You will also be awarded weapon upgrades to ensure you can keep up with the ever increasing horde of bots You can play in either infinite mode, where you play until you die or timed mode, which challenges you to kill as many bots as possible in a set time limit. Challege mode also requires you to pay attention to your ammunition levels and make every shot count. If you don't you will be frantically flying around with no way to kill the bots. Leader boards are present for all levels and difficulties so you can let the world see just how good you are. Challange mode is also a great way to hone your flying skills in preparation for multiplayer madness.

Another new feature is the ability to customize your ship. Instead of being forced to find upgraded weapons, you can now select any weapon and missile setup, with the exception of the rare super weapons that spawn randomly during gameplay. You can also select ship perks that allow you to modify several aspects of your ship to further improve your flying style. While these customizations might make you think there is a perfect setup, I guarantee you they don't, The dev team really spent a lot of time balancing the weapon sets to ensure there is no one setup. This is especially fun for multiplayer where you can select two different ship setups that will ensure you have the right weapon types for the varied levels. Gone are the days of starting with a weak old pea shooter and frantically running around looking for a weapong upgrade. Instead, you are immediately a threat as soon as you spawn. This keeps the multiplayer games fun and furious.

Multiplayer offers three different modes. Anarchy, all against all. team mode and 1v1 . You can either queue for a game or setup a private passworded session so you can always team up with your friends. The private sessions are especially fun because it allows you to customize almost every features of the game. This includes changing the win conditions, levels, weapons and several other items. Multiplayer also supports optional setting for cross platform play. This provides a larger number of players to keep the action going. The level design are some of the best maps I have ever seen for this style of game. The will have you changing your ship loadouts to be effective in the session. Since you can pick two different loadouts, you will always have the right setup for the map type. You are also able to change from each setup during the gameplay so you will always be prepared. Overload also released a map editor which will ever increase the number of levels to play on. Revial Productions has published tutorials on how to use the tools so it is easy to get started.

Like most modern games Overload uses a queuing system to search for a session. While you can still ensure play with your friends using the private game setting, the regular queue requires you to wait for other players to join the queue. This means if no players are online, you will be stuck staring at a search screen until someone else joins in. There is no way to see how many people are currently online so you could be staring at the search screen for a long time. You can use the discord channel to try and find folks to play with, but this requires you to install another application to find a game and relies on other players to do the same. You are also unable to select the region you are playing in which can heavily impact your ping times. This dramatically changes your gameplay experience and can often leave you frustrated. Another area missing is the ability to join games currently in session, or immediately restart a session once the session timer expires forcing you to rejoin the queue. Since the queue has a session timer you may be stuck with only 1 other player. Ypu can host your own server, but this option is only available for local LAN play. This concerns me because this service requires Revival Productions to pay for the hosting, and without continual passive income, online play will go away. It is however important to note that the inital Kickstarter campaign did not include multiplayer as a feature. The dev team really pushed hard to get this feature in and shows just how much they love this game and their commitment to the community. The dev team is also actively engaged with the community to improve the online play so some of the issues may be resolved in the future.

To sum it up, I love this game and encourage you to try it. The graphics are amazing, the maps are varied and you can also play in VR mode giving you a whole new immersive experience. Former Descent players I promise you will feel right at home and be dog fighting in some of the best levels I have played. if you have never played a 6DOF game, I encourage you to the best game I have played in the 6DOF genre. With the release of the level editor, you are also ensured to have new caverns to explore that will keep the gameplay fresh.

PDXGeek