Overload is a six-degrees-of-freedom FPS title from the developers over at Revival Productions, a development team that has many of the same developers from the classic title, Descent, which had many of the same controls and mechanics. The game was originally released on PC on the 31st May 2018 and is set to be released on both PS4 and Xbox One at some point in the near future.
Originally, looking at games such as Overload you might get an impression that they don’t have a story, but this sci-fi FPS certainly does. The story boils down to the main protagonist waking up from cryostasis and being instructed by an AI that Ymir, a moon of Saturn is currently sending out a distress beacon from one of its colonies. As the story begins to unfold, it shows that the colony is under attack from all of its mining robots and similar machinations. Armed with a light gun-ship which the player can upgrade the further they get into the game, they are tasked with hunting and destroying all of the robots before things get too out of hand.
How to Download Overload
To download Overload click on the Download button at the end of this review. You can get the game either from GOG.com or from Steam. You can also download the game soundtrack and last but not least there is a free Overload Playable Teaser that you can obtain from Steam.
The Game Review
With the gameplay that of an FPS title, it’s easy enough to understand how the general controls work, but since the game is a six degrees of freedom title, it should be known that players have the ultimate control over their ship. This system allows the player to move in all six degrees with ease, allowing for optimal play once the player has gotten to grips with the general controls of the game, which shouldn’t take too long if they’ve ever played anything similar to this one.
Overload is split into several different levels and requires the player to get to the end of each level, whilst destroying as many evil robots as they can muster, without dying. As they go along, they’ll unlock new upgrades and weaponry to fight the robots with and allow for some more variance as times goes on. For the most part, Overload comes across as a rather linear title, but that’s designed to prevent the player from getting completely lost as they navigate the tight and somewhat claustrophobic corridors of the game.
Easily the biggest comparison to make for this game is the spiritual-predecessors that came before it in the form of Descent 1, 2, and 3 (also watch out for the upcoming Descent: Underground). Not only are the controls incredibly similar to how Overload plays, but the setting and environment design are generally the same as well and it’s clear that the developers intended to use their classic titles to inspire what Overload has become today.
Six degrees of freedom isn’t exactly a genre the modern-day era sees a lot of nowadays, but the developers clearly put in a lot of effort to make it a genre that works well and naturally in 2018. For anyone out there who originally fell for the Descent games, Overload is pretty much bound to give them exactly what they were hoping and more from a modern-day Descent title.
