But first, a refresher course on Overkill. As with other titles in the House of the Dead, the story serves primarily as an excuse for players to kill as many zombies as possible. But as the heroes of Overkill state, these are ‘mutants’ we’re slaughtering this time, not ‘zombies’. The heroes, Agent G and Isaac Washington are sent to stop the outbreak and kill Papa Caesar, the man suspected behind the mutant uprising. The real kicker of Overkill’s narrative is its presentation – it’s all very grindhouse and recalls B-movies. The dialogue is hardly the most intelligent we’ve ever seen in a video game, preferring to go down the route of expletives, but there are plenty of laugh out loud moments, especially if you enjoy your humour jet black. The game’s grindhouse influence can be seen in the use of screen filters, making it look like a movie on damaged film.
I'm the one with the shotgun, not the hobo.
If you’ve ever played a light gun arcade game, you’ll know exactly what to expect from Overkill – point at the screen, pull the trigger and let the on-rails movement take you where you need to go. We never had any problems aiming with the Move controller, and we suspect this was due to the game asking you to configure the controller every time you start the game up. It was also pleasing to note that aggressive mutants aside, there are lots of passive ones in every level that prove to be great combo fodder, which definitely helps with point scoring. Like a typical arcade shooter, your points determine your bragging rights on the online leaderboards. We’re told that Extended Cut also manages to stuff in more extras than in Overkill. These extras, such as comic book pages, concept art and 3D models, can be found in every level.
The characters’ quests for answers and revenge lead them through a total of nine stages. Two of these stages are exclusive to Extended Cut, adding the strippers Varla Guns and Candi Stryper as playable characters. While neither of them add much to the Overkill’s on-rails gameplay (after all, how could it?), the ladies do make for a nice change of pace. At about 20 minutes for each stage, the whole game took us about three hours to complete, but the main drawcards of playing through stages again are the aforementioned unlockables and earning enough cash to buy bigger and better guns. Extended Cut adds a bit more value here too, giving players access to weapons like a crossbow. You can also tweak various aspects of the game as you unlock the options, such as increasing the difficulty or removing the aiming reticule. The game still feels a tad too easy after these changes though, and that’s where the brand new Director’s Cut mode comes into play. This mode features the same nine levels but packs in challenges and more difficult enemies. It is, as they say, ‘bigger, longer, harder’. If you need a little distraction from stopping the mutant outbreak, there are also some neat little minigames on offer. There’s target shooting, a survival mode, and one named ‘Victim Support’, in which you must prevent mutants from munching on delicious humans still capable of rational thought.
Time for your hot lead meds.
For all its changes and additions though, there are still areas of Extended Cut that need a bit of polish. One boss battle proved to be an alarmingly glitchy affair and it seems hard to believe that these problems could have been overlooked. There also seemed to be a number of graphical issues, such as characters disappearing during cutscenes and the lip-syncing being awful during some scenes (although we’re fairly sure this was done on purpose). On the topic of graphics, it has to be said that for all the talk of Extended Cut having remastered and improved visuals, they are barely a notch above the Wii’s. Granted, this is only for the game’s cinematics – the graphics look quite good during gameplay itself. After all, we weren’t expecting Uncharted 3. Extended Cut also gives the option to play the game in 3D, but we didn’t have the option to try that out. Audio-wise, the developers ought to be commended – the crappy voice acting is spot on considering the B-movie feel Overkill is aiming for, and music manages to be far more enjoyable than expected. Sound effects are nothing short of satisfying too, with appropriately wet squelches and splatters for the amount of gore being thrown around the screen.
The candyman can't.
If you haven’t played Overkill already, there isn’t a better time to run out and grab a copy. After all, this is a game built on all the fun, nonsense, cussing and blood any mature adult, grindhouse or zombie (er, mutant) fan could ever want from a video game. Rail shooter fans will have a ball of a time with it too, although they may find it a bit too easy. As for those who have played the game on the Wii already, the additional features don’t really warrant a re-purchase, unless you really enjoyed your experience. Still, Extended Cut certainly raises the bar for arcade shooters on the Move.
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