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Turbo Overkill is worth trying if you love fast FPS gameplay with a lot of verticality, challenging encounters, retro graphics, and Cyberpunk tones. I love FPS games, but this one was a forgettable experience thanks to glaring flaws and issues, most of which drove me insane.

The weapon selection is fun, and there are some refreshingly unique guns with solid customization options. Having a CHAINSAW available whenever you want on your leg while sliding around was an innovative way to introduce some fun ways to take down hordes of enemies.

The gameplay is fun at first but gets repetitive as you get deeper into the game and start encountering issues, bugs, and frustrating parts. The main issues I had with this game were the story, main character, longer-than-needed levels, most of which were super confusing, walking on walls/special platform jumps, and game-breaking bugs.

The story left much to be desired. Most of the time, I had no idea what was going on. It immediately throws you into things without much explanation, and you stop caring 25 percent into the game since it’s just areas of nonstop enemies and waves.

Turbo Overkill is mostly a rinse-and-repeat game where you get to a new level, kill entry-level enemies, and then tougher ones. After that, more enemies appear that are more tediously annoying, a mini-boss, and then this all repeats when you get to the next new area within the level to clear.

The story suffers because it doesn’t make much sense as you go through this repetitive gaming style. Even the main character, Johnny Turbo, lacks personality and is not worth caring about. Why did Johnny Turbo not have any voice lines or an identity?

Moving along to the levels, there are way too many that feel endlessly long. The graphics are nice, and I did enjoy the overall level design, but my goodness, some levels took 30-45 minutes to complete since there was a lot of running around, backtracking, and finding keycards to unlock areas you couldn’t get to before. Yeah, it’s a lot of unnecessary time being padded on for what felt like no reason. Perhaps if Johnny had some funny or killer lines, it could have made up for it when you spend so much time roaming around and dashing as much as you can to cover so much area.

All the walking on walls and special platform jumps brought on some of the most annoying and anxiety-producing moments I’ve ever experienced in an FPS game. I don’t mind challenges here and there, but it was such a huge turn-off to miss a jump, and if you didn’t save beforehand, you have to go back around all over again to try again. I hated these parts later in the game because they were so tedious. Besides that, there were too many “Where do I go?” moments with no map or indicators that pop to guide you to keep the momentum and flow of progression going. I’m not sure why this wasn’t added because, towards the end, I had to use YouTube guides to figure out where to go. It could have saved time and improved the gaming experience if these basic FPS game features were added.

The game borrows heavily from DOOM and DOOM Eternal regarding powerups, gore, weapons, keycards, and even the special platform-jumping nonsense. Even the grappling parts felt very copy-and-pasted. It’s not bad since games tend to copy each other in FPS games, but you knew it was coming as you progressed.

Several situations in the game involving vehicles were flat-out awesome. Flying around in a car and eventually Johnny’s motorcycle was so much fun. It was nice to break things up with those parts, as they were exhilarating. It was such a gaming rush, especially with Turbo Overkill's fantastic soundtrack, which made this game worth playing for these moments.

Now, my biggest issue was the game-breaking bugs I found, one of which is why I won’t beat this game as intended. The game tends to freeze right before or after you complete an Act, and a few times, it lost ALL my progress. I also saved my progress during the final boss fight, died, and the save was bugged to where it’s you standing in the boss area with no enemies or actual boss there anymore. There are no enemies, and you’re stuck in an empty zone locked behind doors/walls. You can’t redo this part and have to resort to starting the ENTIRE level over again by restarting.

I’m not spending another hour to get back to where the game bugged out because, too many times, the endless waves of annoying and frustrating enemies got boring quickly. I’m always up for a challenge, but seriously, the final parts of this game become overwhelming, obnoxious, and annoying. It ends up being no fun at all.

Unfortunately, due to that game-breaking bug and how annoyingly hard the final level is, I’m not redoing all that. It’s a shame since I was right there, but there comes a point where it’s too relentless and makes me disinterested in playing. The levels are way too long, and it’s just too much of a time-sink to redo all that over again for a bug that has yet to be fixed. Imagine if I do it again and the same bug happens? I looked it up, and other players have had similar bugs and issues.

I give Turbo Overkill a 2/5 for being a decent, unique, and interesting game. It would have been even better if Johnny Turbo had voice lines, a personality, or just something to make him the star of the game that stood out. The storyline made zero sense, felt rushed, and the levels needed to be shorter for a fast-paced FPS game like this. I did enjoy the gunplay, weapons, slow-motion abilities, and weapon customization. Even though I couldn’t finish it due to a game-breaking bug in the final level and too many crashes, it’s still worth playing if you love FPS games like this. Just be prepared for some anxiety-inducing parts that will likely frustrate you to the point of uninstalling. Especially those annoying parts of walking on walls or special platform jumps that punish you if you’re an inch off. It’s worth checking out and playing whenever it goes on sale. It has a sufficient foundation but needs more time and development to be memorable.