PlayStation 2

Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico

Get your luggage together, file a healthy bribe to get your guns through customs, and go bang with the gang. Total Overdose doesn't do much that's new or innovative, but what it does drips with so much style that you can't stay away. I said Mercenaries was the kind of thing Jerry Bruckheimer would produce. If that's the case, then Total Overdose is something out of Robert Rodriguez's studio lots.

Total Overdose is a game that probably has chosen the best time for release. It's a game that can be picked up and played during a lull period and enjoyed which makes it great to tie you over if you need a new experience until the big hits start arriving next month.

Total Overdose is a game that probably has chosen the best time for release. It's a game that can be picked up and played during a lull period and enjoyed which makes it great to tie you over if you need a new experience until the big hits start arriving next month.

Total Overdose is a very fun, albeit short, action title. There's a whole lot to like within the game's control scheme and the gun battles that it'll allow you to carry out. A plethora of bullets, explosions, bloodied bodies and the like are the norm for the game's fight scenes, almost in a choreographed manner.

The game's graphics also fall on the side of not very polished. Everything is bland looking buildings, dockyards filled with containers and a farm filled with plain green grass (and pot, lots of pot). For a game with so much style to it's action, it's a little disappointing. The graphics are average. No more, no less. Thankfully, the voice acting is suburb and the wild Mexican-American music is a perfect complement to the non-stop action. It covers all genres, from rock to rap to meringue. Have you ever wasted a goon squad to meringue? It's a trip.

A Latin-flavored action game with humor and lots of shoot ‘um up action, Total Overdose might not be the best action game available for the PS2 but it’s still mindless good fun nonetheless. While the game is a bit on the linear side and some missions might seem repetitive, there’s action aplenty for those gamers that like their action wild.

The gameplay borrows elements from other successful games, the graphics and sound are more style over substance, but I couldn’t help having a great time while playing this game. Sometimes you don’t need to play a game that is entirely original to have a good time, and sometimes you just want to blow stuff up. If you’re looking for a game that is full of mindless killing with a fun atmosphere, you can’t go wrong with Total Overdose: A Gunslinger’s Tale in Mexico.

Petite surprise, Total Overdose se pose comme un titre assez convaincant, offrant son lot de sensations et parvenant à susciter un intérêt immédiat. Néanmoins son plus gros problème vient de son manque de caractère et de son aspect répétitif. Empruntant peut-être trop à de nombreux titres éminemment connus, le jeu d'Eidos se perd dans ses inspirations et ne parvient pas à se montrer comme un chef de file. Cela dit, si vous désirez poursuivre l'expérience GTA SA, Total Overdose sera à n'en pas douter un choix astucieux.

Total Overdose is one of those games that presents a conundrum. Most people shouldn't buy it, as it's far too short, too patently ridiculous, and too weak outside of its combat to be worth the money. Conversely, the game's utterly ludicrous nature makes for a fairly entertaining ride at times, and the shooting can be quite fun. Shooter fans on the hunt for something brainless and easy, but with lots of stylish gunplay, should certainly rent Total Overdose just to see how bananas the whole thing is. Those with slightly more-discerning tastes ought to just leave well enough alone and look elsewhere for their needs.

As much as I would like to recommend that people see the insanity that unfolds, the shoddy play will likely drive most gamers into a mental institution.

See, Total Overdose is unmistakably game, largely thanks to running around a press release archive with its mouth wide open, and won't exactly win any design awards (although, saying that, Big Mutha Truckers did so who bloody knows), and we probably shouldn't encourage them by buying it, but if you happened to be sitting at home one evening, bored off your tits, and feel like lying on your tummy with a stupid grin splattered across your face, you could probably do worse than to rent it out - even if it is basically that "Kill all the Haitians" line from Vice City done up as an entire game. Totally.

Total Overdose is GTA: Mexico with B-level developer talent: The game Robert Rodriguez would have designed if his brain had been replaced by a satsuma: This is Smash TV in sombreros. It provides no-brain thrills but can't hold a candle to "el hombre grande theft auto."