MORE LIKE SUPER MEH LEAGUE
This is going to be an odd review. See, a little more than two years ago, I reviewed Override: Mech City Brawl and had a decent time but felt like they put their focus into the wrong areas, and with a sequel now out I feel like I should talk about that original game/review and what has changed. I also decided to boot up the original just to get a feel for it before I wrote this review.
Like I said two years ago, I hoped that Override would be a mech themed War of the Monsters and it wasn’t; it chose to be more like a fighting game where button mashing would suffice but a more skilled player would easily dominate the battle. Override 2 kept the same approach, however it seems to be more kind to the chaotic playstyle of button mashing because no longer does attacking or dodging cause the mechs to overheat. That mechanic is entirely gone and the speed of the mechs is faster, making them no longer feel giant and weighty. On the surface it seems like a better choice, but it removes almost all of the character that Override 1 had.
PLATFORMS: PC, XB1, XSX, PS4, PS5, SWITCH
MSRP: $29.99+
PRICE I’D PAY: PLAY THE FIRST GAME
Something I didn’t bring up in the original because I suppose I didn’t think it necessary is that all the levels felt like real places. Mechs fought in cities and ruins and places that made the mechs feel large. In Override 2 the levels either feel like something pulled from Smash Bros. (one level is a fight on a giant cake) or are very bland cities that don’t look like something actually lived in but rather just set up for the mechs to fight in. Mix the arenas with the faster speed of Override 2 and I am unsure why this had to be mechs at all. Override didn’t set the world on fire so maybe a new license would have? I don’t even think the Ultraman DLC is getting people to look at this game.
In Override 1 there was an Arcade mode and that was basically a story mode where the player fought a bunch of aliens and the occasional mech. I enjoyed it even though clearly multiplayer was the main focus of the developers. It felt like an actual campaign and had a cool final battle on the moon. There were different missions and I could use the money earned to upgrade my mech and unlock mods to change the mech abilities. It’s what I hoped to see more of in a sequel.
That’s not here. In fact, the single player really isn’t even a single player mode this time around. There’s a League mode, which is an arbitrary story that is long winded and boring about winning tournaments and rising ranks and is basically just text to give some context to random battles that only give money when won which is used to buy more mechs because this time the player has to buy a mech to be able to use them in League mode. There are sponsors that give out more money and… to be honest it’s boring and it’s no different than hitting random match against computers. There are different goals depending on which match is chosen but it’s boring when it’s basically all just computer fights against the other mechs. There is an alien battle match, but it just consists of fighting waves of aliens on one of the many arenas. Oh, and remember when I said there wasn’t really a single player mode? That’s because before every League match it checks for other players and will throw them in as opponents.
I had this happen once in a free for all match and the other player clearly was away from the game as they never actually moved, and the CPUs decided that this other player was easy pickings and steamrolled him. However, imagine if the first match played in Override 2 was against another human opponent rather than the computer and they absolutely obliterated you. I would not want to play anymore. There is a silver lining to this that I will come back to.
There’s one thing I need to just drop in here because I can’t figure out where to put it so I figured I would leave everyone hanging on for that silver lining for a moment. The camera in this game is far too close to the mechs. The first game didn’t have this problem but in Override 2 the camera hangs just a bit over the right shoulder as well. This is a nightmare because finding enemies and locking on is essential but the mech takes up too much of the screen at times and if the enemy decides to circle strafe the camera becomes sickening.
Anyways, as for that silver lining…
No one is playing this game. I pointed out in my review for Override 1 that no one was playing it and that focusing on multiplayer rendered a lot of the game unplayable when there was no one to play with. Override came out on December 4th, 2018 and I reviewed it January 17th, 2019. Override 2 came out December 22, 2020 and I am writing this on March 8th, 2021. There’s no one playing this game and it has crossplay. I wondered if maybe I just had bad luck so I decided to check if the PC version was doing okay via Steam Charts and while I can’t validate their info they say that Override 2 has an average of 1.1 players over the last thirty days. ONE POINT ONE PLAYERS. Just to be clear the first Override has had an average of 2.9 players over the last thirty days. I can’t fathom why after the first game failed to catch an audience that the developers would lean even harder onto the multiplayer aspects but,here we are. I really hope those stats are wrong.
I said Override 1 was great and I still think it is. There was a real charm to it despite not being the most polished experience; I had just wished that there was more single player content. I also assumed that maybe some licensed content would bring in a crowd but clearly, I was wrong as Ultraman DLC seemingly failed to bring people in. I’m really disappointed, as the mech design is just so good but this game is so boring. I think Override 2 killed all the goodwill I had from the first game; I really don’t care to try out a half-baked single player game attached to a dead multiplayer game again. It works fine and that’s the best I can say about this game.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
