The Loco moves, which include around six special attacks that players can perform, all come with their own level of zaniness and clever combat design. Naturally, Total Overdose's unwavering insanity is reflected in some of the most absurd weapons and abilities I've ever seen in an action game. I had a blast just roaming from one location to the next in search of more bandits to kill, and even though it was at the expense of some truly awful vehicle controls, the destination was worth every second of the journey.
This might all sound repetitive, and to an extent, it really is, but the sheer fun factor of the gameplay was enough for me to forgive almost every single narrative or mission design shortcoming. Instead, it just serves as a means of getting Ramiro from one location to the next in order to demolish the next batch of comedic hoodlums before the obligatory bike or car chase sequence - rinse and repeat. There's nothing to suggest that you should even take what's happening seriously in the plot at all. The story is your typical run-of-the-mill undercover agent story about infiltrating some unsavory cartels to bust a big drug business, but it does it with all the insane conviction of a screaming monkey running through the streets wearing a sombrero and waving around sticks of dynamite. Unlike Grand Theft Auto which was drenched in a gloomy, overly serious story most of the time, Total Overdose didn't make a lick of sense - and the developers knew that very well. However, where it lacks in visual fidelity, it makes up for in personality. For a game released on the PlayStation 2, PC, and original Xbox in 2005, it has unfortunately aged as poorly as one might expect from games in that time (save for a few rare exceptions, see Shadow of the Colossus). Graphically, you won't find anything to marvel at in the game. It's all silly in retrospect, but man, was it supremely entertaining. You can bounce off walls, slow down time to hilarious degrees, and quite literally blow the heads off of thugs, causing their hats to land on your head in the midst of the high-flying acrobatics. Total Overdose mixes things up by incorporating the same level of over-the-top, nonsensical action sequences that those films proudly featured. Apart from the obvious Grand Theft Auto comparisons (you can still commit vehicular theft and manslaughter in a somewhat open world of Mexico), the game is clearly a love-letter to Robert Rodriguez's Mexico Trilogy, consisting of El Mariachi, Desperado, and Once Upon A Time in Mexico. Total Overdose, developed by Deadline Games in collaboration with Eidos Interactive, wears its influences on its sleeve.
TOTAL OVERDOSE PC CONTROLLER FULL
That is, until I picked up the full game - and I'm so glad that I decided to give it a chance, because it remains one of my fondest gaming memories. At first, I was still infatuated with what Rockstar Games had done for open-world games of a similar nature, so while Total Overdose was fun while it lasted, I never paid much attention to it. My first brush with Total Overdose was a PC demo that had protagonist Ramiro "Ram" Cruz fill in as a double for his DEA undercover agent twin brother, taking on a drug cartel on an isolated farm filled with thugs, exploding chickens, and more explosions than Michael Bay knows what to do with. Today, let's revisit one of the most underrated, loco gems of the past. Forgetting the likes of the True Crime games or Yakuza managing to leave a mark entirely in its own league, one that always stood out for me was Deadline Games' Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico. In an era when Grand Theft Auto set the new standard for chaotic third-person open world video games, very few managed to stand out in that crowded market of the early-to-mid 2000s.