The music helps, being an inspired blend of Mexican hip-hop, rock and traditional trumpets-'n'-guitar stuff and the sunny, colourful visuals are just plain gorgeous. It veers dangerously into 'zany' territory, but it has so much style, panache and chutzpah that it ultimately comes across as more cool than anything else. Then there's Tornado (spin around firing your twin uzis and watch in awe as the camera darts around showing you everything you've hit), 'Pinata' (enemies rush towards a bomb-rigged pinata and get, well, blown up) and finally, 'The Sombrero of Death' which calls upon the skills (and shotgun) of a scary man dressed in traditional Mexican 'Day of the Dead' garb to fight alongside you. Kill enough bad guys in a row and you earn the ability to perform absolutely devastating special moves including 'El Mariachi' (obliterate everything in your path with a pair of guitar cases concealing chainguns), 'El Mysterioso' (summon a fat, bat-wielding Mejicano wrestler to distract enemies) and Golden Gun (instant head shots). Tap fire just as it forms a circle between their eyes and, if you time it right, their head'll pop like a balloon, you'll get loads of points and an instant kill. This is probably the least original thing imaginable, but it's done well and looks cool, which is all we care about.įurthermore, hold the square button while you're locked-on to an enemy and a target closes in on their head. Squeeze L1 and you enter 'adrenaline mode' (bullet time, basically) which lets you dive around in slow-motion and perform acrobatics. The core of the game however is the Max Payne-style gunplay and combat. You spend more time flinging cars into things than driving them anyway. Hardly on par with San Andreas in that respect, and the handling is a bit jerky and simplistic, but it gets the job done. You get around either by foot or by stealing vehicles which range from station wagons and vans to sports cars and dirt bikes.
Only in Mexico.Ä«etween missions you've free reign of Los Toros, a dusty, crime-ridden Mexican city split into six areas, including an industrial zone, a port and a red light district full of grizzled ne'er-do-wells and hookers. You don't have to go through the rigmarole of loading save games, losing all your weapons or taking a taxi to the next mission - you just prod the D-pad and try again with a spot of extra health.
They're less fractured and unreasonable and you never get frustrated, thanks to a supremely user-friendly 'rewind' system that lets you zip back in time instantly if you fudge something up. Now, the very fact that Total Overdose is so similar to San Andreas may invite snorts of derision from hardened GTA fanboys, but suspend your disbelief - the main story missions are, dare we say it, a bit better than those of Rockstar's crime epic. Or career through the Mexican border in an 18-wheeler truck, jumping out at the last second to cause the mother of all explosions? Or. Or crash around a sunny cliff-top Hacienda in slow-motion battling bikini-clad babes with a sub-machine gun?