Turbo Overkill is the exemplar of a hidden gem. It outperforms established IPs in every category, constantly knocks your chainsaw-tattered socks off, and even solves some of the genre’s biggest problems, all from a studio’s first major title. Turbo Overkill isn’t just a great shooter, it’s one of the best modern movement shooters ever created. I really have nothing bad to say about this game other than a plea for more of what it did best, so get your chainsaw boots on and buckle into your flying car, this AI isn’t going to “regulate” itself.

Steam Deck Performance: I played it all on Steam Deck with no performance issues, perhaps unsurprisingly given the retro-styled graphics. Obviously though, this game is best played on keyboard/mouse, and it looks good enough to warrant a big screen.

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Turbo Overkill sets itself apart from the shedloads of other contemporary takes on the movement shooter with its sheer brazenness. While it remains committed to the genre’s paradigms: speed, difficulty, and tons of guns, it’s also confident with its innovations. One of these innovations is possibly the game’s main selling point: a literal f*cking chainsaw leg.

A lesser game would fumble the chainsaw leg. Confine it to kill animations. Dilute it into a situational gimmick. In Turbo Overkill, it’s a crucial part of your kit. Slide through enemies like butter to farm pickups. Drop onto a goon’s head to split him like a log. The game nails the balancing act of always keeping it useful, but never overbearing.

It’s not just the chainsaw, either: Turbo Overkill is masterfully balanced. Every weapon has its purpose, and none overshadow the others, like a certain shotgun did in Doom 2016. The game steadily piles on new toys, but each has a purpose. Every enemy is vulnerable to a unique cocktail of weaponry, but none lock you into an annoyingly complicated set of actions to kill them. In fact, enemy balancing is so good that there is only one notable exception: those awful technopedes and their infinite range instakill laser. They can go to hell.

Good balancing doesn’t emerge from nowhere. It speaks to long hours of tweaking, playtesting and number crunching: time, effort and love. These three magic ingredients were baked into every line of code, and you can really feel it. Levels are intricate and unique, with fun secrets you have to scour every corner for. Enemies are fun and manifold. Bosses are well-paced, and unique - the Maw fight in particular was staggeringly fun, yanking you through a constantly-shifting VR hellscape that I imagine is what Pondsmith had in his head when he came up with Cyberpsychosis. Beyond the main story, the game gives you extremely well-designed minigames, and difficulty options that are more than just number changes. Nothing in Turbo Overkill feels half-hearted.

Above everything else, the effort Trigger Happy put into this game is reflected in how good it looks. Too many retro shooters use their appeal to nostalgia as an excuse to cut corners, such as by replacing 3D models with sprites. Turbo Overkill, on the other hand, crams in as much detail and polish as it can afford without harming the retro feel, and this pays dividends. This game is one of the best-looking shooters I have ever played, and manages this while optimised enough to easily run on the cyberpunk potato that is the Steam Deck.

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3613577952
Turbo Overkill didn’t have to do much for me to like it. Being both stylish and balanced is all it takes for me to like a movement shooter. But Trigger Happy’s endless font of creativity and surprises brings it to another level.
This is the studio’s first major game, funded via early access. By all rights, they should have played it safe, but no. Turbo Overkill puts a new spin on every established weapon archetype it touches. Swap between single and double SMGs by throwing one like a grenade. Bored of bullets? Fire your minigun like a flamethrower. Even the sacred double-barrel boomstick has sticky bombs and grenades in it now. The best of all though, is the Telefragger. I could gush about this thing for hours, but essentially, it’s a sniper rifle that also happens to teleport you inside weak enemies, acting both as a movement tool, and a lethal “trashmob” murderer. Sniper rifles have always been the problem child of movement shooters, and this is the first time I have ever had fun with one. What a game.

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3613579057
Turbo Overkill also takes the risk of having a story, but boy it nails this too. Minimal cutscenes and exposition maintain focus on the gameplay, but the drastic changes to the world, and subtle environmental storytelling hit home the godlike power of Syn, the rogue AI and primary antagonist. Stellar voice acting carried by the legendary Gianni Matragrano is the cherry on top of what is possibly the first and only movement shooter story I have actually enjoyed.

Turbo Overkill’s endless torrent of ideas constantly has some new toy for you to try: In one level, I was randomly given a fully controllable mech. In another, I rode through a ruined city on a motorbike. The amount of effort and love put into every tiny piece of the game is so great that it has somehow backfired into my single “criticism”: I wish they had used some of this stuff more.

There’s one part of Turbo Overkill I just can’t get out of my head. You’ve barely started the game, maybe three or four levels in, and suddenly, you are given a car. A flying car, that you can drive, shoot from and even surf on. The ensuing level is like nothing I have ever experienced. You fly around in your car between towering skyscrapers, raining hell down on enemies, and occasionally dismount to complete objectives inside the buildings. The level is sort of open, and gives you the freedom to zoom around and explore. I’ve never experienced anything like it, and it was the moment my love for the game truly blossomed. The sad part is that the same car was taken from you almost immediately, only returning briefly much later. While I appreciate Turbo Overkill’s unwavering commitment to varied gameplay, this one level was so stupidly fun that having the car ripped away from me afterwards felt like a betrayal. But it’s hardly even a criticism, though, just me begging the devs to make sure the sequel always has that car in it.

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3613578317

Writing this review was hard. I have the urge to criticise every game I play somehow, and Turbo Overkill makes that really difficult. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect for everyone, though. Like any movement shooter, turbo overkill can be mechanically challenging, visually overwhelming, and sometimes unfairly punishing. While I initially lambasted how much more recognition this game deserves, perhaps it’s not so surprising that a cyberpunk indie retro movement shooter would have a niche audience. Within that niche audience though, Turbo Overkill stands as a pillar of everything this genre should strive to be. If anything about this game tickles your fancy, absolutely pull the trigger. There’s nothing else on the Steam store that makes trigger pulling this fun.

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