I’d say that Turbo Overkill is the best boomer shooter I’ve played, but I’m still figuring out whether it counts as a boomer shooter at all. Like its cyborg protagonist, much of Turbo Overkill’s core DNA has been augmented with newer, shinier design ideas. It borrows as much from games like Doom Eternal and Titanfall 2 as it does from the classics of the nineties. It has upgradable weapons, character perks, driveable vehicles, detailed first-person cutscenes, all played out on a scale that simply wouldn’t have been possible back in 1997.
Either way, what matters is this: Turbo Overkill is fucking amazing. Its specific combination of past and present produces a riotously entertaining gunfest where “Escalation” isn’t so much a storytelling technique as it is a lifestyle choice. It is wholly committed to being as cool, colourful and creative as it possibly can, a game that starts by putting a chainsaw in your leg and ends with the goddamn techopalypse.
Your avatar for this ballistic rollercoaster is the wonderfully named Johnny Turbo. A bounty hunter living in a typically gaudy cyberpunk future, Johnny returns to his home city of Paradise to find it literally riddled with Syn. I don’t mean the concept of religious transgression, although there’s plenty of that in Paradise too. No, Syn is one of those malevolent AIs that dystopian futures keep foolishly creating, with freshly installed delusions of godhood and a psychotic desire to assimilate all organic and synthetic life. The result is a neon metropolis infested with writhing fleshy tendrils, guarded by hordes of mutilated humans with TVs for heads.
