Turbo Overkill

Genre: First-Person Shooter

Players: 1

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Review:

Turbo Overkill is a First-Person Shooter released on PC in 2023 and then ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2025. Set in a gritty, cyberpunk-style future, you take the role of a cyborg mercenary working to take out an AI controlling an army of violent freakish half-machine creatures that aims to spread its control to the entire world.

This is a retro-style First-Person Shooter, and it embraces the spirit of the early days of the genre wholeheartedly, with its absurdly silly over-the-top testosterone-fueled bloody gore-fest to its fast-paced simple gameplay to its presentation. This is a game that was clearly inspired by the likes of classic entries in the genre like Quake, Unreal, and Duke Nukem 3D, although that’s absolutely not to say that this game just copies those earlier titles.

The visuals in this game make use of chunky-looking 3D visuals with mostly low-quality textures, though this is clearly a stylistic choice, as some billboards and other objects have high-quality textures for better readability. These visuals are backed by a fittingly pulse-pounding metal-inspired soundtrack, and joined by voiced comm chatter from characters who are fittingly caricatures, like a snooty British accented AI assistant and the end-of-her-rope foul-mouthed tech executive who hired you for your mission.

When it comes to the gameplay, Turbo Overkill is fast, to the point where it’s often difficult to keep up with the action. As in classic First-Person Shooters, there’s no need to reload, and you’ll gradually expand your arsenal as you go through the game. What’s more, the cash you earn from taking out enemies can be spent to get alt-fire upgrades for your weapons, or body enhancements that give you passive bonuses and additional abilities.

However, the signature mechanic in this game has to be the chainsaw slide, which enables you to barrel through enemies while ripping into them using a chainsaw cybernetic enhancement encased within your leg. It’s satisfying to shred through enemies this way, to the point where I found my default when confronting enemies wasn’t to shoot them, but to slide back and forth through the area tearing through them with the chainsaw, and later on this can be combined with other moves like a wall run to make for some really nice kills as you drop in on enemies.

As satisfying as this is, it is also moments like this that reveal one of this game’s greatest flaws – it isn’t just fast, I would argue it’s too fast. The action is so frantic that it’s easy to get disoriented and lose track of where you are, or to zip right past enemies as you try to chainsaw through them. I don’t know if gyroscopic motion controls would have helped with this, but it’s a moot point because the game doesn’t have them, though you can opt to adjust sensitivity settings if you like.

Another problem here is that Turbo Overkill has an issue with signposting. While the game’s complex levels are certainly creative, you’ll be looping through them and climbing up them or going down to the depths of them in areas where it can be easy to find yourself wondering just where the heck you’re meant to go next, especially when you’ve expanded your acrobatic abilities and the game has jump pads or things that free up your traversal – in theory this is freeing, but in practice it can easily lead to you feeling lost or even accidentally retreading areas you’ve previously been through. The game does sometimes give you an indicator to show where you’re headed, but it is inconsistent in doing so, and that indicator doesn’t show you how you’re meant to get there.

Despite some glaring issues, Turbo Overkill is still delightful old-school fun, and players craving a more simple action-focused take on the First-Person Shooter genre will likely find this to be well worth picking up. The intense high speeds and inadequate signposting may keep this from being a game for everyone, but those who can overlook its flaws will surely enjoy it.

tl;dr – Turbo Overkill is a retro-style First-Person Shooter set in a cyberpunk-style future where players violently tear through hordes of half-machine enemies with guns and more often with their chainsaw leg. Despite the game being overly-fast and not always doing a good job telling you where to go, this is wonderful over-the-top old-school action that’s perfect for players craving an intense old-school take on the genre.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2025 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Action Game

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