Have bought Overload on Early Access after trying out the updated free playable teaser, and my suspicions were confirmed: this might very well be the best first-person shooter released in years, and the first Kickstarter-funded spiritual successor to actually hold up to its source material. I'm counting 6DoF shooters as first-person shooters because 6DoF shooters need more love anyways.
It's made by the same guys who worked on Descent, as opposed to Descent: Underground which is being developed by some randos who got a hold of the IP and are doing whatever to it.
And already it ticks most boxes of what made Descent great, different enemy types with well-defined roles and unique AI, a whole load of weapons and missiles to play around with, intense box-dodging action in tight quarters, vertigo-inducing level design, and a whole lot of dodging/leading your shots in zero-G space.
Though the general structure from what I've seen is identical to Descent (fly into space bases, fight your way through hordes of violent robots, rescue people in cryopods, destroy the reactor, and escape in time), Overload does bring some changes with it. The afterburners and headlights are now default equipment, you no longer receive damage from ramming into walls, robot generators are destructible, and a whole lot of other stuff. One new addition is the ability to perform a Smash Attack by pressing the attack button while boosting, which lets you ram into robots without taking any damage, and deals guaranteed hitstun damage which can be quite useful, on top of serving as a satisfying finisher if you stunned a robot by shooting it with a missile. The missiles have seen a lot of changes too. Your standard go-to missile is a fast one which is more akin to the Mercury Missile but deals the damage of the Concussion Missile, there are missile pods which can fire a constant barrage of smaller missiles at groups of enemies, the Hunters which act like double homing missiles, the Creepers are like mines you shoot in a direction and home in to anything close which are incredibly useful, and the usual Devastator being a missile of mega destruction. New weapons like the Reflex bounce off walls, the flak cannon acts as an actual flak cannon destroying everything close to you with an inaccurate hail of fire, the Crusher being a satisfying to use shotgun, and the Cyclone being a bullet hose useful at clearing rooms.
Aside from a singleplayer campaign, Overload is also delivering on a challenge mode where you're thrown in an arena of endlessly respawning robots where you must survive for as long as you can or kill as many bots as possible within a time limit. And it's serious fun. There are already six challenge levels available with leaderboards, try getting more than 100 bots on Ace+. The singleplayer levels have careful pacing whereas challenge mode is unbridled aggression. After a certain period of time in challenge mode a super robot will spawn which is usually a stronger variant of an existing enemy with different attacks, more health, and more dangerous behavior, which can flip the tables on you if you're caught in a bad spot.
The new enemy roster is great as well. The Gorgon/Goblin function as your usual cannon fodder where the Goblin dies in one missile and can be easily dodged whereas the Gorgon lays down more suppressive fire on you. The Scorpion follows you around and often hides behind obstacles if he's visible in plain sight, but goes nuts on your ass if you turn your back on him. The Shredder is a bot with a big saw who constantly charges you head-on and is a blast to fight. The Titans are bitches who spam missiles way too much. Hitscan enemies are back in the shape of Ogres, but as they only attack with hitscan if they are close and can be outmaneuvered given their limited turning speed and not 100% accurate hit-chance, I'd say they are still fair.
Overload will also feature an upgrade tree, where you can spend upgrade points found by exploring the level or rescuing all humans. Though most of the upgrades pertaining your ship are rather bland, the weapons do seem to feature multiple upgrade variants. I've not spent a lot of time with the game, but from what I've read on the Overload forums these variants do change things up a bit in an interesting way, so the upgrade tree might not be completely hackneyed.
One thing of note is that the levels are a bit too dim. Descent was usually well-lit and quite colorful, whereas Overload is largely dark with bright individual lights, and that really strains my eyes despite playing in broad daylight. Even though you always have the headlights and have an upgrade to reduce headlight energy consumption completely, the levels are not that vibrant color-wise. The only other game where I had this problem was Gears of War 2, which largely took place underground with a dark brown-gray color palette.
This might very well be a genuine successful modern attempt at a retro FPS in YEARS. Keep an eye out for it.
