Project Overkill

Again, when you want something, go to England! Project Overkill is an intense military killing mission game set in a 3/4 overhead perspective featuring blood, blood and more blood. All of the characters will be rendered in both the Saturn and the PlayStation versions, which will make the game seem even more realistic.

The only things missing are the close-up slow-mo effects of the enemy being killed.

We've been told that there will be four characters, over 50 missions and more than 20 different ways of killing the enemy.

As you can see from the picture, Konami has held nothing back in this gore test. It's coming out in early 1996.

Every so often a game comes out that seems to put all the other previously released titles to shame. Project Overkill is such a title for '96. It features over 40 giant nonlinear levels for the player to explore and clear of enemies in various terrain settings. You play the part as one character from a group of four agents who take turns clearing levels and advancing on to the next one. At the beginning of each level, you choose which agent will be best suited for that particular stage and utilize his/her talents to survive long enough to get to the next level. Each of the agents uses his/her own custom guns along with a unique hand-to-hand weapon.

Throughout the levels, the damage you acquire along with your weapon stores rolls over on to the next level.

This means that if you finish Level One with only 10 percent health, you start the next level with that same percentage. This can be a serious gamble since some levels only have minimal supplies available to you.

Your agents each begin with 100 percent health and 100 rounds of ammo. These are your beginning supplies and should be conserved at all times while playing. Because there is no time limit and the enemies do not reappear by themselves, the best strategic approach to do is to take your time through the level and clear one room at a time by using quick, well-aimed bursts on the enemies. Your characters run faster than the opposition, so use this to your advantage by setting traps--align yourself for quick and accurate bursts with minimal losses taken on your end.

You should remember to search in every nook and cranny for extra health and ammunition bonuses you can use to keep your character up to his/her prime fighting condition. Another great way to conserve ammo is to attack an opponent who has his back turned to you with your hand-to-hand weapon. This saves tremendous amounts of ammo once the levels and the enemy placement has been remembered. The last tip to keeping yourself fully charged before going into the next level is to go back and search through the entire level for anything missed in your travels. This gives you the chance to put your depleted health back up to 100 percent and gain as much ammo as possible before you cross the line of no return.

Project Overkill at this time features no Save Game or Password Options. You have the four characters that can continue where their comrades left off but it ends there. After all your team is considered M.I.A., you will have to restart back at Level One for another go at it through the same stuff you just went though. One interesting feature in Project Overkill is the non-linear play that allows you to choose which mission to take at the end of the last. Once you begin to remember the missions, you will know which levels are tight on supplies and which are plentiful. Alternate these levels to give your characters the best chance to make it through with minimal effort.

Level design and layout for each of the stages is something fans of this style of game could have only dreamt about before. The stages feature multiplatform layout (two or more stories) with transporters and color-coded locked doors to discover. Hidden among these giant floors are health packs, additional ammo and other useful items, such as grenades and homing rockets to use against the opposition. Force fields and activator devices will also be encountered. These stop your progress until you find the unit that can de-activate their power and allow you to pass by their barrier.

If you are ready to move up to the next platform in game evolution, don't miss out on Project Overkill. However, prepare yourself for one of the bloodiest and gore-filled games to hit the shelves since Loaded. Older audiences who are more conditioned for violence will find nothing but enjoyment in Project Overkill, but younger audiences may not be up to the demented level of play and excessive violence. Use discretion for the players who may be affected more by the animated violence.

The awesome weapons give you plenty of opportunity to spill that blood as you go about slaughtering your foes and demolishing key equipment. Overkill's raucous gameplay supplies fierce action, serious challenge, and never-ending levels. But the fun's marred by problematic controls, and the limited perspective narrows your line of sight during combat.

While Overkill doesn't best Loaded, it delivers a fresh dose of mayhem that should entertain action fiends for quite some time.

Graphics

The levels shine with impressive variety and tiny but fluid characters. However, without cool touches like Loaded's awesome lighting, Overkill's look leans more to-ward 16-bit standards.

Sound

The sounds set a murderous tone with grim, spectral music and realistic but unremarkable weapon effects. The grunts and groans tend toward the cheesy, though.

Control

Much of Overkill's challenge comes from mastering its frustrating controls. Aiming's nightmarishly tough, and basic moves like running, strafing, and jumping are M.I.A.

Fun Factor

Killer weapons, buckets of blood--Overkill's relentless carnage and unending levels will satisfy the most frenzied action gamer-if its sizable flaws can be ignored. Rent this one first to make sure its quirks don't cool your bloodlust.

Overview

Project Overkill is Konami's new action/adventure/shooter title. This game is packed with 3D blood, guts and excitement. Your adventure takes place some time in the future in outer space. It seems that the newest money making scheme is developing uninhabited plants into thriving business Mecca's. Since this is a highly profitable and competitive racket, there are a few shady individuals that tend to bend — I mean shape — the rules. The Federal law prohibits corporate planetary development claims of established populated planets. So, what is the logical step around this problem? That's right! Un-populate these planets so you can industrialize.

This is where you enter the picture. The rule shaping has produced a top secret document highlighting the plans. The code name is Project Overkill. Four aliens have been recruited, each with special talents. Your job is to control these aliens, eliminate the population and see that Project Overkill is a success.

Gameplay

Project Overkill offers players the unique experience of actually being the bad guy for once. Usually, you are the hero sent in to save the world. Not this time. Your mission is to destroy the world. I like it.

The game also adds a unique perspective on selecting the character as whom you wish to slaughter. Normally, you select your character and must stick with him/her through thick and thin. Overkill allows you to change between any of the four aliens at the beginning of each mission. Here is the kicker. Your damage and ammo also carries over with you. Lets say you choose Kreeg to complete the first mission. Upon completion, you can select Kreeg for the next mission but his health and ammo will be what it was when you exited the last mission. The other three aliens will be fully stocked up and loaded for your use. This is neat because instead of having one character with four lives, you have four characters with one life. This adds incredibly to the replay value. I like it.

Of the four aliens you have to choose from, one is a demolition's expert, one is an infantry combat expert, one is human and is an arms expert (also was administered mind altering drugs to increase aggression and is very unstable). Each of these aliens has its own strengths and weaknesses. All four are also equipped with different weapons which also adds to the replay value. Every alien has four classes of weapons ranging from hand combat to class four destruction arsenals. The class one weapon will be used most since this is standard clip that allows rapid fire mass destruction. One of the best weapons is the knife carried by Jendryk all the time. This is very effective when sneaking up behind an enemy. The first stab brings him to his knees and the second leaves him dead in a thick pool of blood. I like it.

Now, I have not said anything about what type of game this is. Is it a Doom clone? Is it a FMV shooter? Is it a platform game? The best way to describe overkill is a ? perspective 3D action/adventure/shooter bloodfest. You work your way through over 50 different mission scenarios gathering ammunition, health various items used throughout the level and other secrets. Every level starts off with a mission briefing. This is where your objective is laid out for you. Regardless of your stated mission, the ever-present mission is kill. Kill often. Kill lots. Kill anything. Kill everything. I think you get the picture. If you took ever Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movie and showed only the gory parts, that would be about equal to the first room in the first level. There are blood, guts and body parts flying everywhere. I like it.

So far so good? Well, there is a downside to all of this blood and slaughtering. It is almost impossible to shoot diagonally. I tried and tried and just couldn't. The only way to hit an enemy located diagonally is to continually unload numerous rounds of ammo and move your character back and forth. This would be fine except you have limited ammo. I found myself wasting 25 rounds on someone that should only take three. This is also a major problem when you are using precision weapons that don't rapid fire. Most of the enemies appear in groups so if you are forced to use a precision weapon and there are three or four enemies on the screen at one time, the guy that is diagonal from you can just open fire. If you try to get lucky by aiming, the other enemies will tear you up. More than once I found myself being killed in an easy area because of this. I don't like it.

Graphics

The graphics are what make Project Overkill what it is — disturbing. Konami has done a great job in creating a true 3D-feeling environment. One of the slickest graphical tricks is the shading of the walls. To give the game a 3D feel, you have walls throughout rooms. The game designers have made walls that are transparent as you approach, that then solidify as you walk away. This allows you to feel submerged in a true 3D environment with no area unexplorable.

Now, that is all fine and dandy but what most people want is the blood and gore. This game will not disappoint. Konami also did a great job making the blood projections as real and believable as possible. For example, if you shoot someone that is close to a wall, they don't just fall into a pool of blood. Nope. They explode all over the wall behind them. The blood splattering is very detailed and believable. The other little graphical treat is your footprints. If you walk over a guy you just unloaded ten rounds in, his blood gets on your shoes. When you walk away, you leave bloody footprints. It would be better if they did not vanish after one second but, still, I like it.

Audio

The music adds to the overall environment and is interactive with the current game situation. The music will intensify as the action heats up and conversely slow as the pace in the game slows (usually only in areas you have already conquered). The music in a game like this should not be the main focus and this holds true. It is the right combination of blended but still ever-present.

Bottom Line

Project Overkill is a very entertaining game. If bloody shooters aren't your thing you may still find some fun in the action and adventure aspects of the game. If you are a blood and guts freak, you were probably waiting for your local game store to open the day this one was released. If not, you will not be disappointed. The difficulty in aiming keeps me from rating this game higher since this is a critical aspect of a shooter. I think a few tweaks could have made this one of the top games of the year. There are plenty of late night massacres to be had here once you get past the control quirks. There is only one more thing I can say. I like it. I don't love it, but I like it.

Like Loaded. Konami's foray into splatterfest action unloads mu-cho carnage on the 32-bit systems. Project Overkill's 50 levels of vicious sci-fi action enlist you as a member of a death squad assigned to covertly slaughter enemy forces. Players choose from four lethal soldiers, each equipped with a slightly different machine gun, laser, grenade, and homing missile. The intense combat blends in just enough strategy (finding keys and such) to yield an enjoyable, gripping overhead shooter. Despite the entertainingly goopy gore, the graphics in this unfinished version hearken back to 16-bit days, and the controls for aiming felt skittish. Still, if Konami resolves these problems before the game ships, Project Overkill could equal or outshine Loaded.

Hot on the heels of Loaded, Konami enters the 32-bit action/strategy fray with a bloodbath of its own. Project Overkill promises dark, violent military mayhem from a 3/4-overhead view. Playing as one of four mercenaries, you tackle more than 50 missions, fighting with several weapons or even mano a mano. The gore factor should be pretty huge with nightmarish enemies and bloody death scenes. Rendered 3D graphics and a digital orchestral soundtrack bring the action to life. Keep an eye out for those secret levels!

A game that is actually more brutal than Loaded?

When Interplay first subjected us to the horrors of its scrolling shooter Loaded, little did we suspect that it was to be the first in a long line of incredibly gratuitous and violent blasters. How happy we are to discover that it's true. Konami's Project Overkill looks like it's going to be even more fun and violent than Loaded. If you like your action with an extremely heavy side order of organic ketchup, then this game should have you in stitches.

You play the part of a futuristic mercenary as he hunts down bad guys in a future gone nuts. Fortunately you're equipped with the latest in tracking devices, laser guns, bazookas and anything else you can think of that wouldn't be good for your cat.

Although the gameplay is heavily action-oriented, there are also puzzles for you to solve and a little brainpower is required to get from level to level. But there's also plenty of scope for blasting your way out of situations that you're finding uncomfort-able.The sheer amount of blood splattered on the screen is enough to have concerned parents running for cover and Tipper Gore's phone number. Hurrah!

Sometimes even the toughest mercenary needs to run away. Especially when a half man/half spider with a gatling gun for an arm is chasing you.This is just one of the many super-cool bosses you'll encounter.

Much like the title suggests, this game revels in its own brutality.These guys are the roughest, toughest space heavies ever to blast their way onto a TV screen.

Before each mission, you'll be briefed on what you need to accomplish, whether it be elimination of all life forms or the retrieval of an item. From this screen you can switch characters and check out what parts of the base you have left to infiltrate. With high-tech recon like this at your disposal, how can you not be successful?

Each mercenary has different characteristics that make them unique. Each one has armor of varied strength, different foot-speed and weapons, as well as a different form of hand-to-hand combat.You can choose which one you think best suits your playing style, or change the mercenary you are using between levels to utilize all of their skills.

Project Overkill gets high honors this month, with its gore-laden mercenaries committing ruthless acts of genocide. While this sort of behavior is generally frowned upon, it certainly makes for quite an enjoyable gaming experience.

I don't want to compare it to Interplay's Loaded, but when you get two titles in the same year which revel in their own brutality, comparisons must be made.You control a four-man (beast?) killing squad.The mission is fairly simple: Kill everything (or in P.C.-speak: "Perform a clean sweep of the area").

Project Overkill plays from a three-quarter perspective and gives you access to several different types of weapons, all good for blowing up the many types of nasties.Two of the more interesting features in the game are the ability to club men to death with your fists or weapon, and the bloody footprints you leave whenever you step on a dead body.These neat little additions, along with some great music (which sounds a lot like the Aliens soundtrack) and cool sound effects, make Overkill a game worth buying. The one drawback--and it's a pretty big one--is the inability to have a simultaneous, two-player game.This comes as quite a surprise because Project Overkill looks as though it was tailor-made for you and a friend, so you could cause double the destruction.

Graphics - 7

Sound/FX - 7

Gameplay - 8

Rating - 8