Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico

It's not often where a game is so upfront about the drug war. However, Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico takes the actual world events and dramatizes them to the absolute maximum. This third-person shooter may seem a little ridiculous on the surface. Still, on the inside, there feels like there's some surprisingly good material.

Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico translates the idea of a rogue cowboy and turns it into a troop of DEA agents seeking to bust a fictional drug cartel. It's a game of over-the-top action, crazy storylines, and a handful of characters with humorous personalities. We feel that's the intention, though, and it's certainly not going to stop us from playing!

Once Upon an Overdose

It's probably worth saying immediately that the game isn't meant to purvey an artistic message or meaning. Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico is intended to be ridiculous. After all, the gameplay and narrative take heavy influence from Robert Rodriguez's films in the Mexico trilogy. That by no means that it can't be entertaining, though.

The game puts you in the shoes of three DEA agents, Ramiro, Tommy, and Ernesto. All with an entire arsenal at their disposal to end the drug lords in the Morales Cartel. We'd be doing you an injustice to reveal all the narrative nuances here because they are as laughable as they are brilliant. So we'll just put our focus on the gameplay here.

So is Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico mechanically sound? Well, it's an open-world third-person shooter game. But the exploration potential doesn't really compensate for the fact that you'll spend most of your time running, gunning, and blowing up your foes in creative ways. The game's focus is heavily on combat, and the silliness makes it pretty entertaining most of the time.

What detracts from the game is that very thing. While the narrative provides moments of joy, there isn't too much diversity in gameplay except getting involved in large-scale battles. Once you've mastered the art of killing, there seems very little else to do. You'll drag your heels, getting to the ultimate end of the gunslinger's story.

Heading for the Border

In Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico's favor, the game manages to maintain the entertainment factor pretty easily. That's primarily based on the fact that the overzealous nature of the game provides excellent humorous moments while actually telling a decent story. You feel that's kind of the same approach from the Saints Row franchise.

Round-Up - Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Great characters throughout the game
• Combat rarely drops off from being engaging
• The strong plotline with tongue-in-cheek moments

Cons:

• Open-world doesn't really contribute to gameplay
• Objectives become repetitive
• The pure silliness of some moments might deter players