By watching the trailer, it might be assumed that Overpowered 1 – Mars Infestation is another survivors clone, but this is not the case. Instead, this is an arena twin-stick shooter sort of like Smash TV but with a minor twist.
Playing as a lone space marine, apparently you need to clear a path of local hostiles so humans can colonize Mars. However, the few sentences of plot doesn’t really add up to the gameplay… but it doesn’t really matter as the entire experience is about murdering native life forms using both analog sticks.
Each of the four missions will take only a handful of minutes to complete. Starting with an underpowered peashooter, the player needs to survive a series of gauntlets before moving onto the next and receiving weapon upgrades. The gameplay loop is as follows: enter the map, walk activate the first “survive for 30 seconds” wave by walking over the play-button icon, collect the power-ups, then walk to the next arena, survive that, get rewarded, rinse and repeat until all areas are cleared. The most challenging fight is always the first bout of each mission.
Again, each stage might only take five minutes to complete, and the balance isn’t stable since the player gets overpowered by the second or third challenge. Once you get the spread shot, essentially with the bigger bullets, it actually becomes difficult to die let alone take damage. In other words, it doesn’t take long or much effort to clear the entire game. I think I unlocked all the Achievements in half an hour. After the four stages are cleared, two 5-minute survival arenas are unlocked with the hard version having an online leaderboard. So there is some replay value but imagine most scores are going to be similar since you become a powerhouse once a few weapon upgrades are collected. The sooner you kill a enemy as they exit their spawn point, the more points are rewarded – a thoughtful mechanic.
The biggest problem comes from the visual department. While the sprite work is fine, the game is entirely too dark. In fact, the first time I played, I was confused what I was supposed to do because it looks like your character is trying to navigate a pitch-black hole. Thankfully, there is a gamma meter in the options menu. When turned all the way up, you can now see the game. Unless this gets patched, the first thing anyone should do is crank the gamma setting to max. Once you can actually see what you are doing, the fluid but simple pixel art can be appreciated. Also, smooth moonwalking animation of your little marine might be the best part of the game.
For a game that apparently takes place on Mars, it is rather dark and cave-like. Also, it seems out of place to shoot dumb rock monsters, then piranha plants, then spinning blade enemies. So again, the plot doesn’t align with the planetary genocide.
Overpowered 1 – Mars Infestation is a short-burst action game that expires entirely too soon, has some pacing issues, but has a solid foundation. This is a great example of a game that hopefully gets a sequel that is simply bigger and better, using the groundwork of the original. I want more, which is a good thing to request, but still justifies the small asking price and download size.
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
X/Twitter: @ZackGaz
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RATING
OUR SCORE - 5.5
5.5
SCORE
A short-burst twin-stick shooter, Overpowered 1 – Mars Infestation has a good foundation of gameplay but is marred by the lack of content, impossibly dark visuals, and odd plot points that don’t align with the gameplay.
Editor in Chief - been writing for mygamer,com for 20+ years. Gaming enthusiast. Hater of pants. Publisher of obscure gaming content on my YT channel.
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