Override: Mech City Brawl, released in 2018 was a decent enough introduction to mech brawler gameplay. It was clearly lacking budget but the concept and execution from Modus were surprisingly well done. To my shock, Override 2: Super Mech League abandoned many of the things that made the first one unique and that’s not for the better. As a result, we got another decent fighting game but one that lacks soul and especially meaningful content.
We played battled against awesome looking mechs in Override 2 for six hours on Xbox Series X.
What we liked!
- A great selection of well-designed mechs: Each Mech has unique fighting-moves, with several different playstyles. Earning enough money in the league mode to unlock all 20 mechs was my main motivation for playing this otherwise average game. You’ll read why soon enough at the what we disliked section. Credit where credit is due though as developer Modus created some fantastic colorful mech designs that not only stand out visually but also with how to fight with them. The roster of mechs has some clear inspirations from other known mechs or monsters too, for example, Godzilla.
Somewhere between
- Limited but fun content: Repetitive isn’t always a bad thing, just look at Dynasty Warriors for example. The main issue with Override 2 is that the game modes don’t give a distinct difference in gameplay, it is always the same. Fun for a few hours but that doesn’t last as long as you would expect. The main game mode is a cross between SP and online play. It searches online opponents and after a while (which happens most of the time) the game stops searching when nobody is found and forces you to play against BOTS. Your objective is leaving the F league and winning matches to reach league S.
What we disliked
- Why so many core changes? The first Override had some issues and things that could have been a lot better. So I understand that the developer Modus took that to heart and tried to do something about it. That said, completely changing the gameplay concept and vision is rarely the way to go, and sadly the same can be said about Override 2. If I am brutally honest, I prefer the first Override’s way of fighting as Override 2’s one is simply a generic brawler without a feature that sets it apart. It is clear that they aim for a larger player base with this one, as the fighting control and system are much more casual. However, I doubt it will succeed. This isn’t a bad game so I obviously hope that it finds an audience but the people who will play it won’t be so overly positive. For those that didn’t play the first Override, each button controlled a different limb. Even allowing two players to control the same mech, you know like Pacific Rim! This entire control-scheme is scratched and thrown into the garbage can for a very accessible and easy ‘regular’ control-scheme. Great for pick-up and play but overall it makes the combat dull and extremely repetitive.
- Non-existent story: Jumping straight into the action is something I can appreciate, but having absolutely no form of story-telling is disappointing. The first one had quite a bit of that, but all information about this game is found outside the game (for example the Xbox Store). Thing is that the concept behind the game has enough room to shine in the story department. It all comes down that seven years after the Xenoswarm invasion robots are now used for Mech Leagues fighting. Makes sense, these billion-dollar mechs now have a purpose at least.
- It seems these Mechs all have a malfunctioning brain: It doesn’t matter how far you advance in the league’s mode, the BOT competition are like flies constantly flying against a window. This isn’t something to brag about as it is very easy but I never lost a fight, regardless of the difficulty of artificial intelligence. While I understand that the point of the league is an online one, as normally you play these league games against real online players, this shouldn’t be an excuse about how dumb the AI is. Most of the time you will play against computer-controlled mechs as not that many people play online.
CONCLUSION
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