It’s an action-packed open world full of quirky aliens and gnarly hoverboards. Star Overdrive is an exciting adventure across an alien planet, battling enemies and solving challenges to craft your fate. Brought to you by Caracal Games and Dear Villagers, Star Overdrive is worth adding to your wishlist as it’s genuinely an incredible gem.

The story of Star Overdrive captivates you right from the jump. While relaxing on your ship and playing games, Bios intercepts a sudden cryptic distress signal from his beloved Nous. You then find yourself stranded on a mysterious planet known as Cebete with nothing but your trusty keytar and hoverboard that you can use to traverse Cebete, performing gnarly tricks and defeating foes as you encounter various diverse biomes and challenges.

The gameplay was very smooth. It took me a few attempts to get the hang of the different controls and camera movement while jumping across platforms, but I eventually did. Standard movement and light or heavy attack controls are effortless, with only one button for a light attack and holding that button for a heavy attack.

My favourite part, however, was the tricks you can perform on the hoverboard. After jumping on your hoverboard with R, you can perform tricks in the air by moving the right joystick after hitting jumps, which builds up a boost, and you can also hold B just before a jump to launch yourself further into the sky for more air time.

There is also a plethora of upgrades that you can do by collecting various materials around the landscape; I did find the upgrade menu a little confusing, however, as a lot was going on, so I didn’t play around with the upgrades too much, but you can upgrade your hoverboard and keytar stats such as damage, power and health to name a few.

While I found the story captivating initially, the game got stale for me in certain parts. This isn’t anything negative about the game, but more of a personal thing, as I mainly play FPS games. I enjoyed my experience on Star Overdrive overall.

The colour palette was generally ok, while the landscape is one big dust bowl. The oranges and reds of the sand do make a decent scenery. I often find the world as one big blur when you get too high up in the atmosphere, but there are bursts of bright neons and pastels scattered throughout different biomes that make up for it.

The soundtrack is another notable mention. The killer ’80s style music aided the experience while pulling off those hectic jumps and tricks on the hoverboard. The soundtrack was the best part of the game, with a loud and oozing attitude, ultimately chaining tricks to the music, making you feel like you’re in a music video.

Overall, Star Overdrive is a mix for me. The gameplay felt stale after a while, and I did blast around on my hoverboard more than actually playing the game, but there is certain potential that can be built on. The amplified soundtrack, decent scenery, and simple controls make for a good time boost across Cebete. Star Overdrive has the foundations to be something great, but we shall see in due time.

Written by: Larry