2. Sunset Overdrive General hints and tips

First and foremost, Sunset Overdrive is a third-person shooter with a few twists, most of which are listed below.

Movement

There are several methods of transversal built into the game. The mechanics are highly forgiving so just being near an interactable surface is usually sufficient, but it can be a little imprecise as a result. In combat, the ground is usually the most dangerous place to be, so take a little bit of time to familiarize yourself with these skills.

• Grinding: The very first mechanism in the game. By gaining elevation and pressing before landing, you can literally skate on rails, allowing you to traverse the city without ever touching the ground. Rails are ubiquitous throughout the map making grinding the most important mechanic in the game. Grindable surfaces can be anything from the tops of walls and fences to roof edges, power wires, train tracks, road guard rails, even Christmas lights. Almost every building in the entire game has grindable edges. Killing enemies from this vantage point will become instinctual.
• Undergrinding: An alternative to grinding. When grinding on wires, pressing again will allow you to "undergrind", allowing you to kill enemies from a closer perspective. You can also undergrind when you hit when in the air below a wire. When undergrinding, pressing will revert you again to a normal grind. Switching between the two will allow you to dodge incoming mortar-like attacks from enemies aiming for the top of the line and other enemies who like to hang down on lines to knock you off. Again, all of this will become second nature.
• Wall running: Gaining elevation on a building and pressing will allow you to run on the wall. If you reach the edge, pressing again will allow you to round the corner and maintain your run. To keep up your momentum, click to increase your speed and keep from falling (not to your death). This will be the best method of collecting Overcharge Signs.
• Bouncing: Exactly what it sounds like. Bouncy surfaces are everywhere, including the tops of cars, the tops of parking booths, nets at Scab bunkers, small boats, and many, many more objects.
• Pole Swinging: Pressing near a horizontal bar (think of a street light hanging on a telephone pole) will allow you to jump from it to a higher surface. This is most frequently used to collect toilet paper but can be a helpful transition from the surface to a rooftop or wall run when a bouncy surface is not nearby.
• Air dashing: When jumping in mid-air, will produce an air dash, pushing you a distance forward. I found this is most often used when transitioning between the transversal techniques listed above. For example, you may find that in moving from one mission to another, a grinding path starts to carry you away from your destination, so you jump and air dash to a new grindable surface. It also helps with the game's sticky controls when on water.

Style Meter

Any skills you achieve without touching the ground will increase your style meter. The style meter keeps track of style points, which are earned by traversing around during combat by alternating between jumping, grinding, wall jumping, and dodge rolling. The more style points earned, the more amps will be activated. If you're wondering what amps are....

Amps

Amps function as power-ups that exist for the sole purpose of doing cool stuff. There are five slots for them:

• Melee Swing: Enables a melee-based bonus ability that can increase damage, generate an effect, or just stun enemies. Activated at style level 2.
• Hero: Abilities that help increase damage to enemies and overall effectiveness. Two of them can be equipped at a time. Activated at style level 1.
• Epic: Crazy amps that exist to do ridiculous things, such as a 60% chance to strike enemies with a bolt of lighting in the middle of combat. Yeah...this game is pretty out there. Activated at style level 3.
• Dive Bomb: From mid-air, pressing will execute a dive bomb, blowing away most enemies in a single strike. Activated at style level 2.
• Weapon: Weapon amps are your best friend, only able to be equipped if your gun is level 2 or higher. These activate at style level 2.

Weapons

The meat and potatoes of Sunset Overdrive. You always have one in your hands, no matter the situation. Considering the over-the-top nature and general variety of the game, you will find several that you like. The more often you use a weapon, the more you can level it up, increasing the max damage and ammo capacity with every level. Weapons can reach a max level of Level 5, turning them into max-damage dealing guns that can be increased even more with Weapon Amps. While different weapons work best on different enemy classes, there are a few weapons that you will turn to more than the rest. There is an achievement for getting 20 weapons to level 5, so alternating weapons during the campaign is advisable and will cut down on any grind at the end to finish that achievement.

You have a weapon wheel that can be accessed by holding , which will slow down the game and give you time to select a weapon. You can hold eight guns at a time. To switch weapons without stressing your left finger, tap to pull up the next weapon moving clockwise on the wheel automatically.

Your single shot (really just semi-automatic) weapons may require more precision. Holding will slow time a bit and give you more control and accuracy, especially when grinding.

Badges

Badges are earned by killing large amounts of specific things, killing large amounts with different weapon types, frequently using certain methods of traversal, and getting melee kills. Stacking up your earned badges will allow you to purchase...

Overdrives

Overdrives are combat-oriented skills that can increase ammo capacity/damage for specific weapon classes, increase damage against enemy types, increase health, and overall make you a more effective killing machine. Overdrives can be purchased with badges and upgraded by clicking . Upgrade them to level 4 to reach their max potential. While similar to Amps, Overdrives do not require Style points to activate.

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Enemies

The three enemy classes of this game are:

• The OD: The main enemy in Sunset Overdrive, these are the orange-soda-drinking monsters/zombies. They mostly appear in small groups that can escalate into large hordes of underpowered ex-humans. Frequently, they can be supported by higher classes of OD, but are easily disposed of.
• Scabs: Human survivors who frequently use high damage-dealing weapons, and are very much more capable than the OD.
• Fizzbots: White robots with energy weapons who are assigned to "clean up the mess" a.k.a. get rid of you. Harder to kill than both of our previous enemies. They appear later in the game.

Dropped Items

Throughout the game, you encounter several dropped items usually from killed enemies, though some will spawn in randomly. Being near these items will allow you to pick them up automatically.

• Overcharge: Blue and orange cans. The primary currency of several used throughout the game. Used for purchasing better weapons, collectable maps, and ammo. They can be gathered by completing missions, killing OD and Fizzbots (the bigger the enemy, the more they will drop), looting blue trucks toppled by OD, and destroying Overcharge vending machines. Keep an eye out for these blue vending machines, as destroying 250 will merit you

Out of Stock

Destroy 250 Overcharge XT vending machines.

• Money: Only used for purchasing outfits from Callista. Picked up from dead Scabs, looting white trucks toppled by Scabs, and smashing the blue boxes around the dock that Scabs hang around. Also from smashing most other vending machines and ATMs. Spend it on whatever outfit or accessory you like, but for now try to purchase items under $50,000.
• Ammo: Red and white boxes found on rooftops, tucked into random corners, and from killing large enemies. Smash the boxes to pick up 2-4 crates of ammo for specific weapons on your wheel.
• Health: Green and white boxes found on rooftops, tucked into random corners, and from killing enemies when low on health. Most of the time, the only penalty for dying is losing time on a countdown, though some missions may reset you to the previous checkpoint at most a minute or two behind your previous position.
• Emergency Supplies: Chest icons that appear on the map and usually emit green plumes of smoke to attract your attention. They drop randomly on rooftops and contain Overcharge, money, and occasionally health and ammo. They occur quite frequently, so keep an eye out and once you collect 25, you earn

Who is Sending These?

Loot 25 emergency supply drops.