Sunset Overdrive was one of my top games of 2014. It’s bright, loud, dumb fun at a point in the industry where it’s trendy to make games that try their best to reduce the amount of “game” they contain because they’re supposedly deeper that way. This is a point in games where people who don’t understand art really wish they were making art and try way too hard to do so. And then we have Sunset Overdrive, a game that doesn’t really care and instead gives you a rocket launcher that shoots exploding teddy bears and tells you to have fun. Now we have its first DLC with The Mystery of the Mooil Rig. There’s still hope for this world.
In Mystery of the Mooil Rig, you head to the titular structure at the request of Troop Master Brylcreem from the main game. With his help, you’re going to do a lot of the same stuff you did in the main game, like grind around on stuff, shoot stuff, collect stuff and have a fantastic time while doing it all. The DLC area is separate from the main city, incidentally, so if you were hoping for another chunk of Sunset City then you’re going to want to keep hoping.
To get down to brass tacks: this is more Sunset Overdrive, which is a good thing. It’s basically Jet Grind Radio with guns; “Tony Hawk’s Pro Explosioner” also works. You’ve got loads of guns and the ability to parkour all over the damn place. If you hold still, you die. It’s awesome. It doesn’t espouse anyone’s political views, it doesn’t try to teach you anything and nobody will say you’re a better person for playing it. Thank God for that. You can now dive and bounce around on water, typically with a sweet new uppercut, but in the end it’s a second helping instead of a new flavor.
Are you going to like this? Well, yeah, you probably are! You probably liked Sunset Overdrive if you’re even considering buying the DLC after all. It’s certainly not very long, clocking in at around 3 hours for $10 of content, which is a pretty decent conversion rate. You go in, get stuff done, do some side-quests if you want and wrap things up. Much like the original Sunset Overdrive, this will not change your life. More importantly, it won’t even try. Thank god for that, too.
The Mystery of the Mooil Rig may not be an example of how games-as-art, but do we really need that when most developers still struggle to make games that are as fundamentally engaging and enjoyable as this? Sunset Overdrive is still one of the best games of 2014 and something that anyone with an Xbox One owes it to themselves to at least give a try. When they inevitably find that they love it and want more, those same people should pick up its first expansion. Here’s to many more.
