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I go from backflip to kickflip to shredding a keytar solo, my hoverboard thrumming beneath my feet. It's a standard enough combo in Star Overdrive, and if anybody had been around to see, they would've witnessed a twirling feat of acrobatics and rock music that spits in the face of gravity. All standard practice in this far-flung corner of the galaxy though, and the goal isn't to impress anybody – no, I'm on the hunt. Having flung myself airborne, the elevated perspective lets me spot what looks like a titanic, armor-plated maggot tunneling through the dusty desert plains, several hundred yards southwest of my location.
Target located. I reluctantly let physics have their way at last, riding my board back down to the dunes, and immediately go speeding towards the behemoth, vaulting rocks and sandy drifts in such a way as to make Marty McFly salivate with envy. As I close in on my prey, I pull my keytar off my back once again, and play a thunderous power chord – causing a bolt of energy to spring from it and lasso the beast. A second later, I'm being dragged at a thousand miles an hour behind Shai-Hulud, ollieing every sandbank along the way, already firing up the solo needed to start blasting the beast with lasers.
Chord and Board
Star Overdrive is an arresting sci-fi adventure game I've been playing recently that, despite its superficially high-octane nature, is something I've been finding more zen than adrenaline-fueled. Which was hardly what I was expecting.
A game about a bionic kid getting stranded on an alien world while looking for a loved one, navigating the ancient ruins and desert through skateboard tricks, using his keyboard to trigger telekinesis, super-jumps and phasers… Well, it hardly sounds relaxed. And yet there's something about the game that feels almost meditative. The spiky-haired hero with the deadly instrument might speak to influences like the great Hi-Fi Rush, but I found the calming flowstate overriding the superficially punkish, rock-and-roll aspects.
And ultimately I can't help but be reminded of The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. The ancient glowing ruins amidst nature, the quiet world reclaimed by local fauna and flora, even the beeping device strapped to our hero unlocking various applicable powers that solve puzzles and fight enemies. But whereas shield surfing for Link was more of a rarity, for protagonist Bios, his trusty Hoverboard is essential, a way to cross vast expanses and keep pace with many of the boss fights – such as sliding your way past the titanic, pulverizing tentacles of a giant octopus.
Meanwhile, the story is a thoughtful, almost melancholy touch. Bios is a silent hero, landed on the abandoned world of Cebete to find his loved one Nous, who came here exploring and never returned. And yes, there's been other people here in the past, but right from the beginning it feels clear that you're probably not going to find any – it's all abandoned mining rigs and generators long depleted of power.
Cebete really evokes that feeling of being the last person in the world, freely skating around on rusting hulks and playing music, not to make a punkish statement or to show anybody up, but simply to fill the enormous silence and freely experiment. You can't be sticking it to the man when there's no mankind here anymore, and following the trail left behind by Nous is a soft saga that leads you through the game's many challenges.
Still, that doesn't mean it's not fun. The hoverboarding and skating mechanics lean hard on the effortless power fantasy over technical expertise, purposefully making it easy for the players to do epic stunts and accelerate to face-rippling G-force in an instant. And with Cebete effectively being one big skate park, full of organic ramps and loops and booster devices, the emphasis is less on performing fiddly manuals and grinds, as it is achieving the kind of ridiculous air that would allow you to headbutt God on your way up.
And if I get to land on an alien tortoise while shredding out The Final Countdown, that's just all the better for it.
Star Overdrive is out now on PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and Switch. To discover more indie highlights, head on over to our Indie Spotlight series.
