Total Overdose for Windows

Open-world shoot-em up

Total Overdose is a third person shooter where you take on a Mexican cartel in order to avenge the death of your father.

Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale from Mexico was released for Windows on PC in 2005. It sets players on a path of vengeance. Ramiro Cruz is a criminal turned DEA agent. You have to stop the cartel responsible for your father's death...in as stylish a manner as you can.

Total Overdose, taking a cue form GTA, gives you the opportunity to explore an immersive open-world, or at most a facsimile thereof. Until you achieve specific mission objectives, many areas of the fictional town Los Toros are enclosed by invisible walls. There are many places you can explore and blow up in maximum style.

Total Overdose emphasizes combo attacks and kill streaks which earn 'Loco’ points. These can be used to unleash truly absurd special moves, such as twin guitar cases that actually double as guns and a mysterious luchador that appears to aid in killing enemies.

However, the game's main theme is insanity, which draws heavily from the early films by Robert Rodriguez and open-world videogames.

It's a 15 year old PC game so don't expect amazing graphics. The vehicles (many of them can be commandeered), are ugly blocks and the characters look like they've been carved out of angry clay.

This means that the game runs well on modern computers, since it doesn't require a high end graphics card or gigabytes RAM. It takes up only 1.2GB of disk space after it's installed.

The plot of Total Overdose is simple and obvious. But that's okay because it's as much a relentless action movie as a video game. It has not aged well. It could reinforce culturally-insensitive stereotypes, although part of this is clearly the point. It's worth trying if you are in the mood to stylely kill bad guys often. You can also try the brilliantly nuts Saints Row 3 and the Deadline Games sequel remake/sequel Chili Con Carnage.