Turbo Overkill

We have some of the best heroes when it comes to gaming. Solid Snake, Link, Ada Wong, and now add to that list Johnny Turbo (God that name is so silly, but I love it), a super slick gun for hire with a chainsaw for a leg. Since DOOM Eternal’s arrival back in 2020, the fast, frantic, push-forward style of action has grasped the attention of many gamers and designers. And to be fair, it’s a tough act to follow. Games like Shadow Warrior 3 tried the emulate the formula and did a good stab, but never nailed the same level of awe DOOM Eternal gave us. But surely some games match the intensity and spectacle as Game-News’ game of 2020?

Well, here’s Turbo Overkill!


Turbo-tastic

Turbo Overkill is best described as a gathering of thought, mind and body of Blade Runner, DOOM Eternal, and Sam Rami. This savage and frantic, balls-to-the-wall FPS takes us into the shoes of gun-for-hire Johhny Turbo, as he sets foot and chainsaw leg, into the world of Paradise … think Night City, if it were run by Elon Musk (the f***ing horror) and an even bigger dank, urine-soaked hellhole, that has plenty of hired goons to murder. Johhny under the watchful eye of his AI assistant (voiced by Duke Nukem actor John Saint John (God, I love his name!)) must embark on a quest through his former home city to destroy a sentient AI gone rogue by the name of Syn. This artificial lifeform has decided to make the denizens of Paradise augmented beings that will do its bidding and sustain its fleshly corruption.

Johnny, however, has a bit of competition as soon enough rival bounty hunters come onto the scene to take the ultimate bounty as their own, and bounty hunter law and conduct be damned.

Turbo Overkill is like an 80’s B-Movie, with all the loving violence, hyper neon flair, and vulgar beauty that will smitten you within the first couple of hours. It’s a hardcore beast of blood, carnage, and sliding along the floor with a chainsaw leg.

It’s good fun. Really good fun to say the least.

The story of course is nothing fancy pants, but that’s okay, as this game, like Sam Rami’s Darkman, has plenty of charm, persona, and trippy the top-ness that you admire it purely for the aesthetics, world-building, and the bad-ass ballsy tone to just about everything. Johhny has the task of stopping the Syn virus, a deadly mutagen that’s reeking Havok and turning humans into bio-engineered monsters.

What follows is a fairly stock-standard affair, and pretty much that bit in Family Guy where Stewie asks Brian how his novel is coming along. To quote “... Some twists and turns? ... Little epilogue ... Everybody learns, the hero's journey, isn't always a happy one? Nice little narrative? Beginning, middle, and end? Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends. In the end, your main character is richer from the experience?”

It’s just that, three acts of violence, some neat twists and turns which you have seen time and time again, nothing newly polished with these tropes, but there are some great little moments with the plot I did like. One of them worked well both thematically and gameplay-wise, as Johnny in the third act faces the crisis moment, and upgrades his other leg and arms with chainsaws, making him more chainsaw, than man. And more Chainsaw Man, than Chainsaw Man. I liked this and other moments like it.

While Johnny is mainly silent throughout, he is meant to be more of a vessel of us being total badasses. And his helper delights with his cute, polite manner. The bounty hunters who come into play around chapter 2 are also a bunch of fun, John Saint John provides an unashamed knockoff of Ironman’s JARVIS but one that’s witty, and quintessentially charming, and the other supporting cast while not knocking it out of the park for character development are entertaining from time to time.

My only gripe was with the main antagonist, who in all fairness didn’t engage me on any level, becoming a bit tedious and random as the main bad guy, when there was another potential leading villain in the making who gets killed off halfway through the game.

But honestly, Turbo Overkill is a full-blown, carnage candy fest, and it doesn’t need a fully fleshed-out narrative to give our brains that dopamine hit. Paradise is truly the most ironic name, to ever be used ironically, cityscape is killer cool visually, and there are neat titbits of lore to do some good world-building for those interested. I loved the aesthetics, the vibe and the soundtrack which all amounted to a glorious-looking and sounding game.

That comes from the killer gameplay!


Slide, chainsaw, splatter, shoot, repeat until everybody is dead!

What I admired about Turbo Overkill was just how much it evolved and kept giving over the course of the campaign. Sure thing, you get guns, a lot of very cool guns, and plenty of fast, frantic-paced action/combat. But there is a whole heap of variety in set pieces, and the energy and stability are so intense over the campaign, that the action never lets up, but it also never gets overwhelming.

The core gameplay is straightforward, where Johnny will arm himself with pistols, shotguns, a mini-gun, a rocket launcher and other staples, as he gets from point A to point B. Johhny’s job is simple – Go somewhere, find keys, kill monsters, chainsaw some bits here and there, and repeat. You’ll go through various parts of Paradise, battling with monsters and goons, collecting new weapons along the way, and doing the odd bit of platforming for good measure.

As Turbo Overkill takes a lot of influence from DOOM Eternal, you can expect the movement to be fast, the enemy hits to make a big impact, and utilising your weapons and other skills to be deadly important. And that’s all true. Constant movement is a key survival factor, and knowing how to shoot just as much. Johnny will be armed with a lot of different weapons, all with secondary fires, and switching between them, and using your chainsaw leg for sweeping attacks is the balance here for combat.

Gunplay felt incredibly smooth and impactful, and Johnny’s new skills and tools he acquired over the game also felt massively useful for most of the combat encounters I faced. I loved the impact guns had, and switching them around felt much more meaningful than just using something because you had ammo for it. All guns, even the starting pistols to a certain point, felt they had a purpose, and Johnny’s nimbleness and the level design meant you could freely move around like a lunatic, and gain an advantage if you needed, and when you could.

I loved DOOM Eternal, but my biggest issue was that for the pacing of the game, the Doom Slayer didn’t move fast enough for my liking. I felt he should’ve moved at least 15% faster to maximise the ferocity and momentum the gameplay loop was going for. It’s like how in RE8, Ethan moves way faster to compensate for the larger world, as he moves much slower in RE7.

In Turbo Overkill, Johnny’s movement is perfect, and that increased speed means combat flows more elegantly, yet is so darn brutal and beautiful. The gunplay is excellent, due to the impact of weapons, the level design which incorporates a lot of verticality, and space, and the enemy count and variety are overwhelmingly weird and engaging to fight. Johnny can also upgrade himself, with various perks he can find and buy, and combining these will have different effects as passive and offensive traits. Some of them are utterly critical in the late game, such as Johnny being able to gain additional health and armour when doing his chainsaw slide.

Again, the core is solid with a lot of meaningful choices when it comes to upgrading, the weapon selection and upgrading also become vital, and a lot of fun seeing how guns which do massive damage, can do even more massive damage!

But between those core moments, there can be the chase sequence along a moving train, a fantastic set-piece where Johnny is riding a bike throughout a burning cityscape, while a giant cyber eye shoots lasers at him, or a simply, wholesome fun mech sequence. I just thought, more games need mech sequences.

The developers not only created a strong core gameplay loop but did what a lot of games don’t do, and added in a variety of fun set-pieces to spice things up from start to finish. My personal favourite overall where the train chase sequence, which saw Johnny jump from carriage to carriage at high speed, while gunning down enemies around him. The bike sequence was simply breathtaking, mixing in the best style and vibes from Ghost Runner 2’s bike moments, but allowing you to stop off, find bonus items on the side, and avoid the gaze of a giant cyber eye, akin to Sauron from LOTR.

My only downside was some of the bosses, as a few of them are a great deal of fun, again utilising neat level design, frantic energy and carnage. But others were just so long-winded and tedious. There were a few bosses who used the tired gaming trope of stopping you from attacking the boss until you defeated a wave of enemies. And this happening multiple times in the same fight is annoying. But even more so, when the same design is used for multiple bosses, and even on multiple stages of the same boss.

By the end, I was sick and tired of fighting bosses, since the rest of the gameplay was so damn good! The end is pure insanity where Johnny is literally in the middle of a war, as man, machine, and all manner of beast are fighting like it’s the end of days, and Johnny is fighting legions of monsters to get a foot forward towards his goal. There’s a magnificent sequence where Johhny is traversing from various floating platforms, made up of debris from a space station, and not only are you platforming, fighting enemies and all that, but you can see all the fighting happening in the far distance. It’s amazing, and I would have been happy with this, and the mech bit. The bosses earned a lot of points after a while, and that was a shame. But the rest of the game made up for that for sure!


Overall?

While many think the fast, frantic, push-forward style of action is easy to emulate, I say you are completely mental of thinking that! Game design is insanely tough, let alone thinking, designing and balancing a game like DOOM Eternal, let alone from a smaller indie studio. 

But by Johnny and his Chainsaw arms and legs, these mad lads did it! 

Turbo Overkill, simply put, is freaking amazing! I feel so bad for letting this game slip by before, and I’m so, so glad I was able to discover it in 2025. What you get is a highly confident, balls-to-the-wall frantic gore fest, with speed, brutality, beautiful chunky visuals, and just raw insanity that is so well crafted, and executed, it’s quite frankly one of the most humble and enjoyable Eternal clones, the best!

If you need your fix for DOOM Eternal-style mayhem and wonder, then look no further, as Turbo Overkill will satisfy your blood lust and manic speed!

++ Brutal, fast, and highly immense combat
++ Great level design, nice movement, and plenty of variety in all these departments
+ Love the variety of set pieces and how Turbo Overkill kept delivering new ideas
+ Meaningful progression and enjoyable story-beats

-- Majority of bosses are okay … but a little annoying
- The story is a little too predictable

A review code of Turbo Overkill for Xbox Series X/S was kindly provided by the publisher