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How does it feel to drive a tricked-out car through a hostile wasteland where danger lurks at every straight and bend? Well - in Overlander you get to find out!
Welcome. This is 'Nostalgic Game Design Focus' a new series where I get to think back and comment upon games that I had played when I was much younger - mostly from a game-design perspective.
Title: Overlander
Publisher: Elite
Distributor: Encore
Released: 1988
Overlander was one of those hybrid driving games released on the Atari ST that I found myself to be quite fond of.
While it (and other games) were labelled "Road Blasters clones" - being of the variety of game that features:
driving a car that shoots
running a fixed gauntlet
with limited fuel
...'Overlander' did a fairly good job of both polishing the artwork as well as expanded upon the vehicle customization (for that era). Plus (in my opinion) that blue car in the art looks darn cool!
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Besides having a fairly good selection of persistent and single-use items (though the designers could have put a little more effort in explaining and setting the two types apart), you also got to refuel your vehicle before each mission. Following each mission the price of fuel rose.
I cannot help but point out how this game delivers a narrative over a situation of rising gas prices - and also environmental concerns (with the official story behind the game suggesting that the post-apocalyptic wasteland was the result of generations ignoring warnings on ozone depletion).
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When it actually came to mission selection, the options were always simple.
One mission offered more money (and more upgrade possibilities) and this usually had me leaning that way in preference. Of course - those were also the harder missions - and so I often found myself smashed. ;cP
Easier and less lucrative versus harder and more lucrative.
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Threats in game:
Running Out of Fuel: While there was refreshingly no countdown timer, there was a fuel meter. If it reaches zero - its Game Over. As the game progressed, the cost to refuel also increased - which sucked money away from other upgrades.
Fortunately vehicles could be fitted for a 'Lean-burn Conversion' which reduces fuel consumption. While I think differently today, I don't remember ever opting for this up-grade (I was more impetuous and less wise).
Vehicle Husks: Nothing like twisted metal in the road to ruin one's day! Often placed toward one edge or the other of the road, these husks form static barricades of car-smashing that will cost a 'life'. I personally remember them to be pretty ugly... but then again I suppose that asking for pretty husks would be a little much. ;c)
The Amiga version released in 1989 did a better job of representing such.
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Off-Road: The roadway looks remarkably impeccable considering that its been through the collapse of society. The area beyond is treacherous with plenty of rocks and signs and stuff that one can smash into.
This along with the swinging left and right, up and down of the suspiciously un-branching roadway (a common feature in car games of the era), along with husks, made the drive more challenging at speed.
Explosions! Big booms of any sort are not just pretty but also hazardous. One slight criticism that I had was that when things blew up, the explosions did not approach the bottom of the screen anywhere near as fast as the surface of the road suggests it should have - but on the other hand it did make explosions less difficult to drive around.
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Cars/ Taxis: These vehicles try to ram you off the road (and can be particularly dangerous with husks in the vicinity). Having armor plating and wheel blades certainly helps.
One thing that was well-done here is that these vehicles would really swing left and right to try and get you off the road.
Motor cyclists these are typically easy to dispatch enemies. I don't remember if they actually posed much of a threat other than the explosion of when they blow.
Machine Gun Installations: Sometimes also coupled with car husks, these installations at the road side pepper the road with machine gun fire, and you get to see the pitter-patter of impacts on the road as you approach. This hazardous section goes back and forth - and if one is unable to avoid it then one had better have some bullet proofing to absorb the fire - or it will cost lives.
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Raid Wagons These large trucks are usually encountered a couple of times per level. They can absorb a fair degree of damage and they close in from the distance to throw fire bombs and sometimes gun fire, swinging left and right as it does so.
As you can see, it was quite a line-up for this kind of game - and this combined with the various up-grades made it quite fun to play.
The Pleasure of the Game
The thing about 'driving the gauntlet' is that it can be quite satisfying to beat the odds. The game was relatively unforgiving but it offered a surprising degree of freedom to the player.
One could choose to slow down or even stop in the middle of a level - and the car's RPM affected how much fuel got consumed (so blazing through a level at the fastest pace could post more of a fuel cost than justified by the reward).
One could choose to dispatch of enemies with a variety of weapons - from explosion causing fire bombs to vehicle busting missiles to screen-clearing smart bombs to wheel blades and rams.
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One could kit the car out differently (at least toward the beginning) and this had an effect upon how one would play the game.
Even so - it was definitely rather linear ('on rails') as an experience.
One way that they could have mitigated this have been to insert forks in the road where a player could opt for a shorter tougher section or a longer more sweeping section (and perhaps the occasional dead-end). An occasional change of scenery would also have been nice (pretty sure that there would be town ruins here and there following the apocolypse).
While there were a fair amount of threats upon the road - it would have added more personality to have had a little more color-swap variety along with each boss truck have its own quirks. I know that the entire game was packed into a single floppy disk - but perhaps the (snazzy yet unrelated) interactive starfield animation in the menu screen could have been sacrificed if need be.
That and the car dashboard really didn't need to be included in the initial game menu (and could have taken up less screen overall - but that is more than a little nit-picky of me - as big dashboards were a thing for car games at the time.
Actually why not get a listen-in? It has a short but pretty suitable tune to go with it. :c)
Well that was the first installment! Since this is a more-or-less new direction I could certainly use your feedback on how to improve future NGDF (Nostalgic Game Design Focus) posts. Do let me know in on the comments down below. :c)
Of course if you have comments about the game itself - or just have other experiences to share - I'm also looking forward to hearing from you below. ;c)
Also, if you found this post interesting and would like to share this with your followers and friends then a resteem is always appreciated.
Sincerely,
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