Total Overdose's story starts off a bit unusual. I spent the first several levels of the game just trying to figure out which character the story was about. The first level gave you control of a D.E.A. agent on a drug bust. As you clear out the old ruins that are being used to fly marijuana out of the country, you learn how to use the various controls and weapons. As you and your team fly away from the jungle, though, your boss (whose face is cleverly concealed) shoves you out of the plane.
Cut to the next scene where a man in a wheel-chair, another D.E.A. agent, is talking to his CO explaining a mission he was just on. Apparently, this agent is the son of the first guy and he just received a tip as to who might be behind his father's murder. So I think, okay, I'm this guy and the whole game is him telling his boss about the various missions that will eventually lead to the broken leg. Well, I was partially right. The next level was the broken-legged agent trying to infiltrate a Mexican cartel (per his contact's tip off) which leads to his broken leg. So who is going to find out what happened to his father, you might ask?
Enter Ramiro Cruz, the twin brother of the injured D.E.A. agent. Cruz has been taken out of prison to go undercover and find out what happened to their father. Finally we get to your character. Even though the game's setup is unusual, the uniqueness pretty much stops there. Once you get to the Mexican city where the game takes place, you will take part in mission-based driving events, protect contacts from rival gangs and various other tasks that seem to come from other more popular games.
Throughout the game, you will find tons of off-the-cuff references to various movies, most of which are cult-classics - kudos to those people who get them. These include the attack mentioned above, "El Mariachi", where Cruz shoots rapid-fire machine guns cleverly hidden as guitar cases.
As you drive around Los Toros, you will be able to do more than just the odd jobs assigned to you by the cartel. You can also jump into many different side missions like Day of the Dead, where you need to kill as many enemies in the area as possible before the time runs out. In this case, all the enemies are dressed in skeleton costumes, when the time runs out -- all the baddies that haven't been shot change back into normal citizens and walk around as if nothing's wrong. There were several times when I found these side missions to be more fun than the rest of the game and spent more time looking for these tasks to get my mind off of the gophering I was doing to advance the story.
As an added bonus though, Total Overdose comes with a second DVD with a first look on the new Eidos game, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend. This is a cool added feature, but it is NOT a playable demo, but merely some insight into the new game.
