Video Game / Turbo Overkill

Foreground: Johnny's back.
Background: Five hundred synthetics about to die gruesomely.

"In 1987, Evil Dead 2 introduced the chainsaw arm. Now, 35 years later—almost my whole lifetime—the chainsaw leg is finally here, and I'm happy to say that it was worth the wait."

— PC Gamer

In the future, the self-sustaining AI, Syn, who controls all systems in Paradise City, gains its own sentience and is on the verge of taking over. With the augmented, mechanical minions of Syn overrunning all urban areas and sealing Paradise City away from the rest of the world, Syn carefully plans its next course of action: global domination.

One man stands in Syn's way, capable of achieving what entire armies couldn't: our hero, Johnny Turbo, who fought against Syn's forces only to be grievously injured, now rebuilt into a half-metal, half-man killing machine, is sent into Paradise City with his chainsaw shin and trusty dual magnums to kick all kinds of ass.

Developed by Trigger Happy Interactive and published by Apogee Entertainment, Turbo Overkill is a fast-paced action game and a love-letter to old-school FPSes that runs on Stylish Action and is set in a Blade Runner-meets-Doom Crapsack World. The player, controlling Johnny Turbo and his seemingly endless array of power-ups, goes on a high-speed race across Paradise City's streets, filled with Syn's minions, killing everything in his way with all kinds of weapons from machine guns to flamethrowers to his chainsaw shin.

Turbo Overkill is available on various platforms including PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows.

Have we mentioned the game's hero has a chainsaw built into his shin?

The game was released in Early Access in April 2022, with a full release in August 2023.

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Good troping, sir!

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: In Paradise Lost, Johnny visits sewers that are large enough to fight in with his moveset.
• Action Bomb: Barrel junkies carry Exploding Barrels with them that detonate when the player is near.
• Advanced Movement Technique:
  • Sliding can be combined with jumps and dashes to cover very wide horizontal gaps.
  • Rockets can be grappled onto, allowing Johnny to gain vertical momentum as well.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: A few secret levels have Johnny outrun an advancing death area.
• Advertised Extra: Out of the five major characters posted on the game's cover, Jazz has the least prominence. He only shows up in one level, has two quick cutscenes, and has only two audio logs that hint at him being a naive Well-Intentioned Extremist. Johnny even kills him in the same level he's introduced in, and after that he's barely brought up again.
• Aggressive Play Incentive: Enemies occasionally drop health and armor, and you can upgrade the chainsaw leg to boost both upon each kill. In higher difficulties, this is the only way to regain health. Along with the large number of annoying enemies, this creates gameplay mechanics that promote attack as the best form of defence.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Syn, who starts off as Paradise City's defense system before it gains intelligence of its own and decides to take over - step 1 being Kill All Humans.
• Airborne Mooks: Synthetic flyers, who appear to fall under the Sapient Ship variety, patrol the skies of Paradise City. More than one mission has Johnny leaping off roofs and balconies only to land on one of those ships, where he then destroys them in one swoop while jumping to the nearest surface.
• A.K.A.-47: Inverted with the Uzi. It looks more like a futuristic/toy assault rifle than a real Uzi.
• Anti-Frustration Features: With a few exceptions, falling down into a deep pit does not kill Johnny, but merely teleports him to the nearest platform.
• Arm Cannon: If a synthetic enemy has ranged weapons, it's likely built in their arms. Including a Giant Mook synthetic who has a circular saw/arm-laser cannon combo.
• Armed Legs: Johnny's shins have chainsaws built in them. As a melee weapon he can bisect most enemies with a kick.
• Artificial Limbs: Johnny has a robot arm and a robot leg, as they were shot off before the game's plot starts. He's taken advantage of the latter to install a rather effective chainsaw in it.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Security drones can be eliminated by shooting their brains, and you defeat Element Zero's first form by shooting its many eyes.
• Attack Reflector: The Plasma Gun eventually gains an ability to catch enemy projectiles and fire them back at the enemies.
• Attack Speed Buff: The Fury powerup greatly increases the fire rate of weapons.
• Balls of Steel: In a cutscene in the Infestation level, it turns out that Johnny is not affected by groin attacks.
• Battle in the Rain: More than one level is set in heavy rain, either in the streets or on the Paradise City rooftops, with Johnny shooting his way through legions of synthetics.
• Benevolent A.I.: SAMM, the advisor AI that assists Johnny throughout the game.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Of the permanent variety. The enemies are mechanical synthetics, remember?
  • The lowest-level synthetic mooks have laser swords in place of their arms.
  • Muscular synthetic monsters have a huge buzzsaw built into their left hands, replacing the wrist.
• Blatant Item Placement: Ammo is found everywhere, no matter how little sense its position might make.
• Body Horror:
  • Almost of the enemies are misshapen, mutilated human beings fused with cybernetic and robotic parts in servitude to Syn. Exceptions are spires and gun turrets that are entirely mechanical.
  • Episode 2 ramps up the gore, including stuff like Johnny using a Mook's entrails to bungee jump, Johnny graphically ripping a bounty hunter's implant, and Johnny having his hand punched a hole to install a grappling hook.
• Border Patrol: Robosharks patrol the edges of Emergence level.
• Boring, but Practical: The Uzi, when single-wielded. It doesn't fire as fast as the minigun or dual Uzis, it doesn't have flashy effects, it won't set enemies on fire or explode them and it doesn't even have a fancy secondary mode, but it makes efficient use of ammo, is one of the most precise weapons at a long distance and will last the whole game as the most practical choice when you don't care about flashiness and just want to make something reliably dead.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: Artifact Zero, Syn's giant, One-Winged Angel form's only vulnerable point is the cluster of eyes on its top, but the same arena conveniently has plenty of indestructible booster platforms Johnny can use to access a higher area to shoot back. Those same platforms also help in avoiding its sweeping, low laser wall attack which can be difficult to dodge.
• Bottomless Pits: Pits that the player can fall into appear from time to time. Falling into them teleports the player back into the area without any cost.
• Brutal Bonus Level: While a few secret levels are comparable to the challenge in the main game, others require numerous restarts to complete.
• Camera Abuse: Expect the camera to be splattered with blood and gore for most of the game. This tends to happen when Johnny dashes through legions of enemies with his chainsaw before him, leading to the screen getting gloriously drenched.
• Chainsaw Good: Johnny has a chainsaw built into his foreleg. After being rebuilt, he gets two more in his arms.. He can also use an augment that adds a chainsaw to his other leg, increasing the damage of his Dash Attack.
• Charged Attack:
  • Holding down secondary fire will charge the right magnum, increasing its damage.
  • The Waster Shotgun can be charged for more powerful attack.
  • The Launcher's secondary fire can be upgraded so it will load it with more rockets with the maximum of 4.
  • The Telefragger's primary fire can be upgraded so it can be charged to increase its damage.
• Cognizant Limbs: Artifact Zero and Syn have multiple parts, each needs to be destroyed individually.
• Combat Parkour: Johnny's parkour skills are amazing, owing to his cybernetic enhancements. The player witnesses all that carnage from a first-person POV as Johnny parkours along walls and above city buildings, through legions and legions of enemies leaving behind piles of dead mooks behind.
• Conspicuous Electric Obstacle: Some traversable walls have blue, very obviously electrified circles on them, forcing players to jump off the walls to not get electrocuted.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Teratek Exec is responsible for Syn getting out of control. Even when the Universe is at stake, she cares more about her and her company's reputation and profits.
• Crate Expectations: Metal crates are littered around throughout the game.
• Critical Annoyance: At low health, there are heartbeat sounds, and the sound of Johnny breathing.
• Cutscene Incompetence: Johnny tends to get bodied by story-important bosses during cutscenes.
• Cyborg: Johnny Turbo himself, a human enhanced with mechanical implants. He ended up that way after being mutilated and left for dead by Ripper and her goons. Even his brain is robotic, a short-lived replacement while he works to get the money needed to have the real one properly operated on. After being killed by Maw, Syn rebuilds Johnny with even less meat, since his corpse had spent two years rotting.
• Damage Is Fire: Mechs start to burn when low on health.
• Darkest Hour:
  • The second episode takes place in Paradise after Syn has been taking over, not just Paradise's computer systems but also the entire moon, thanks to gaining control of the Artifact Zero. SAMM barely escaped in the nick of time after Johnny ejected his card, to be put into his own cyborg systems, to prevent Syn from taking over SAMM.
  • The third episode occurs after Johnny was murdered by Maw. Upon the Time Skip, you find out that two years have passed, and Maw (now with control of Syn's systems) has nearly taken over the whole solar system, easily crushing an attempted counterattack by a mercenary army. With no other options, Johnny and S.A.M.M. cut a deal with Syn to have Johnny's body rebuilt so they can go after Maw.
• Dash Attack:
  • Thanks to Johnny's back thrusters. Use this alongside this with Johnny's chainsaws, and aim for enemies standing in a straight line. Gaze in awe as blood flies fifty meters into the air.
  • There is also the Packs A Punch augment, which damages enemies when dashing into them.
• Degraded Boss: After being the capstone boss of Episode 2, Maw uses his SYN-derived powers to harass Johnny with clones of himself throughout Episode 3. They're much weaker than the original, with only his most basic attacks from the boss fight.
• Digital Abomination: Syn is an artificial intelligence, but by manipulating the widespread biotechnology of Paradise, she turns her cores into grotesque hives of Meat Moss and cobbles together human bodies with mechanical parts to create freakish monsters. Her end-goal is to consume all of humanity in the name of a twisted sense of "evolution", and goes as far as to style herself as a god.
• Double Jump: Johnny can jump in mid-air. There is an augment that can upgrade it to a triple jump. Adding Wall Jump augments allows even more jumps.
• Dragon Ascendant: Maw is one of Johnny's major obstacles in front of Syn, but at best, he just comes off as a bounty hunter with a vendetta. Up until he murders Johnny, betrays Teratek, and uses their contingency on himself to give himself immense power. Almost the entirety of Episode 3 revolves around Johnny having to team up with Syn, whom Maw also betrayed, just so the two of them can kill Maw before he destroys the whole universe.
• Duel Boss: Johnny vs. Maw in Napalm Blitz, the climax of Episode 2. No gimmicks, no hordes of enemies helping Maw (unlike every other boss, including the later fight against Superior/Astral Maw), and no locked doors/barriers blocking Johnny from fighting him. It's just a one-on-one spectacle to prove who's superior.
• Endless Game: Not within the actual game, but there's an "Endless Mode" that throws an infinite amount of synthetics for Johnny to massacre.
• Enemy Mine: In Episode 3, Syn brings Johnny back from the dead to help her dispose of Maw, who's hijacked her powers to take over the universe.
• Equipment Upgrade: Despite the machines being under Syn's control and the amount of mechanical synthetics patrolling the streets, every now and then Johnny can come across upgrading stations to purchase new weapons or improve the ones he already have.
  Upgrade Machine [via intercom]: Whoo-whee! Guns, guns, guns!
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Maw opportunistically stole Syn's power to become top dog over the planet only to find out too late that his body and especially his mind couldn't handle it, transforming him into a horrifying abomination that has been driven insane by endless hunger.
• Evolving Title Screen: Each episode has its own title screen and variant of the game's theme song, with the common thread of Johnny pausing for a smoke break amid the carnage. During Episode 1, Johnny is sitting Atop a Mountain of Corpses with the vista of Paradise City in the background. During Episode 2, Johnny is now sitting on the chainsaw motorbike from "Exodus", and the city has been overtaken by Syn's Meat Moss. During Episode 3, Johnny is now a near Full-Conversion Cyborg, with the smoke of his cigar puffing from the gaps of his Skull for a Head, and he's resting against the ruptured wall of a ruined starship while the naval battle between Syn's space fleet and the Vermilion Front rages in the distance.
• Exploding Barrels: In classic bright red, with ambient hot sparks for good measure. One enemy type is a common Techno Junkie that's been shoved into an upside-down red barrel, becoming an ad hoc suicide bomber.
• Eye Beams: One of the enemies is basically an eye that shoots lasers. In the Exodus level, Syn shoots Eye Beams towards the player.
• Face Framed in Shadow: Exec's dialogue portrait. Even when she makes an in-person appearance in the game's ending, her character model is textured to obscure her face.
• Faceless Eye: Syn's default form when appearing to the humans is as a giant holographic eye that rolls around, as if it's studying Johnny. Late in the game you'll encounter smaller Syn eyes as stationary turrets that shoot laser beams. Even the humanoid avatar Syn assumes when she negotiates an Enemy Mine with Johnny just has the massive eyeball in place of a head.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: One of Johnny's later weapons is a double-barreled flamethrower called the Twincendiary that shoots two parallel line of flames at enemies. Mooks turns into Man on Fire instantly, though larger enemies may attempt an Infernal Retaliation.
• Flash of Pain: The enemies flash yellow when damaged.
• Flipping the Bird: Use the lock-on Micro Missiles or kill enough enemies in quick succession, and Johnny will flip off with his robotic left hand.
• Force-Field Door: Sometimes arena fights close off doors by adding a force field which can be eliminated by killing off all the enemies.
• Fungus Humongous: Giant purple mushrooms are found in the fourth level of episode 3.
• Gangsta Style: When Johnny holds dual pistols and Uzis, he prefers to hold them sideways.
• Gatling Good: And Double Gatling is Double Good! Johnny's quickest lead spewer has two rotating assemblies that'll shred everything in the general direction you're pointing them in, especially if you grab a speed powerup before you open up - but watch that ammo counter.
• Gimmick Level: A few secret areas focus on mastering various techniques such as trying to stay off the ground or operating a vehicle.
• The Goomba: Screen Junkies are the most basic and frequently encountered enemies. They simply run at the player in large numbers, have only melee attacks and go down very easily. Once you get the chainsaw leg upgrades that generate health and armor on kills, swarms of Junkies become an easy pick-me-up.
• Gorn: Enemies splatter into gibs easily, Syn's territory is marked by glistening Meat Moss, and several cutscenes involve a Mook getting mangled. One particular standout is a scene in Episode 2, where Johnny bisects a synth goon and then uses his entrails as a rope to climb down to a window.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Johnny uses a grappling hook that allows him to swing across buildings, combined with his back thrusters to scale Paradise City's rooftops in no time.
• Guns Akimbo: The first weapons Johnny can use are dual pistols. He can akimbo machine-guns or laser cannons too.
• Gun Twirling: When charging up the akimbo Magnums for the multishot boosted attack, only one pistol deals the actual damage; Johnny twirls the other one around his finger, apparently for nothing more than kicks and giggles.
• Harder Than Hard: The fifth difficulty setting is called "Murder Machine," which is the toughest difficulty in the game that increases projectile speed by 1.7 and increases the damage you take by 6.66. To further emphasize how hard it is, the caption describing the difficulty says nothing but the word "DON'T."
• Heroic Mime: Johnny Turbo never speaks. His silence is commented on by several other characters.
• Hold the Line: Final thing to do in the main campaign is to survive for half a minute.
• Hollywood Acid: The first instance of corrosive acid is encountered in the first level. It's green, glowing and drains player's health.
• Homing Projectile: One of the weapons Johnny can use is a homing missile launcher that targets nearest enemies. He can also hold on the trigger to target several enemies all at once, releasing a Macross Missile Massacre with awesome results.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: From the easiest to hardest: Virgin Blood, Regular Joe, Street Cleaner, Serve Me Pain and Murder Machine.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Implied with the ending, Johnny is pressured to keep working with Teratek so he can use a completely normal human body offered to him by the Exec.
• Infernal Retaliation: While regular enemies fall quickly to the flamethrowers, Giant Mook opponents will try leaping on Johnny while alight - stay out of their reach to avoid getting scorched.
• In-Vehicle Invulnerability: You don't take damage when inside vehicles, allowing you to ditch it and keep fighting when the vehicle's integrity is critical.
• Invincibility Power-Up: The God Mode powerup makes the player temporarily invulnerable.
• Invisible Wall: In many locations, Johnny gets blocked by invisible walls when getting out of intended boundaries.
• Ironic Name: Maw doesn't have a lower jaw, or even an opening for his esophagus, when seen without his helmet in the penultimate level. It's all been replaced by cybernetics.
• Karma Houdini: Ripper survives her boss fight in Episode 2, and makes a surprise reappearance in the epilogue of Episode 3 with a new mechanical arm, capturing Johnny and delivering him to the Exec.
• Kill Enemies to Open: Many areas get locked down until the player kills all the enemies.
• Limit Break:
  • Eventually, an upgrade for starting magnums becomes available that charges the pistol whenever its primary fire hits. Once it's full, the player activates an overcharge that does large amounts of damage whenever it hits and deactivates when player misses or switches weapons.
  • Eventually you will gain a chainsaw arm weapon. It lasts thirty seconds, and is charged by getting chainsaw leg kills.
• Machine Blood: All the enemies in the game bleed, even mechanical ones. In copious amounts of red, somehow.
• Meat Moss: Syn's "bio-cores" produce fleshy, gory tendrils lined with screen monitors, marking her territory. It's heavily implied to be made out of the unfortunate people who once resided in the infested areas. After Syn interfaces with Artifact Zero, thousands of new bio-cores become active throughout Paradise City, leaving the city unrecognizable in a matter of hours. It gets even worse after Episode 3's two year Time Skip, as the tendrils of flesh have grown into a lattice that extends out into space, latching onto the planet's moon and intercepting spaceships.
• Missile Lock-On: The hand-mounted rocket launcher has to lock on to enemies before firing homing missiles.
• Modular Difficulty: There is a custom difficulty option where players can adjust enemy health, projectile speed, whether health appears etc.
• Monster Closet: Occasionally, an enclosed area opens to reveal enemies inside, such as in Dead Plaza.
• Mook Debut Cutscene: A few enemies get their own introductory cutscene the first time they show up. First time it happens is in Emergence.
• Neon City: The high-tech Paradise City, filled with neon signs and plenty of lights. It wouldn't look out of place among works like Blade Runner.
• Notice This: Buttons that need to be pressed are marked with an orange holographic display. Hookpoints glow orange.
• Offscreen Start Bonus: Going backwards at the beginning of the first level rewards the player with an audio log.
• One-Winged Angel:
  • Syn's Artifact Zero form and the final boss of Episode One, whose body consists of various organic and mechanical growth fused together into a gigantic form. It can also Beam Spam Johnny almost non-stop with its various weapons.
  • After two fights in the penultimate level, the already heavily-mutated Maw claims he needs more power and becomes Astral Maw, changing his form to the point of being unrecognizable.
• Opportunistic Bastard: Maw, one of the bounty hunters deployed by Teratek, takes the contingency for himself to usurp Syn's position as Big Bad, entirely out of opportunistic megalomania.
• Our Hero Is Dead: Episode 2 ends with Maw killing Johnny, crushing his brain and taking control of Syn's systems. Episode 3 begins with Johnny being revived with a heavily 'borged new body by Syn, and he's informed that two years have passed and that Maw has conquered most of the solar system.
• Pass Through the Rings: One of the secret levels has you flying through the rings inside a hovercar. Sometimes you have to get out of the car though.
• Plasma Cannon: The Plasma Rifle fires blue plasma bolts that burns enemies to bits.
• Pocket Rocket Launcher: One of Johnny's weapons is a rocket launcher attached to his left arm, firing "mini-missiles".
• Power Fist: The aptly-named power fist powerup replaces weapons with a fist that deals a lot of damage.
• Power-Up Magnet: The Zhen Magnet augment collects all the money from killed enemies automatically. Downplayed without an augment as zhen still flies towards the player at short distance.
• Quad Damage: The Heavy Damage powerup makes all of Johnny's weapons hit harder.
• Recoil Boost: Both shotguns can give the player an extra boost upwards. Telefragger's primary fire, especially when charged, does so to even greater extent.
• Red Shirt Army: Episode 3 introduces the Vermillion Front, a mercenary army that invades Paradise in an effort to stop Syn from escaping the planet and conquering the galaxy. By the time Johnny gets involved after the Time Skip, the last vestiges of the Front are being slaughtered in a hopeless Last Stand against endless hordes of monsters. Later, the Vermillion Front's naval group attempts a last-ditch attack on the orbital space station Vector-4, only to get blown out of the sky by Syn's own navy.
• Remixed Level:
  • Re-Syn, a secret level, is a remixed version of the very first level, Syn.
  • Azalp Daed is a more difficult version of Dead Plaza that is completed backwards.
• Rise to the Challenge: In a few places, such as in E3M7, there's a section where you have to escape from rising purple goo.
• Rocket Jump: Explosions from rockets and the recoil from charged Waster shots can help Johnny propel himself upwards. There is even a secret level centered around rocket jumping.
• Saving the World: Syn threatens not only Earth but the rest of the Universe. And Johnny is trying to put a stop to it.
• Sawed-Off Shotgun: When Johnny acquires double shotgun, he promptly uses his chainsaw to saw off the barrels at the halfway point.
• Self-Duplication: Maw employs Syn's biotechnology to taunt Johnny Turbo with short-lived clones of himself formed from the Meat Moss, which he occasionally sends out to attack as a Degraded Boss version of his earlier boss fight. You can blow away the clones he summons just to talk through, but a fresh body will emerge from the mass of flesh almost instantly.
• Sequential Boss: All bosses except the first one have multiple phases, a few even have sub-phases. It gets to the point where, during the Final Boss battle against Syn, SAMM will express in exasperation "Oh, for god's sake, how many layers does this bitch have!?"
• Short-Range Shotgun:
  • The double-barreled Boomer, whose barrels Johnny makes a point of sawing as soon as he gets it, will carve chunks off enemies at short range but is almost completely ineffective at a distance.
  • Averted with the Waster, which is somewhat accurate on its own - especially in its secondary mode - but can be further upgraded with a holo sight and a hand grip. They greatly increase its precision, effectively turning it into a heavy medium-range rifle.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Two varieties, the Waster Shotgun which is one of Johnny's first weapons for killing lower-level enemies in a single hit (but several rounds are needed for large synthetics) and the Boomer which fires two shells at a time and can even be upgraded into a Grenade Launcher.
• Shout-Out:
  • Johnny's backstory is rather blatantly ripped off from Alex Murphy's in RoboCop (1987). In a flashback cutscene, Johnny gets cornered by various synthetics, one who shoots his left arm off above the wrist (complete with close-up on the bloodied stump). Then, all the synthetics concentrates their gunfire on him, before their leader shoots Johnny in the head.
  • When Johnny passes an arcade while exiting the cinema, consoles for Raptor: Call of the Shadows, Monster Bash and Secret Agent could be seen. The options screen for Graphics has the camera pan in to a demo of Monster Bash as well.
  • "Ascension" is set in a towering slum-apartment complex identical to the one from Dredd, complete with a skatepark jutting from the exterior. The name for the apartment is even "Appletree Apartments" much like the movie's "Peachtree Apartments." The achievement for completing the level is "I AM THE LAW".
  • "Infestation" opens by recreating the skull-stomping "future war" intro of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and awards the achievement "I'll Be Back". Completing Episode 3 earns the achievement "Hasta La Vista, Baby".
  • Completing "Teratek Showdown" earns the achievement "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"
  • Killing 15 enemies with one ion beam shot nets the achievement "Ion Furious"
  • The double chainsaw leg splice's description is "We've had one chainsaw leg, yes; but what about second chainsaw leg?"
• Shows Damage: Syn mechs start to smoke and emit explosions when low on health. At critical health, they start to emit alarm sounds as well.
• Sinister Surveillance: Syn can see everything, thanks to being in control of the city's entire network.
  I am Syn. I see all... I. am. everywhere...
• Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: Teratek Factory features crushers that the player must avoid.
• Smoking Is Cool: Johnny Turbo often smokes a cigar, especially during cutscenes where he demonstrates being badass.
• Speed Echoes: When Jazz uses Turbo time, he leaves trails.
• Sphere of Destruction: Some of the larger, stronger synthetic enemies will teleport into the level using these spheres.
• Springs, Springs Everywhere: Jump pads are found throughout the game, launching the player up in the air. In The Wastes level, steam bursts are used as springboards instead.
• Starter Gear Staying Power: Pistols remain relevant even late into the game. Its Charged Attack is useful for killing many small enemies due to its lock-on capabilities. Later upgrade also allows it to use its ability after charging it up with the primary fire.
• Suddenly Shouting: Maw during his Villainous Breakdown. After spending most of the game being a Cold Ham, almost all of his lines as Ultimate and Astral Maw are him screaming his lungs out.
  BLOOOOOD!!! METAAAAAAAAALLLLLLL!!! BOOOOOOONNNNEEEE!!! CONSUUUUUUUUMEEEE!!!
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: Johnny Turbo can stay underwater for as long as he needs to. May be justified because he's augmented.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: Usually, there are a lot of pickups, shops, and/or places to change your augmentations before a major boss fight. The final boss fight even has a bunch of pickups and a place to change your augmentations in the arena itself, if that's any warning to just what you're in for.
• Tele-Frag: The sniper rifle has an ability to telefrag weaker opponents. This function is employed in a few platforming sections to cross massive gaps.
• Teleporting Keycard Squad: Often picking up keys causes enemies to spawn. Usually the keys located in very small rooms are an exception.
• Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack: Many tracks in the game are based around the same two leitmotifs. The first one is in natural minor, representing Johnny. The second one has only 5 notes and uses tritones, representing evil forces. Often these motifs are in their key, even if the rest of the song is in Phrygian mode.
• Throwing Your Gun at the Enemy: Uzis can be thrown at an enemy for very minor damage.
• Timed Mission:
  • In the final level, there are four instances where Johnny needs to defeat waves of enemies in time.
  • A few secret levels are on a time limit.
• Timed Power-Up: Many power-ups last only a short while, such as Heavy Damage, God Mode or Spread Reduction.
• Time Skip: Episode 3 takes place two years after the climax of Episode 2, long after Maw and Syn have severely crippled Paradise City and a majority of the solar system.
• To Be Continued: Episode One ends in this way. After Johnny receives news of more bio-cores appearing in Paradise City, and a nuke is about to level the whole place, the screen then goes black and ends with a white "To Be Continued".
• Traintop Battle: One level is in the Paradise City tubes, with Johnny is on a train en route to Syn's core while taking on legions of synthetics in a huge shootout.
• Turns Red: Syn mechs start emitting laser beams at low health although they lose their shield attack.
• TV Head Robot: A recurring design element in Syn's monsters is a monitor head broadcasting a distorted, snarling human face.
• Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000: Not content with just a One-Word Title, this game's title ups the ante with Turbo Overkill. Also overlaps with Character Title, since the protagonist's last name is Turbo.
• Uncommon Time:
  • Parts of one of the Maw fights are in 9/8.
  • Phase 2 of Syn fight is in polyrhythm. Most is 3/4 over 2/2 while some part are in 4/4 over 5/4.
• Video Game Dashing: Dashing for movement boost is a valid way to get around. Two dashes quickly regenerate as long as Johnny is on the ground.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: So, so averted. The Twincendiary's secondary is two jets of flame that render any low-tier enemies in range completely harmless as they writhe in agony while slowly burning to death; the more powerful enemies aren't incapacitated, but still lose effectiveness and accrue damage over time, making the Twincendiary a perfect initial opener for subsequent shotgun blasts.
• Video Game Sliding: Sliding allows for fast movement speed if you have the momentum, lets you squeeze under certain gaps, and also doubles as an attack capable of instantly killing weaker foes (courtesy of a chainsaw built into Johnny's leg).
• Villainous Breakdown: Maw gradually starts to break down towards the end of the game, realizing that his lust for power has backfired horribly and his mind can't take it anymore. By the time you confront him in the penultimate level, Maw is a colossal Eldritch Abomination consumed with his need to devour everything in sight and longing for you to kill him just to stop his ravenous appetite.
• Vocal Dissonance:
  • SAMM has a calm and refined voice similar to VEGA from Doom (2016), yet his avatar is a smiley face with a top hat.
  • Syn is a metaphorical and literal cancer growing over technology, and its biocores are full of televisions with screaming faces. But it speaks with a soothing, calm, feminine voice.
• Wall Jump: One of the augments allows the player to jump off walls.
• Wall Run: Johnny quickly obtains boots that allow him to run on certain vertical surfaces.
• Was Once a Man: Enemy lore indicates that most of the enemies were once humans and are now in various stages of being merged into machine abominations.
• We Can Rebuild Him: This happens to Johnny twice. In flashbacks, we see how he was brutally dismembered and shot to pieces by Ripper and a few other techno-punks. The box with a pulse meter on it that he keeps next to him? His brain, that he needs an expensive operation to permanently put inside himself, to keep his temporary replacement brain from disintegrating. Then the Time Skip happens. Johnny is blown to bits by Maw and a bunch of Syn-lasers, but two years later, Syn drags Johnny's body to a hidden cybernetics bay (Syn is trying to do an Enemy Mine, after Maw took over). We get a first-person view of the machinery removing his head, cutting away all the unsalvagable body parts from his torso and limbs, and reattaching/replacing all of them.
• What Have I Become?: A moment in Episode 3. After being even further cyborged by Syn to save his life, Johnny boards an elevator, only to hesitate when he catches a glimpse of his disturbing new form in the wall-mounted mirror. Though the introspection is interrupted by goons outside the elevator, Johnny's sorrow in that moment is palpable.
• Who Dares?: Syn first chimes in with "You dare stand before me?" line. One of her last lines is "You dare use my powers against me, Johnny?"
• Wingding Eyes: The face indicator on the minigun will have "X"-shaped eyes when ammo is low or completely run out.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Maw flies off the deep end after absorbing Syn's powers, becoming an abomination solely driven to consume everything in existence.
• Yandere: In the casino level in Episode 3, you can come across a Gene Machine that has a different, much more enthusiastic voice then the others you've used thus far that eagerly invites you to use it. Once you're done with it, it suddenly begs you to use it more, and as you leave, it suddenly turns into a mutant and attacks you in a rage for ignoring it.
  Gene Machine Mutant: YOU THINK YOU GET TO JUST WALK AWAY FROM ME?! I MADE YOU!!
• You Have Failed Me: After Johnny fails to destroy Syn at the end of Episode 1, allowing it to take over the entire city, Teratek sends in Maw, Reaper, and Jazz to deal with Syn themselves as well as to kill Johnny for screwing up.
• You Have Researched Breathing: There is an upgrade you can buy to... throw one of the Uzis and wield only one Uzi for precision.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Episode One ends with Johnny seemingly destroying Syn's organic, physical form. But then, reports of 932,000 new bio-cores are appearing in Paradise City, and the humans are contemplating to launch a nuclear strike on Paradise City to purge Syn once and for all. The stage is set for Episode Two, where Johnny needs to take the fight to Syn.

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