“That’s fine,” I say the car rivals hot stains and loses the wheels. “There are still three tires left.” My right fender hits another driver and melts into pieces, like rusty confetti at a wedding for a metallurgist. “No big deal,” I say and continue driving. I head towards the shipping container and the entire engine bay is flat against me. “A minor set time,” I say, then head back to the truck before running through the final spot. Wreckfest 2 is further evidence of the truth long supported by non-serious racing games. The more interesting the car becomes, the more messed up.
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The slippery sequel is accessed early – to spin up the car metaphor used throughout this article, it’s a hot, loud and surely a powerful engine that’s quickly exhausted. That doesn’t mean my time is bad in this heavy hit racing game. I enjoy the shaking of almost every moment, plunging my enemies into the trees. But it’s been a naked experience so far, and even developers understand it.
For example, there are only four cars. First WreckFest players recognize Nippy’s “rockets” and muscular “road slayers” that are reminiscent of Ford Mustang and Pontiac Trans Am respectively. But there are also aerodynamics and modern drift machines, as well as adorable boxy European bangers that look inspired by 1980s Volks Wagon Golf.
They are offered to players who do not include either customizations, armor welding or differential tuning in the menu for the first game. With a few limited options, you can paint your vehicle in a new colour, but with that, choose your car and drive the car. They are all handled in great detail with a slamming sensation of weight and strength. Of course, you hit a roadside wall at 50 mph. At that point you need to pay more attention to your unstable handbrakes and incorrect wheels.
The key to WreckFest is to race against the health bar. The chase in these destruction derbys is to keep yourself alive as much as you would cross the finish line in the first place. Just like in the first game, you’ll see a small message in the corner of the screen, using all the shunts and slams. But they now seem even more comically concrete. “The radiator is leaking,” he says, as if I was writing it. Warned that “the engine was damaged” and ended up being completely fired. “The head gasket has been blown away,” he says, and the panic is finally sinking.
“The suspension was damaged.”
One…
“The gearbox is damaged.”
Well, maybe that’s –
“The wheels are detached.”
What a disaster.
All the failed mechanisms of hot rods affect driving in a subtle and less subtle way. I laughed and cursed as my car began to track uncontrollably from side to side. Still, it takes an amazing amount of punishment to make your car unreliable (although this can also depend on the difficulty and damage settings you competed in).
But yes, there are only four cars to destroy with joy, and only four trucks to do that. It is loaded high with an asphalt circuit that doubles as a bowl of debris freely, and a cracked scrappy loaded with piles of tires and last buckets. There is also the Savolax Sandpit. This is an industrial mining ground with sleazy bumps and harsh bends that go from gravel stains to hard asphalt. In the first game, players were asked to think about how their car would move on a loose, solid surface, and adjusted the car before each race to better align the tracks. These selection features have not been implemented yet, but it appears that the sequel is preparing to do the same thing.
There are several variations on these tracks, but they are all quickly explored. They are best enjoyed with multiplayer opponents via a very rudimentary server browser. Just as it appears that the CPU enemies want to spin out you, it’s your fellow people who turn the race into naughty brawls and petty mountains. I’m always happy to catch up with Tearaway. Tearaway detoured you to the telegraph pole and fished at a critical bend. It remains the game I play to exude actual road rage.
Next is the fourth track, “Test Ground.” This is basically a developer whitebox for messing around with cars. Ah boy. This is a playground for loops, ramps and obstacles. There is a spring launcher that fires 50 feet into the air, and a quirky climb that climbs up 200 meters into the blue sky. There is a stack of oil drums that penetrate through the r. There is a car crusher that turns you into a cute cuboid of cute cuboids that can drive you in some way. A rolling pin machine that flattens like pancakes, just like only the driver’s knees stick to cartoon-like stupidity. Visit a car-sized basketball net, go to the “car cannon,” circle the dome of lightning, throw the car into a giant slingshot machine, and get only smashed glass and laughter. It’s a fun place.
still. As much as worshipping this playful realm of wrecking, it doesn’t completely hide the whole game being really very light. thing. It’s not often going through. Also, the lack of vehicle ladders climbing and customizable bits and bobs means you have to get dopamine from the purity of the race for the race. It’s also hard to see from this early stage whether the sequel will do anything really different, except for visual fidelity and new damage physics.
“The game will be far from perfect,” said the PR representative for the email to RPS. “There is a lot of content missing and features need to be added to the path of early access. This decision has led to this decision, but there are already many ideas and a lot of content planned.
Regarding Wreckfest 2, I feel what I’ve felt recently about space engineers. I like it, but still I can’t honestly recommend you buy it. Early Access games come in all shapes and sizes. But at the end of the road, one of my tasks (except for the full throttle of the car analogy) is to protect my wallet a bit. I like the feeling of my mitz’s WreckFest 2, but I don’t fire 25 Quid for the bouncy, crashy fun I can grant you. Some people have splashed out these things as the ultimate act of buy-in costs, investments and pre-orders. I wasn’t one of those people – when I fork through lunch money, I want something that’s approaching the game. Wreckfest 2 now offers nothing more than a messed up night, despite its horsepower, weight and hellish beauty.
Hopefully that will change over the next few years. The first proper update is two months away, bringing you two new cars and two new trucks. What’s the roadmap after that? I don’t know. I lost my glovebox in a slam three laps ago, but everything in it turned into brilliant dust.
This review is based on a review build provided by the publisher.