![]() You probably won't notice when you're deep into your race, but it's one of the weakest visual areas of the game, especially when compared to the good-looking skyboxes and beautiful car models. The tracks aren't ugly, but they're usually empty, with few roadside sights and motionless bystanders that occasionally clap with basic animations. While track layouts are usually good to great with few exceptions, the visual fidelity of those tracks is noticeably lacking. Wreckfest's focus is on the cars and the racing. Beyond the usual mayhem, the tracks rarely stand out. It's beautiful to watch as an army of metal vehicles tears through stacks of wheels or fences, spilling them all over the track. ![]() The rule of thumb is to stay on the track, as some fencing may suggest you're safe when you can break right through it when tested. In the beginning, it can be difficult to judge which roadside objects are solid and which ones are weak enough to be broken through by a speeding car. It can get out of hand in some races, where AI drivers continuously make poor decisions for their own sake, such as driving into oncoming traffic unprovoked or going for full contact instead of pulling ahead.Įvery race is quite a spectacle, especially since the tracks are slightly destructible - and not always in a good way. ![]() Your opponents are aggressive, and if they can't win, they'll do their best in making sure you can't, either. AI drivers also have three difficulty settings, with the middle one (Amateur) packing quite a punch. You may also change more granular settings depending on the road or if you favor short and fast acceleration over a higher top speed. Once you're used to it, the driving feels smooth, hitting the sweet spot between simulation and arcade gameplay.ĭepending on your skill, you may want to change the difficulty of the car handling, which is divided into three settings that give you complete, partial or no assists, such as ABS. ![]() It's very similar to the car handling that I remember from the first two FlatOut titles, and that's excellent. Cars have a heavy, weighty feel to them, so they can easily swerve uncontrollably. If you catch a break ahead of the pack, driving is still very fun, but much of the gameplay involves driving your car into other vehicles rather than pulling ahead. You'll eventually come to grips with that or upgrade your car to better deal with these circumstances, but the beginning can be frustrating. It's similar to being hit by an item in front of the finish line in a kart racer, except that a crash here can cripple your chances for the entire race. That brings its own sets of challenges and frustrations, as any race can turn into a lethal destruction derby. Cars that already look like they've seen better days go toe to toe until someone wins or another one is reduced to rubble and a bunch of wheels. At its heart, Wreckfest is a destruction derby game. In a pack of 24 racers, every inch of track is a fierce fight for space and damage. That basically means every race is a fight for your life, and that'll probably be the hardest lesson that Wreckfest teaches you. The health bar is still present as an indicator, but if you're seeking some realism, heavy crashes could end up sidelining vehicles. While the game goes easy on us by default - including a health bar to showcase how far we are from wreckage - there is an option to activate "realistic damage" at any time. Those are minor gripes, since the damage system is satisfyingly implemented and works great 90% of the time. You'll see plenty of crashes and deformations where cars are damaged in weird ways, so it seems less authentic. It's a gorgeous engine that can be both realistic and unrealistic. You'll see your car slowly deteriorate over the course of a single race due to heavy-duty contact with walls and other participants. Wreckfest has an incredibly detailed and a mostly realistic damage model, so every scratch and impact is somewhat realistically represented in the game. That is a lot of cars in a limited amount of space, so races aren't just about who is the fastest but also who's the toughest. If we look at the actual gameplay, every offline race involves a whopping 24 cars that pour down the race track at the same time. If you're looking for a sleek simulation of professional racing or anything of the like, this derby racing spectacle will probably frustrate you.Īt its core, Wreckfest is simply a racing title, so we choose a car, we go around a track, and we try to be the first to cross the finish line. If you're looking for an engaging racing title that checks every box, you might not get past Wreckfest's basic presentation. The long answer is that if you're longing for a title that is serious about physics and damage models, Wreckfest is your game.
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