Wreckfest is the spiritual sequel to one of my all-time favorite racing games - Flatout / Flatout 2. It's down and dirty, smash-em-up awesomeness that has a serious racing engine beneath the hood. Wreckfest is available now on PC, Xbox One. and Playstation 4 and it is the perfect game for anyone who loves creating carnage on the race track.
I love racing in real life, there's a sort of beauty when engineering prowess, skill, and just plain balls to the wall audacity come together. Unfortunately, all too often racing games are overly polished featuring fancy cars and overly realistic physics that frankly make the cars hard to drive. I guess that's ok since people seem to like Grand Turismo and Forza. This is not that kind of game and that's why I love it so much! It's easy to drive, fun to smash into other cars as well as various environmental objects - signs, fences, stacks of tires etc. and send them flying with a trail of carnage stretching behind you.
Wreckfest is about being able to do those things you don't dare explore on the road, much less a real-life track. In this game, if a guy cuts you off ... ram his ass!
You'll probably even get some points (though you may also damage your own car). On the other hand, depending on the game mode, that is exactly the goal - wreck as many opponents as possible while being the last man standing.
It's an aggressive and audacious game that is simply fun to play no matter what vehicle you are driving, from lawnmowers to outhouses, couches, school buses, RVs, big rigs ... even harvesters. Oh, and of course there's a bunch of regular cars too but you're not going to find Lamborghinis and Ferraris here. This is the realm of late-model hot rods and beaters with numbers and logos spray-painted on the sides of the car minutes before the race.
While Wreckless has a career mode that puts you through several different styles of racing, ability to enhance your car with upgrades, buy new cars etc. I found multiplayer and the ability to create special races the most fun. Quite frankly, I don't always have 5 or more consecutive hours to sink into a game. I really love games where I can jump in, have fun for 15-30 minutes and then get back to work again. That's exactly what Wreckless delivers.
One of the aspects of this game that is overshadowed by the sheer insanity of the arcade-style carnage is that the physics are pretty good in the game. For instance, the first race I did I thought, "damn this sucks!" I kept sliding around and if I accelerated too fast I didn't seem to go anywhere.
The next game I played though went from a dirt track to pavement and suddenly I realized that it was the physics reacting to my aggressive steering and acceleration - not the game being bad. This was an unexpectedly cool feature that you probably wouldn't expect from an otherwise arcade-style racing game.
Don't worry though, everything is adjustable so if you can adjust it to your style of play.
Wreckfest is one of the best racing games that I've played in a long while. It combines pretty much everything you'd want into an awesome package and is just fun without taking itself too serious. It has great graphics, music, satisfying sound effects, and a wide variety of tracks and vehicles. The only way they could make this even better would be is if they added some pickup trucks or maybe an old Bronco! Who knows, maybe they do and I just haven't unlocked it yet ...
Wreckfest is available now for PC, Xbox One, and Playstation 4. You can buy Wreckfest on Steam or at your favorite retailer.
