I think I’ve had a few ‘pole to flag’ victories in Wreckfest. They weren’t memorable, let’s move on.
Wreckfest is a quickfire banger racing game. There’s no practise, no qualifying, just racing with a random grid. The approach is a fairly simple one – get past the car in front of you. Or, better still, eliminate or severely impede the progress of the car in front of you, because if you don’t, it’ll do the same to you when, or immediately after, you pass it.
And there begins the fun. The game has wide appeal. Many online races will feature a mixture of the fast, the skilled, the experienced, the lucky and the downright violent. Particularly the latter.
But whereas that heady mix would be somewhat toxic in a true racing sim, it works beautifully in Wreckfest because, for once, the ‘real’ racer can play by the same rules as the rammers. And be rewarded for it, both in ‘experience points’ awarded by the game, and the sheer satisfaction of seeing that screaming juvenile launched into a tree.
Of course, such brutal behaviour comes at a cost to the health of your car. There’s a fair bit of variation of car type in the game from small and nippy to big, heavy and slow. Customisation and assembly adds more variables and cars can be configured to suit the style of the driver – light, fast and avoiding trouble or heavy, tough, slow and looking for it.
No matter how skilled the driver, or manoeuvrable the car, the sheer number of opponents online (maximum 24) mean sooner or later you’re going to get hit. Hard. There’s a risk and reward element here too – if you see a stationary car and can’t resist rear-ending it, then you too become a stationary car and, well, incoming.
When a car’s health expires, a fire erupts in its bonnet and it effectively becomes a bent metal cadaver – undriveable but still an obstacle, often on the racing line, capable of impeding and inflicting damage on those who remain in the race.
However, the quickfire nature of the races – usually around the 5 minute mark, and the ability to watch others “racing” while you sit it out, means you’re rarely bored and will soon be lining up at the start of the next race, with the name of the driver who took you out previously firmly etched on the backs of your eyelids and a desire for revenge pumping through your veins.
Much of the joy in this game comes from satisfying high speed impacts that propel opponents into spins, barrel rolls, cartwheels or embed them in some of the beautiful scenery, spraying what seems like hundreds of components of a tyre wall, fence, advertising hoarding into the air like confetti. By the second or third lap of a race, a once clear, tidy racetrack is strewn with the detritus of 24 marauding imbeciles who have long since forgotten about the tedium of braking.
A different kind of of enjoyment, however, can be drawn from observing other cars, the depths they’ll sink to in the name of racing but also the sheer ineptitude and idiocy on display.
The mix of abilities, ages, interests and intentions that the title naturally attracts means there’s no area of the racetrack that’s unpopulated. There are no quiet races here. I once had a close, competitive, clean race with another driver for 5 of 6 laps, with him just retaining the lead, until he saw a lapped car going slowly, a perfect opportunity for a “T-bone” that he accepted with relish. He ploughed on straight ahead at a left hand turn, successfully achieved his ‘takedown’ and I never saw him again. Priorities.
There are no also-rans in this game. Through the nature of the various ‘crossover’ and ‘double-back’ circuits, the player in last place can deliberately or inadvertently affect the outcome of the race. There’s no health and safety simulation or consideration, crossroads on a racetrack and oncoming traffic are fairly commonplace.
For this reason, those who take winning seriously may want to overlook this title or, at the very least, reassess their interpretation of winning. Getting spun out on the first corner after starting from pole position, avoiding too much damage and finding yourself at the back of the field will very likely mean you’re in for a very entertaining 5 minutes.
It’s not about the winning, it’s the taking parts that counts. Bonnets, windscreens, roll cages, wheels and bumpers to name but a few.
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